Staying Hydrated- How Important Is It For Women?

Do you keep track of your water intake throughout the day?

We might lose water in different ways. The thing is, in our busy lives, we rarely pay attention to the water we’re losing through simple daily activities.

Staying hydrated is essential for us to remain healthy and functional, but what if we’re only mildly dehydrated? Does that have severe effects on our mental and physical health as well?
If so, what are they?

This is what some scientists tried to figure out by doing 3 experiments.

They asked a group of 25 females to do moderate exercises in a somewhat warm environment.

They exercised for 40 minutes and rested for 20.

In the first experiment, they gave participants some water after the activities to replace the water they had lost.

In the second one, they didn’t give the participants any water.

In the last experiment, they gave participants pills that made them lose even more water.

Then they tested cognitive performance, mood, language-based reasoning, memory, learning, and other factors to see the impact of each experiment.

Then they asked the participants some questions, like How hard were the tests for you? Or Did you have a headache?

The participants didn’t know which experiment was which, so it couldn’t affect their opinions.

In the first experiment, there was almost no water loss, because the lost amount of water was replaced.

For the 2nd and 3rd experiments where the lost water wasn’t replaced, almost 1% weight was lost.

This mild dehydration didn’t affect cognitive performance.

However, it did affect mood significantly:

Mild dehydration also worsened concentration and caused more severe headaches.

Apart from that, the more dehydrated the women were, the more difficult they found it to accomplish tasks.

At least for women, it is very important to stay hydrated, to make sure we’re at the top of our game during the day.

It may seem too small a detail, but when we’re hydrated, we’re healthier, in a better mood, and more motivated to do daily activities- which makes us move faster towards our goals and dreams.