Most people are aware of the advice that we should all try to drink 8 glasses of water a day, which equates to roughly two liters. It is also well known that water is crucial to health and that we can survive without food much longer than we can without water. However, not many people know exactly what would happen to our bodies if we stopped drinking water altogether.
The body is made up of 65% water and we lose 1.5 liters of water everyday which needs to be replaced. Ideally this should be replaced with water, but any drink will do and this includes tea, coffee, juices and sodas. Within the first few hours after we have last had anything to drink we start to see the first effects of dehydration such as feeling very thirsty and our mouths becoming dry. The body senses that it has not received the fluids that it needs and stops producing saliva in order to retain the fluid that it has and this is why we get a dry mouth.
You may have experienced this type of dehydration before if you haven't been able to have a drink for a few hours. You may have also noticed that in this situation your urine becomes stronger and the odor is stronger. If you were to continue to go without a drink then eventually you would stop being able to pass urine at all as another measure by your body to conserve fluid. This would start to occur within a few days and there are other changes that you would notice around this time.
You would begin to feel nauseous and may also have trouble swallowing. If you still feel able to eat by this stage then this will be made very difficult. However, by this point you would have probably already started to become delirious. You may also be experiencing muscle spasms but again this is something that you may not even notice. Your skin may also begin to turn blue because the blood will stop flowing to your skin. While this may appear as you are cold in fact the opposite is true. Your core body temperature will rise because your body will not do what it needs to cool down.
After three to five days all of your major organs including your brain would begin to shut down. When it gets to this stage the damage that has been done to the body is very difficult to reverse and it will not take long before death comes.
There are many benefits that drinking water has including helping our normal bodily functions work as they should. Drinking two liters of water a day can also help you to lose weight and will improve the appearance of your skin, hair and nails. It also provides a boost to your immune system. However, it may be that the most important reason for making sure you drink enough water is that you don't start to experience any of the symptoms that have been discussed here.
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