We are about 72% water. % It circulates as blood around all your body – most of your blood is water. And the water is also in ‘lymph’ which travels around your body through your lymphatic system.
Blood and lymph are the main ways the body gets food and oxygen to your cells and the way wastes get taken away – this is a very important job for water!! Blood and lymph also have special cells in them which fight infections – they are part of your ‘immune system’.
Water carries digestive enzymes around your digestive system, so that your food can be broken up into all the bits your body needs.
All the stuff the body doesn’t need has to get out of the body somehow.
- Some of it goes from the blood to the kidneys, which make urine - which is mostly water.
- Some stays in your gut and comes out as faeces - which is also mostly water!
- Some comes out in the air you breathe (if you breathe onto a really cold mirror you will see little drops of water on the glass – this is water from your breath).
- Water comes out through the tiny holes in your skin called pores. This water we call perspiration or sweat and it helps to cool our bodies.
- Saliva, or spit as we usually call it, is mostly water. When our mouth feels dry we know we really need more water URGENTLY!
- Mucus is also mostly water. That’s the stuff that you see too much of when you’ve got a runny nose! But mucus is very important, as it keeps eyes, ears, noses, throats and all your inside bits smooth and slippery so that everything can run around all your body systems without getting stuck!
Water is in the fluids that keep your joints moving smoothly [like knees and elbows] so that your bones don’t creak and groan like a rusty swing.
You also use water to keep your body temperature even, at about 37ºC.
Now that you can see how important water is, you can understand why your body needs so much of it. Make sure you drink an alkaline mineral water so that your body receives all the nutritional benefits it needs!
Filed under: Water & Health Tagged: | body, health, living water, water, water filter
That’s a great explanation of water’s abilities. Recently my husband passed out and was taken to the emergency room where they found he had apparently nothing in particular wrong with him.
However, the analysis of his blood indicated that he was in fact dehydrated. Whilst we weren’t aware of any particular health problems – he plays active sport – when we started a regime of drinking a glass of water several times a day, we realised that he had a much better appearance in his skin colour.
Now we all drink water with every meal.
Hi Beryl, thanks for your comment. Water is absolutely the foundation to healthy living.
It is the general consensus amongst health practitioners that we should drink 1 litre of water for every 25kgs of body weight. That’s just to replace the water we lose each day.
You should drink more if exercising, and more again if you drink a lot of coffee, softdrink or alcohol, which are all dehydating to the body.
The way to simply tell if you are drinking enough water each day, is that your urine (not the first of the day, but thereafter) should be almost clear.
And make sure you drink about a quarter of your daily water requirement first thing in the morning, then just keep regularly sipping water throughout the day.
Enjoy!