Not all fluids keep you hydrated

The importance of proper hydration

The health benefits of water are undeniable. Every cell in your body needs water to function. Cells need substantial hydration levels to function at their best. Your body uses water to detoxify itself. Dehydration is a major cause of a variety of symptoms like headaches, fatigue, poor sleep quality, indigestion and constipation.

Dehydration may lead to weight gain

Dehydration can lead to weight gain. This happens because fat metabolism occurs within the liver. When the liver does not have enough water to clean itself and the rest of the body, it will struggle to perform some of its most important tasks. This is clearly demonstrated by the way that repeated excessive alcohol consumption will lead to cirrhosis (liver damage). Healthy livers are better at metabolizing fat into usable energy. This is why drinking more water is one of my top methods to reduce body fat.

Fatty liver disease

A fatty liver, or hepatic steatosis, is a disease where too much fat has accumulated in the liver. Diet and exercise plays a key role in preventing the development of fatty liver disease. Water does too because it helps the liver to keep itself clean. Water is your liver's best friend.

Drinking the right liquids is essential for optimum health: Many popular drinks won't help to keep you hydrated 

Drinks with too much sugar won't hydrate you

The best way to re-hydrate is to consume enough liquids. The type of liquid that you drink will determine whether or not it will hydrate you. Sodas that are high in sugar, for example, will have a positive effect on hydration. These drinks can actually dehydrate you even more. The reason for this is because your body will need more water to dilute all of that sugar.

It would take 69 liters of water to dilute 500 ml of soda into normal blood glucose levels

Your body has around 5 liters of blood at any given time. Less than a teaspoon (4 grams) of sugar should be in that blood. Compare that to 11 grams of sugar per 100 grams in the average soda. This means that the average soda has 137.5 times more sugar than what is normally found in your blood per milliliter. By that math, it would take 69 liters of water to dilute the sugar content of 500 milliliters of soda to natural blood glucose levels. Of course, most of the sugar isn't diluted. It is quickly stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver or converted to fat to correct the blood-sugar balance. For this reason, drinks that are high in sugar do not hydrate the body very well.

Drinks that are high in unhealthy ingredients like colorants and artificial flavors also have a dehydrating effect on your body

Think about this: Your pee is a lot lighter than the unhealthy drinks that you consume with darker colors. That means that more water is needed to wash away all of these nasty colorants. More water is also needed to cleanse the body from the unhealthy flavorings that aren't reflected in a dink's color. Since more water is redirected to the detoxification process to clear out all of these negative ingredients, less of it is used to replenish the body's hydration stores.

For the above reasons, making sure that your hydration methods contain less harmful ingredients will increase your body's ability to use that water.

Bonus water and hydration tips

It is possible to drink too much water

Your body loses a lot of water through sweat, detoxification, breathing (water vapor is released every time you exhale) and the metabolizing of many chemical and hormonal processes in the body. This is why you should make sure that you give your body enough water to do everything without hindrance. It is also possible, though, to be drinking too much water. This could dilute your blood so much that its nutrient content drops. Too much water can also wash away precious nutrients. Learn more about the possibility of drinking too much water here. 

Dehydration reduces physical performance

Dehydration could be the primary cause of why you might feel cold or sick after exercise (click the links to see more possible causes).

Water is not the only good thing that you lose through sweat

Sweating is beneficial because it helps the body to get rid of toxins and replenish skin health. You need to replenish the good things that sweat causes your body to lose, such as water. Water is not the only thing you lose through sweat. You also lose precious electrolytes and minerals - which also need to be replaced.

Spice up your hydration without consuming unhealthy drinks

Try eating more healthy foods that are naturally hydrating like lettuce and spinach. Add lemon to your water for more health benefits or exchange unhealthy drinks for healthier alternatives like green tea.

You might not think that a single can of soda or an alcoholic beverage will impact your health that much, but these habits become addictive very quickly. These choices might feel like one drop in the pond, until we realize that the entire pond is made up of little drops. Stay Strong!

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Use exercise to improve your sleeping habits

Last week I covered the fact that our genes determine when we feel sleepy and when we are most awake. At the end of the article, I mentioned that I will be doing an experiment to see whether you can use exercise to change your natural sleeping cycle. The answer is probably not that shocking to those who know how beneficial it is: Exercise is a great way to re-configure your sleeping routine! Here's how:

How exercise can improve your sleeping routine

The more I cover different health and lifestyle topics, the more I learn about how exercise seems to solve almost everything. Read on to discover how you can change your sleep patterns with the power of exercise.

1. Exercise increases sleep need

There are two major problems with a sleeping pattern that does not match your lifestyle. One of them is the fact that your body will want to sleep when you need to be awake. The other one is that it can be hard for you to fall asleep when you need to (if you struggle to fall asleep, learn how to fall asleep faster here). By increasing sleep need, or sleep pressure, you improve your chances of falling asleep at the right time and getting a higher quality sleep.

Exercise will help you to fall asleep faster because it gives the body something that it needs to physically recover from. It also helps to deplete energy stores so that you don't have a bundle of energy when it is time to calm down and prepare for sleep. Thirdly, exercise boosts your brain's resilience to stress or anxiety. Regular exercise will reduce the negative effects of cortisol - the stress hormone. Elevated cortisol levels at night time will lead to wakefulness and worrying about everything under the sun. Lastly, hormones that are needed for a good night's sleep are stimulated as a direct result of exercise. These hormones include human growth hormone. 

Learn about how strength training affects your hormones.

Regular exercise will therefore improve your ability to sleep when you need to. It will also help the muscles in your body to be more relaxed when you aren't exercising. I think of regular exercise as giving my body a reason to sleep.

2. Exercise improves sleep quality

If part of the problem is the fact that you can't sleep when you need to, sleep quality will have a major effect on your sleeping habits. If you don't get enough high quality sleep at the right time, you will spend the rest of the following day trying to stay awake. For the same reasons listed above, exercise improves sleep quality and will therefore improve your energy levels the following day. Exercise improves sleep quality by increasing sleep need.

3. Exercising at certain times of the day will train your body to have more energy when you need it

Remember that there are two major components to correcting your sleeping habits. One of them is being able to sleep (and have high quality sleep) when you need to. The second one is being awake and energetic when you need to be. By exercising at the times when you need to have the most energy, you train your body to produce and use more energy during these times. If you exercise at the same time every day, your body will adapt by increasing its energy levels at those times. You can do this by exercising at your desired 'peak energy' times for two weeks in a row. You will notice that after the second week you don't feel that tired anymore.

I exercised in the morning to increase my energy levels

Personally, the first half of the day was the time where I had the least amount of energy. This is because I am a night owl by nature and it takes me longer to wake up than most people. Even though I repeatedly did the same tasks as everybody else, my energy levels stayed low in the mornings because I am naturally inclined to feel more awake at night. 

My experiment involved me doing an exercise as soon as I woke up. I would do push-ups, squats or planks before my eyes were fully opened. Granted, I didn't do half as much as I would if I did these exercises at a different time of the day (and it took a lot more motivation than usual to get them done in the first place), but the increased blood flow and oxygen woke me right up within a few seconds. 

The energy-boosting effects were immediate. After a few days, I now have more natural energy in the mornings than I ever had. I wish I could say that I also need less motivation to exercise first thing in the morning after a week, but I haven't got there just yet.

How to implement exercise during your peak times

My experiment was relatively easy for me. This is because mornings were my biggest issue and it is not too difficult to exercise in the morning when you are still in your room. If you have the biggest energy drop in the middle of the day, it might be more difficult. It is not so easy to drop and do 20 push-ups in the office in front of everybody. You can't exactly do that either if you're driving down the freeway. Thankfully, there are sneaky ways to boost your energy levels without looking like a chop.

How to sneak in exercise when they aren't so convenient 

I've got you covered. Try out a few of these ideas to see what works best for you:

If you need to boost your energy levels while at the office:

• Get up from your desk and take a brisk walk. This will fire up the mitochondria in your cells and get them turning calories into energy.
• Hit the gym during your lunch break.
• Drink more water and let nature remind you to get up every half an hour. Water on its own is a great energy booster, since every cell in your body needs it to function optimally. Add a squeeze of lemon juice to get some Vitamin C while you're at it.
• Exercise in the bathroom
• Choose to get up and speak to a co-worker or manager instead of simply sending an email
• Use the rest of your lunch break to walk around and listen to music

If you need to boost your energy levels while driving

What if there were exercises that you can do to correct bad posture from sitting in a car seat for too long? Raffi TopCareChiro has you covered! Check out this great way to improve your posture while driving and loosen up stiff muscles whenever you hit a traffic light:

And if you want to take it up a notch, check out this calorie burning, muscle strengthening driving workout from Ando Mierzwa:

Exercise has so many health benefits. You can reap all of these benefits while using exercise to sleep better at night and explode with energy during the day. Stay Strong!

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Sleeping habits are genetic: Individuals are pre-disposed to sleep at different times

You might struggle to fall sleep or stay awake at the same time as everybody else. It is not your fault, according to science. Discover how your body follows a sleeping clock that you can't control.

You are not alone - I also struggle to sleep at the right times

I have constantly fought to keep the same sleeping schedule as everybody else. I refer to myself as a night owl. My body and my mind have plenty of energy at night and I can get so much done with a few extra hours of work after everybody else has gone to bed. Unfortunately, my body drags throughout the first half of the day as a result. I used to chalk this up to a bad sleeping schedule, but research suggests otherwise.

We all have different chronotypes

I watched a TEDx Talk by Dr. Michael Breus, a sleep doctor who addresses the fact that different people tend to fall asleep and awake up at different times. We typically refer to people who struggle to fall asleep at night, yet struggle to be awake during the day, as night owls. We refer to people who wake up super early with bouts of energy, but can't stay awake too long past their bed time, as early birds.

A person's chronotype determines which category they fall under in terms of their sleeping patterns. Dr. Michael Breus revolutionized the way that we look at chronotypes by categorizing them into 4 categories instead of the typical 2. He argues that instead of the usual 'night owl' or 'early bird' chronotypes, there are actually 4 different chronotypes. He names them 'lions', 'bears', 'dolphins', and 'wolves'.

The difference between lions, bears, dolphins and wolves 

Dr. Michael Breus explains that lions are the type of people who wake up super early and have most of their energy at the beginning of the day. They also tire quickly and struggle to stay awake soon after night fall. Bears make up most of the population. They wake up soon after sunrise and go to bed after night fall. Society has modeled itself after the bear's sleeping schedule. Dolphins struggle to have a good night's sleep in general and are commonly self-confessed insomniacs. They crave long bouts of sleep but usually can't sleep for too long before they wake up. In their cases, this often leads to feelings of anxiety or depression. Wolves refer to people who feel the most awake during the second half of the day and late into the night. They often struggle to stay awake before 12 pm.

This chronotype is hardwired into our DNA

A very interesting aspect of Dr. Breus' presentation was the fact that our preferred sleeping patterns are more than just a culmination of our lifestyle choices: Genetic tests can determine a person's chronotype. This means that when we feel sleepy and when we feel awake is hardwired into us on a genetic level.

He explains that the circadian rhythm and time-sensitive hormone secretions govern our energy levels and the way that we operate. You can watch his presentation here:

Adjusting your lifestyle to match your chronotype

Adjusting your lifestyle to correspond with your sleeping preferences, instead of the other way around, has shown remarkable health and productivity benefits for Dr. Breus' patients.

The Genetic connection to sleep is not a new idea

You might wonder if Dr. Breus was the only one to explain how sleep patterns are encoded into our genes. There is a lot of scientific evidence that shows that how we sleep (and how much sleep we need) is determined by genetic factors. Live Science covers a study that found that two parts of our DNA reveal how much sleep we need on an individual basis. You can read the original study here, which directly states that sleep patterns are a hereditary trait. You can find more scientific evidence on the connection between genetics and sleep here.

Can you change your chronotype?

Tuck says that you can't - or at least not deliberately. Our chronotypes change naturally as we progress through life. Young children are generally natural early morning rises. This reverses as they progress into teenage years. Teenagers tend to be more awake during later hours and require more sleep in the later morning hours. Older people tend to rise up earlier and slumber sooner.

Adam Conover from 'Adam Ruins Everything' comically covers how high-school students are hardwired to sleep later in the day. You can check out the video here:

Do lifestyle factors affect sleep?

Yes they do. The time between your last meal of the day and when you sleep will affect sleep quality. Midnight snacking is another factor that negatively affects sleep. One of the benefits of regular exercises is its ability to increase sleep quality, improve energy production and enhance mental and physical recovery. I have also covered how sleeping too much can be just as bad for you as sleeping too little. This list of ways to coax your body into sleep can also be effective in helping you to get a good night's rest.

Can you train your body to wake up and sleep at specific time of the day?

I will be conducting my own experiment to see whether I can change when my body feels energized and when it wants to sleep. I will try to do this by exercising and practicing relation methods at certain times of the day to signal when my body should sleep. The results (along with conclusions and actionable advice) will be posted on this site in a week's time. Wish me luck!

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