Why you don't need 8 glasses of water a day

One reason to make a bit of an effort to drink plenty of water: kidney stones. You don’t want to get kidney stones. Ask anyone who has ever had to pass one.

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Kidney stones are Nature’s way of ensuring that males understand the pain of childbirth. Not my line, I just recall reading it somewhere. Wish I could recall who wrote it.

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It very much depends on what going on in your life - weather, sports, etc. Some of the editors and writers who write and fact-check all these kinds of articles never seem to think anyone does anything but work at a keyboard in an air-conditionned office. It’s possible to require much, much more than 2.5l/day on top of what you get from food.

When I used to practice judo, it was typical to sweat 2.5-3.5 kilos in two hours of class. More so if the temperature was hovering around 30decC.

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More time to spend on BoingBoing. It’s called a captive audience! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It takes a few weeks, but then your body acclimates… :mask: …something about self cleansing and microbiome.

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I always get “biome” and “biohazard” confused in situations like this.

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I don’t know why people are so annoyed by this advice. As far as wellness advice goes, “drink more water” is fairly harmless. Unless you try to chug the entire 2L of water at once, it’s probably not going to hurt you to drink 8 glasses of water a day.

I agree that drinking that much isn’t usually necessary, but there is far more harmful false advice out there.

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Something tells me none of the people involved in the making of this video are athletes. The coaches of the world aren’t telling people to hydrate or die, they’re telling them to hydrate or have diminished endurance. And by the time you’re thirsty you already do.

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:slow clap:

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As with anything else, up to a point. I remember reading about a woman who took the “drink more water” thing too far. I can’t remember how much she drank per day (couple gallons maybe?), but it did end up killing her.

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Jesus H. Christ. I once drank a gallon of water in one sitting on a dare (and I have a bladder of the Gods) and I can still remember how sloshy I felt afterward.

I can’t imagine drinking more than that… on a regular basis.

I specifically remember this story making the rounds a few years ago: Ten Fired After Radio Contest Tragedy - CBS News

In other news, “water intoxication” is a thing:

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Sure, you can drink too much water and it can kill you. But in the vast majority of cases, eight glasses (about 2L) per day isn’t going to cause any problems except one or two extra trips to the john.

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Ironically, it’s when I’m sitting in an air-conditioned office that I remember to drink water, because I keep a bottle on my desk (in addition to the tea I drink in the morning). When I’m at home (admittedly it’s also air-conditioned and I’m still mostly sitting at a keyboard :no_mouth:) I often forget about the drinking fluids thing . . . until it gets to be afternoon and I feel a headache coming on. D’oh. Maybe I don’t get thirsty the way I should.

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Spoken like a water-fat offworlder.

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You need to use common sense and avoid dehydrating in dehydrating situations. I’m pretty sensitive to dehydration, constipation can bring on an attack of diverticulitis. Drinking diuretics like caffeine and alcohol (non-negotiable), and hot, humid weather like we have here in NJ today are REALLY hard on me, gotta remember to drink often. I also keep a sports bottle of water on the bedtable. My wife says if she did that she’d be up 6 times a night.

While it’s cheap now I’ve been bingeing on watermelon. I can eat 1/4 of a small seedless melon at a sitting.

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The wisdom that’s always been imparted on me is “if you’re feeling thirsty, you’re already dehydrated”.

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perhaps not always, but certainly in situations where you are being physically taxed in the heat, etc.

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I use this color chart to determine how hydrated I am (or should be.)

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I knew a guy who went to hospital. They accidently connected his feeding tube to his colostomy bag. Now he’s completely self-sufficient! :grin:

“The soldier in white was encased from head to toe in plaster and gauze. He had two useless legs and two useless arms. He had been smuggled into the ward during the night, and the men had no idea he was among them until they awoke in the morning and saw the two strange legs hoisted from the hips, the two strange arms anchored up perpendicularly, all four limbs pinioned strangely in air by lead weights suspended darkly above him that never moved. Sewn into the bandages over the insides of both elbows were zippered lips through which he was fed clear fluid from a clear jar. A silent zinc pipe rose from the cement on his groin and was coupled to a slim rubber hose that carried waste from his kidneys and dripped it efficiently into a clear, stoppered jar on the floor. When the jar on the floor was full, the jar feeding his elbow was empty, and the two were simply switched quickly so that the stuff could drip back into him.”

–Joseph Heller, Catch-22

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