Manassas Park Community Matters Blog Post - Water: Nature’s Candy – By Jay Swisher

Nothing quenches your thirst like an ice cold glass of water and there’s no better time than the middle of August to truly enjoy water’s abundance of benefits. It’s important to make water a staple in your daily nutritional plan. Adequate water consumption is especially critical during the summer months as we are much more likely to become dehydrated working or playing outside. Water is readily found in every cell, tissue, and organ in the body and helps to keep us hydrated, but that’s not the only significant benefit that water provides.

Here are a few additional functions and benefits that water can provide:

1. Water has zero calories. Substitute water in place of soft drinks, sugary fruit juices, teas, or high calorie specialty coffees. This will cut down significantly on empty calories; not to mention help you to avoid the sugars and artificial sweeteners that are common in these high calorie beverages.
2. Drinking water helps maintain the proper balance of fluids in our body. Our bodies are composed of about 60% water! This water facilitates functions like transporting nutrients, digestion, circulation and maintaining body temperature.
3. Drinking water aids in proper bowel function. When you don’t get enough water your colon pulls water from your stool to keep hydrated, often resulting in constipation.
4. Water can help to energize your muscles. When the cells in your muscles don’t have enough water they don’t perform as well as they would if hydrated. This is where muscle fatigue comes into play, which is why it’s very important to drink water while exercising or performing physical activities. It’s recommended that we drink around 17 ounces of water about 2 hours prior to working out, and continue to drink during our work out.
5. Water is good for your skin. Dehydration can cause your skin to look creased and dry. Your skin actually contains ample amounts of water that’s used as a barrier to prevent you from losing excess amounts of water.
6. Water is very helpful for your kidneys. Your kidneys help to eliminate toxins in the body and increasing your water consumption positively aids in this process.  Your risk of kidney stones increases when your water consumption drops too low.
7. Drinking water can help to prevent headaches and migraines.  Headaches are often a result of dehydration so water consumption will help to combat this.
8. Drinking water helps your brain. Your brain requires plenty of oxygen to function at a high level. When you drink a lot of water you are helping oxygen travel to the brain, in turn helping it function at a higher level.  Water additionally helps nerves function properly so they can relay messages to the brain.

With the bevy of benefits that come with drinking water it’s a no brainier to make it a consistent part of your daily routine.   In addition to the obvious source, water consumption can be achieved through the consumption of many fruits and vegetables.  This is a great way to supplement your water intake while simultaneously increasing your absorption of important vitamins and minerals.  Remember, don’t let yourself get thirsty and stay hydrated.

Jay

Jay Swisher is the Operations Manager of the Department of Parks and Recreation. He can be reached at 703.335.8872 or via email at j.swisher@manassasparkva.gov

Community Matters is a blog created by the City of Manassas Park Department of Parks and Recreation. The blog features program updates, announcements of new services, special event notices, or information of general interest.

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