YOUR MENTAL WELLBEING AND WATER

THE POWER OF WATER ON OUR MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH

While the human brain is made up of about 75 percent water, the first way that dehydration affects the brain and alters how we think and feel is by slowing circulation. This lowers blood flow, which means less oxygen travelling to all parts of the body, including the brain.
Why mild dehydration can so quickly affect mood is a subject still being studied. The most common theory is that it’s one of the human body’s many warning systems that something is not as it should be and should be dealt with.

As dehydration worsens, cognitive function is further impaired, leading to delirium. Severe dehydration can cause unconsciousness and even coma, finally leading to death.

WHAT IS DEHYDRATION?

Dehydration occurs when more water is being lost by your body than is being put in. In urine and sweat, and through respiration, we’re constantly using and losing water. Even while we sleep water passes out of our system with every breath we exhale.

While mild dehydration is loss of 1.5 percent of a body’s normal water volume, a level of hydration just one percent below optimal can affect mood, make it more difficult to concentrate, and produce a headache.

Our hearts and our brains consist of more water than the rest of our body. It’s pretty important stuff if we want to function at our best, physically and mentally.

HOW DO WE KNOW HOW MUCH WATER IS ENOUGH?

There’s no officially set amount of water that is best daily. Climate, level of activity, general health and age are important factors.
We typically think of the first sign of dehydration as thirst. Which is true in a way, but by the time you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated enough for your mood and function to be affected.

A general rule of thumb is eight to ten eight-ounce glasses of water, or approximately two litres, per day. More on hot days, and increased in measure with greater physical activity.

IS THERE AN EASIER STEP TO TAKE TOWARD MENTAL HEALTH?

Dehydration very quickly affects how we feel and think.
Drinking water regularly throughout the day is an easy, effective step to take in our efforts to be as mentally healthy as possible.
Start with a glass of water first thing in the morning. Drink two or three glasses between meals.

Even at low levels, dehydration affects the way we think. As it was said, taking antidepressants or mood stabilizers isn’t about feeling happy, it’s about thinking clearly. Drinking enough water keeps our brain from having to struggle against the effects of dehydration, allowing us to think more clearly than if we let ourselves get dehydrated.

Staying hydrated by drinking enough water is one aspect of good physical, emotional, and mental health. We’re not one-dimensional and our approach to mental health shouldn’t be either.

HYDROTHERAPY & BALNEOTHERAPY 

Stress is an important contributing factor to an individual's quality of life, and high levels of stress, if not managed, can negatively affect an individual's emotions, health, and implicit well-being. Stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, accidents, cancer, liver disease, lung ailments, and suicide. It is also associated with an individual's absenteeism from work, increased medical expenses, loss of productivity, insomnia, fatigue, cognitive impairment, depression, and other mental or neurological illnesses, hypertension, arthritis, ulcers, asthma, migraines, immune system disturbances, skin diseases, aggression and relational conflict, and substance abuse and increases the negative effects of aging.

A scientific research was conducted to investigate the influence of high-salinity geothermal mineral water on stress and fatigue, and below are the main conclusions:

1. Geothermal water baths reduce stress, fatigue, and pain, improve mood, stress management and cognitive functions, and have a positive effect on the cardiopulmonary system.

2. Balneotherapy using geothermal water proved to be more efficient for relieving stress and pain than music therapy was, whereas, for all stress- and fatigue-related conditions, it was more efficient than no therapy.

3. Balneotherapy could be an effective measure for stress prevention and health restoration as an integral part of a multimodal work-related stress-reducing program.

Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4804069/

https://www.aifc.com.au/how-important-is-water-hydration-to-mental-health/