Tips to Drink More Water For a Healthy Life

We are told to take 8 glasses of water everyday but for some of us in spite of the many benefits of water, we find it very difficult to achieve this. 

It is hard to drink that much water if we are led by our natural habits, we therefore need to put some effort in this healthy lifestyle activity.

Here are ways to help you increase your water intake.

1. Always carry a bottle with you

Look for a bottle, preferably a recyclable one. A fancy one, a common one, one in your favorite color, a bottle you will enjoy carrying around. As you leave your house, leave with your bottle, and let it be your second skin, you cannot leave it behind. When you carry water everywhere with you in that bottle you will not forget to sip it throughout the day. Carrying a bottle will also help you track your intake levels.

2. Incorporate drinking to the regular tasks in your schedule.

There are those tasks in our schedules that we carry out without being told to. Going to the toilet, bathing, eating and going to bed, you can include drinking water to the to-do-list after or before carrying out these activities. For instance, you can make sure you always have a glass after visiting the toilet or after your meals. This way drinking water won’t become that annoying task you have to do but rather a normalcy.

3. Use natural water flavors.

I also struggle with drinking water and with time I found this particular tactic to be helpful. Squeeze lemons or oranges, for those who love anything citric, into your drink. For those with a sweet tooth, go for sugar or glucose. Once you do this, the flat taste of water will now be something you will enjoy taking.

4. Go for flavored water

You can take carbonated water or flavored one. If you’re someone who enjoys fizzy drinks, carbonated is your go to drink, you kill two birds with one stone, and you enjoy a bottle of fizzy goodness and also increase your intake levels. For flavored water lovers, pick the flavor of your most favorite fruit.

5. Eat your water

When all the above fails, don’t worry, you don’t have to necessarily down that tasteless fluid. You can always “eat your water’. Some vegetables and fruits have very high water content and eating them is as good as drinking a glass. For fruits, there are melons, grapes, watermelons, strawberries, cherries and also pineapples. For vegetables, there are zucchinis, cucumbers, spinach, tomatoes, lettuce, and cauliflower among others. So as you go to the grocery store, be sure to grab yourself these water filled friends of ours.

6. Focus on the benefits

Last and most important, you need to think about the benefits that drinking enough water has on your body. You need to focus on the advantages. It is only by doing this that you will put in the effort needed. You might find that doing the five tasks above is hard, but a change of mentality will change how you look at things. Think about how many diseases you are preventing by drinking enough, think about the number of years you are adding to your life, think about how good you will feel, think about the effect it will have on your skin and overall look. Don’t focus on the efforts needed, focus on the gains.

7. Bonus Tip

It is important to start small and grow into the habits. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Secondly be patient. Don’t expect to see the benefits right away. You might end put stressing yourself and harm your health.

By: Elizabeth Maingi and David Ndirangu