Six ways to stay hydrated during summer

We don't usually tend to take the need to drink enough water too seriously daily. After all, we always have drinking water available - if you get thirsty, you drink, if not, no, right...?

Well, not really.

Or scientists, at least, would disagree with you. Proper hydration helps intestinal transit, keeps body temperature stable, prevents kidney stones, and, in general, keeps your health and mood in the right parameters. Advertisements on TV with "drink a minimum of 2 L of water per day" seem to be in the public interest after all, don't they?

But summer is a slightly more difficult season to stay hydrated. I don't think we need to explain too much why (hint: it's about sweating water ;)). Even if we inform ourselves and realize the need to drink enough water, it is often difficult to simply remember.

We come to your aid with the following few methods to help you consume enough water:

As I said, we need to drink water more often than we get thirsty. But it's not like we don't have other things to do than think all day about hydration and proper amounts of water.

The easiest way is to use a reminder on your phone every hour to remind yourself to drink. You can set your phone's alarm yourself, or use one of the many apps designed specifically to help you stay hydrated.

Not only do they let you know periodically, but they can help you keep a diary of your daily water intake and guide you on how much and when to drink. It may seem a little strange at first to pay so much attention to such a trivial thing with your phone buzzing a bunch of times a day. After a week, however, you will get used to it, even ending up not needing the app and maintaining this healthy habit effortlessly.

It makes sense to try to make hydration responsibility as enjoyable as possible. In addition to choosing a quality water, good to taste, either flat or mineral, the next step is to try to consume as many fruits and vegetables as possible that contain a large amount of water in them.

Fortunately, summer is the season when the juiciest fruits ripen. A watermelon or yellow with its sweet taste is everything you could want on a hot day. Peaches, nectarines, oranges, and pears are just a few examples of fruits that you should always have with you.

Salads are also a good way to hydrate, so don't shy away from cucumbers and tomatoes. The more, the better.

We know you can't ask for total abstinence. After a hard day at work followed by too much time spent in traffic and sweating under the sun's too-strong rays, an evening out with friends is the favorite relaxation for some.

What we can recommend, however, is to consume alcohol as rarely as possible and even more so during the day. No matter how cold and refreshing that glass of beer or prosecco seems on a terrace, alcohol only dehydrates you more. To compensate, in terms of dehydration, for alcohol consumption, you should consume, for every three units of pure alcohol, four equivalent units of water.

With coffee, things are a little different. Although there are still question marks, it's not clear whether coffee dehydrates to the same extent as alcohol. Its diuretic effect does dehydrate the body – but this is one of the reasons why, in most established coffee cultures, a cup of coffee is served with a glass of water.

This trick is the hardest to implement, but also the most effective, because it is related to self-education. Have you finished your morning toilet? Pac, a big glass of water! Did you arrive at the office? Another glass of water. Did you finish a thing at work? Drink a glass of water immediately – and so on. The idea is simple and complicated at the same time – if we educate our brain to associate things we do daily and repeatedly with water consumption, we end up drinking our minimum 2 liters daily without it seeming like we are making a special effort for it.

What a shower or bath in cold water can do is cool you down. This will help you sweat less and stop losing as much water. Not only that, but it's also enjoyable.

We do sports primarily for our health. It becomes obvious then why running an hour in the sun or when temperatures are still too high is not a good idea. Pushing the body's limits and sweating excessively can do us more harm than good.

During periods of high heat, try to keep exercising during cooler hours. Also, if you have the opportunity to do the exercises indoors at the right temperatures, go for this option.

Now that you have all these methods at your fingertips, you can start living healthier right now. In fact, don't procrastinate any longer! Pour yourself a glass of water, download one of the hydration apps, and see after a week if you feel any change in your general mood.