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Chapped lips, eyebags, dry skin, brittle hair strands, acne, bloating, burning sensation while peeing & what not! You & I have discovered them very often. And I’ve mentioned a hundred times about how important it is to drink water to the tune of at least 8 glasses a day. Haven’t I?

Are you drinking water in these 4 wrong ways?

Seems easy to just grab that water bottle; maybe infuse it with juices & leaf extracts to make it more ‘healthy’. Doesn’t it?

But, do ALL of us know that there are also BAD WAYS of drinking water?

NO.

Basically, there ARE times when you just shouldn’t drink water AT ALL.

I really want to share with you the difference CORRECTING the following 4 MISTAKES of how NOT to drink water made for me. Personally, it took me close to 2 months to start noticing drastic changes as I corrected them gradually.

Do you drink water in these 4 wrong ways? If yes, you need to know this

1. Guzzling VS Sipping

So, how do you drink water?

Do you chug or drink it sip by sip?

Surprisingly, there’s a massive negative impact that the water makes on your body, when it directly enters your body through:

Your THROAT (directly):

Gulping water instead of sipping can be harmful for your digestion

According to science, the fluids in our stomach that help in softening & preparing the ingested food for digestion are ACIDIC in nature.

So, when you gulp water from a certain upright distance from your glass/ bottle, it directly enters the stomach in a really short time. And this most likely causes gas or acidity to develop.

Your Tongue (by sipping):

Sip & drink water

Every nutritionist would tell you that digestion first begins in the mouth way before the food enters your stomach. The first digestive fluid to act on the food/fluid as you chew or sip is your SALIVA, which is BASIC in nature.

Hence, it is necessary for any solid food or fluid to be first chewed or sipped on, for the basic (alkaline) saliva to act on it before it enters the acidic environment of the stomach.

Here’s also a research which shows how guzzling water fast leads to increased output & frequency of urination as compared with that of sipping water slowly while drinking.

I was surprised by how changing this habit didn’t bother me anymore to make really frequent trips to the washroom, despite hydrating myself pretty well.

2. Cold & Hot

(What’s cool, What’s not! Is it bad to drink water that’s refrigerated?)

Finding comfort with the temperature of the water we drink all depends on the season of the time. Isn’t it?

So, who can tell you what kind of water to drink during a particular month of the year?

Hot water is, hands down, soothing & relieving during the monsoons & chilled winter months of India. I’m sure if you live in a colder part of the world, you’ll agree too. Studies also claim that drinking hot water sip by sip greatly helps you burn unwanted calories much easily, if you’re trying to lose weight. Needless to say, you don’t need to worry about developing throat infections, either.

Refrigerated water has been infamous for not just causing sore throats but also other health problems that can become chronic over time.

Fridge water should be avoided always

But, having said that, you obviously can’t be out of your mind to want to drink hot or warm water right after getting home from a sultry, sweaty day at work, or even the gym for that matter.

According to a research, drinking cold water made nasal congestion worse for people suffering from nasal problems owing to too much mucous in the cavities.

Also, a certain study showed that for people who dealt with migraine, cold water triggered & aggravated it further.

Other findings hold that drinking cold water regularly can worsen the discomfort for people diagnosed with achalasia, a medical condition where the oesophagal opening is characterized by constriction, which makes swallowing food or liquids very difficult. This is usually accompanied by symptoms of sudden coughing, choking or aspiration, heartburn or pain after eating or drinking.

For hotter summer months, an ideal option to have ‘cold’ water would be storing it in earthen containers or pitchers.

3. Right BEFORE & AFTER meals

If you drink water before & immediately after meals, stop now

A lot of us have grown up with the training of drinking water immediately after finishing our meal or snack. This notion has some bearing with the fallacy that it helps us officially close the meal with rinsing the fresh remains of the food in our mouth.

But that’s completely wrong. And equally wrong is having water right before a meal.

In both the cases, your digestion gets disturbed since the ingested water has been demonstrated to interfere with the release of digestive juices that are meant to help in processing the food for further digestion.

4. Right after a vigorous exercise

Do not chug water during exercise or workout

Honestly, who can keep working out for even 30 minutes? Even I cannot.

We are bound to feel our throats dry, & our bodies begin to feel feebly dehydrated. Especially when we’re doing some cardio. And we all carry our water bottles to the gym or wherever we are working out.

While getting dehydrated during exercise can have serious complications & impact on one’s very purpose of workout, experts have always explained how chugging water instead of sipping it when you feel thirsty during exercise can actually cause more harm than good.

As per nutritionist Dr. Simran Saini,

“One should have small quantities of water. You must take small sips of water, but avoid gulping a lot of it together. During workouts, your breathing becomes shallow, so there’s a chance you might choke. Preferably, add glucose to your water in order to attain the energy lost during exercise. DON’T forget to sip on water every 10-15 minutes.”

It’s, therefore, advisable to just let your sips wet your tongue & throat & going on filling your stomach during your beast-mode. How thirsty you tend to feel during exercise also largely depends on your metabolism.

I personally find this extremely helpful when I do my burpees, jumping jacks & similar exercises. I usually end my workouts by sitting up, breathing comfortably and then drinking some water slowly that feels rejuvenating. Well, I’ve never felt eager to chug my water while I can still feel my heart pounding hard from the activity.

Interestingly, we tend to be as ignorant about the the right ways of drinking water as much we are aware of the importance of drinking enough water for the day. Don’t we? For me, correcting these tiny habits greatly helped me with relieving bloating & sudden episodes of headache.

DISCLAIMER – This post contains affiliate links to product(s) that I have bought myself. This means if you make a purchase through these, I earn a tiny commission at no extra cost to you. If you do, I’m all thanks!  I have put forward my personal & honest reviews about them, and never recommend products that I myself never familiarized with. For more information, read my full disclosure.

So, have you been drinking water in any of these ways? Well, it’s never too late to change it all, you see! 😀

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