Water is something I always emphasize, because this is something everyone can start right away to improving there health. It’s an easy, and low cost investment for your health. So don’t mind me being a broken record.
Our body is 60-70% of water. Water is used in EVERY single process of the body. It is involved in a lot of essential processes, like keeping cells alive, and lessening the burden on the kidneys and liver. If you drink too little, or drink mainly coffee, tea or other drinks you aren’t allowing your organs to function properly. Without water, your mental health, your body, your overall health will inevitably suffer.
Why should we drink hot/warm water?
Our bodies are naturally warm, the normal body temperature ranges from 97° F (36.1° C) – 99° degrees F or 37.2° C. According to Chinese medicine, we must keep our body balanced, and in order to do that we must keep the body warm this also includes foods that cause more heat or cold in the body. Anything that is cold, will throw our bodies balance off.
Though you might like iced cold drinks, or ice cream, because let’s be real who doesn’t. But your body internally can’t always handle it, especially after an extended period of time and it will start to show in various health issues.
Benefits of drinking warm water: it can help detox the body. It helps with blood circulation, and helps with cramping during menstrual cycle and relaxes muscles. It can also help improve digestion and constipation.
It is also beneficial in protecting and building up our immune system. When we boil water it can also kill bacteria, and viruses. It helps with your metabolism, and breaking down fat molecules, making them easier to break down and remove from the body. Thus also aiding in weight loss.
Both Ayurveda and Eastern Medicine supports this and they have been in practice for over 3,000 years.
How can you start drinking hot/warm water?
You can start by boiling water on your stove. Wait until it’s more warm and then pour it into your cup or bottle. Use a thermos if you wanna keep it warm or hot. It’s kinda dangerous pouring from the stove, so you can either get a kettle, or a hot water boiler. You can always find a reasonably priced hot water boiler, or if you want a larger one that keeps it boiled all day, you can just get one of these big water boilers (which if you’re from an asian household you might be familiar with).
Make sure to drink your warm hot/water slowly, and not scalding hot. Keep it simple! And do what you can to make this into a habit. You can also ask for hot water when you go to restaurants or cafe’s! It feels weird at first, but I’ve realized that my health is more important than being an “inconvenience”.
What about cold water?
Even though there have been studies that show drinking cold water can increase your metabolism, it is only a very insignificant difference. Your time is better spent in getting better sleep, eating well, or drinking warm water for your overall metabolic health. I understand, when its hot, you want a cold drink, or ice cream, and once in a while it is fine. I’m just talking about the majority of time is best with hot or warm water.
My experiences
I used to not drink any water, which didn’t help my sluggish digestion system, and constipation. ( I’ll write another post about water.) I started drinking more water in college. And by the time I started my health and fitness journey, I was able to drink a gallon of water a day easily. I mainly drank room temperature/cold water, no ice though. And I slowly progressed to drinking more hot/warm water because I noticed that it helped with having better bowl movements. And, also because I wanted to minimize cramps.
After my experience with dialysis, I cherish the ability to even drink water. Right now, I only drink hot/warm water. I’ll drink room temperature water but that’s still pretty cold especially during colder months. I need to keep my body balanced and warm as much as possible. My body is also more prone to being cold and I have to keep my immune system up. Healing means keeping everything balanced and not thrown out of equilibrium.
And despite healing, I really recommend trying out warm water instead. And see how it helps you. Like I always say, you must always test it out on yourself. And I never recommend anything that I’ve never personally done or tried before.
