Should I Drink Less Water now that it’s Autumn?

Should I Drink Less Water now that it’s Autumn?

by | Oct 11, 2018 | water cooler

Now we’re in October already well into autumn, the last remnants of summer have left us (as I write this, however, the weather has been particularly summery in parts of England this week, lucky us), we’re slowly gearing up for the colder weather and perhaps, we’re already cutting back on our exercise and gearing up for more indoors and less out and about.

You may also think that with the colder temperatures this means that you shouldn’t be drinking as much water as you were during the (hot!) summer months.  Reducing our water intake during autumn and winter, however, is a common error, as irrespective of the seasons, adequate hydration is necessary throughout the year.

In order to maintain optimal health, your body needs a regular and sufficient water intake as water literally feeds your entire body and is responsible for your get up and go – in order to maintain your basic health and body functions, you must remain hydrated.

Every single atom of your body consists of a high water component e.g. as much as 83% of your lungs and overall, 73% of your entire body is made up of water.

So whereas you might be adding on more layers and opting for Netflix marathons instead of exercise marathons, you still need to maintain your water ‘habit’.

That’s why, now, as with each season, is not the time to be ignoring your water cooler, or indeed, cutting back on refilling your water bottle every day, whether you’re at home, work, school or play.

Maintaining your water ‘fix’ not only helps keep you in good health during the colder weather, it will ease the transition when you begin upping your water consumption for the warmer months.

 

Health Benefits of drinking Water – the very Heart of you

Health Benefits of drinking Water – the very Heart of you

by | Oct 10, 2018 | water cooler

Your heart is your body’s powerhouse; it’s basically the engine that drives you.

It’s essentially a muscle – albeit an incredibly complex muscle that relies on, amongst a whole host of other functions, electrical impulses to keep beating.

As with all vital organs our hearts require water to function at an optimal level.  The heart is made up of 73% water, so keeping it hydrated is of particular importance.

You can’t water your heart intravenously though, so how do you ‘hydrate your heart’?

Well, it works like this: each day, your heart beats around 100,000 times. This continuously pumps about eight pints of blood around your body through your circulatory system. This blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to all parts of your body, and carries away unwanted carbon dioxide and waste products.

Your heart and circulatory system works together to deliver blood to your organs so they can function.

When you’re not getting enough fluids (water in particular), your blood’s volume decreases too.  And when your blood volume decreases, the heart will have a hard time distributing oxygenated blood all over the body. When the blood loses volume, it becomes thicker, harder to circulate. The added stress on the heart increases the risk of heart and arterial damage.

Can drinking water keep us heart healthy? It would seem so – research has shown that consuming more water means a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease.  Having enough fluids thin out the blood in the system, allowing the heart to do its job efficiently, which means drinking more water reduces the strain on your heart.

That’s why keeping your heart hydrated is so vitally important – drinking enough water on a daily basis literally makes a difference between a strong, healthy heart and potentially a dehydrated heart under duress.

Sometimes (like right now) it’s good to remind ourselves that in order to appear healthy, we need to keep our internals happy too – we can’t have one without the other.

There’s no time like the present to begin being kinder to yourself, your body and your life – so, the next time you’re about to pass the water cooler, don’t.  Rather take your water bottle or water glass and make the water cooler station part of your daily work break routine: fill your bottle and drink your way to a healthier heart and consequently, a healthier you.

 

Health & Well-Being – How your Brain needs Water to function properly

Health & Well-Being – How your Brain needs Water to function properly

by | Oct 10, 2018 | water cooler

In our very rushed lives, it would seem the simplest action oftentimes becomes the most difficult.

Take your water intake for example.  Aside from every being alive requiring water to simply survive, never mind flourish, it’s a pretty sad state of affairs that we often find ourselves in. Somehow, on a daily basis, one of the most necessary functions most vital to our well-being is oft ignored.

It’s a quintessential fact that we require water for each of our body organs to function at an optimum level – from nail growth through to how well our brain operates.

When it comes to brain health, sufficient water intake is essential, especially considering the fact that your grey matter is made up of 75% water.

So how does hydration and dehydration affect brain health?

Our brains consist of billions of neurons that regulate everything from core temperature to perspiration. Because the brain is made up mostly of water, it makes sense that this organ won’t work as efficiently when it is water deficient.

Proper hydration can literally improve mood.  Drinking water makes us feel so refreshed that it actually improves our state of mind.  You don’t even have to be severely in need of it to benefit: even mild dehydration has been shown to negatively affect moods.

On the reverse of that, if your brain is dehydrated, it affects motor and cognitive skills: symptoms including irritability, sluggishness and an inability to think straight. Dehydration also showed a strong link to poor memory. When you’re water deficient, it’s hard to stay focused on a certain task.

Drinking water can combat headaches naturally. Going without water for too long causes headaches for some people, and has been identified as a migraine trigger. The good news is that in a study on the effects of water on headaches, participants experienced ‘total relief’ from their headaches within 30 minutes of drinking water (two cups, on average).

It can be a short cut to keeping alert.  If you need to concentrate for long periods of time, keeping water handy will help you stay refreshed, hydrated, and focused: dehydration can impair your attention span, memory, and motor skills.

Want to think more clearly? Drink water (more than you’re drinking now).  Dehydration causes shrinkage of brain tissue.  So when we haven’t been drinking enough water, our brains have to work a lot harder to perform at the same level.  One study even found that students who brought water to tests did better on their exams.

At AquAid, we’re well-versed about how important a sufficient water intake is to our health and well-being. Which is why, when it comes to water dispensers, we will always give you the best advice about which water cooler is the right fit for your office, workspace, work site, medical or educational facility.

We have 20 years’ experience at your disposal.  We’d love to hear from you – contact us at your convenience to find out more about how an AquAid water cooler can help you keep brain alert, happy and healthy.

 

 

How You, as an AquAid Customer, Benefit from our Experience

How You, as an AquAid Customer, Benefit from our Experience

by | Oct 3, 2018 | water cooler, Water Coolers

AquAid as an organisation has always offered more than just the standard customer benefits – a few of these include, but aren’t restricted to:

  • Offering an extensive range of high-quality water cooler solutions to meet our customers’ requirements;
  • A 48-hour delivery time on our Bottle-Fed Water Coolers;
  • Water cooler installation and servicing by EDWCA accredited engineers and;
  • Two decades supporting charities that focus on the provision of safe drinking water;

We also provide the invaluable benefit of experience.

Where one might wonder how our experience benefits our customers, it’s refreshingly simple:  you will be relying on a company that has more than 20 years’ experience in the provision of high quality water coolers, water and water related products. Which is why, whatever your volume of demand is for refreshing drinking water, you reap the benefit of two decades of experience when you install a water cooler from AquAid.

From the AquAid Head Office, based in Newmarket, through to our 23 branches spread across the UK, we offer the equivalent of over a hundred years of combined experience.

We continue to expand on this expertise and experience daily thereby enabling us to continually offer the very best benefits to our customers.

Should you wish to benefit from our experience (amongst all our other benefits) while simply keeping yourself refreshed, contact us at AquAid – we’ll be delighted to assist.

 

Which Fluids and Foods Dehydrate?

Which Fluids and Foods Dehydrate?

by | Sep 19, 2018 | water cooler

We all know how important it is to remain properly hydrated, but that doesn’t just mean ensuring we make regular trips to the water cooler and eat water-rich foods every day, it also means avoiding those foods or drinks which can counteract our good efforts and leave us dehydrated. And a popular myth to dispel right from the get-go is that a cup of coffee or tea is dehydrating. Although the caffeine inherent in both is dehydrating, it is offset by the water also contained in your cup so the odd drink will not adversely affect your system, in fact it counts towards the ‘eight glasses a day’ rule of thumb many of us follow.

So, what should you be wary of? To begin with avoid excessive consumption of diuretics – these are foods or drink that increase urination. Most notably amongst fluids is alcohol – beer, wine and spirits are all diuretic, and apart from the obvious unhealthy and potentially dangerous side-effects of overindulging, too much of it in your system literally wrings you dry. Which explains why you have that nasty ‘dry mouth’ feeling after a heavy night of excess and why you’d give all you own to wake up to a water cooler right next to your bed. Too much of certain foods can also play a role: mangoes, fennel, artichokes and asparagus are all diuretics, so avoid eating too many of these foods particularly if you’re not hydrating in other ways.

Next on the list is eating too much high-protein foods. While most healthy eating plans incorporate all food groups, there are some popular plans that encourage upping protein in favor of reducing carbohydrates. While this eating plan might work for some, one thing to keep in mind is that because protein is harder to digest than carbohydrate, our body not only has to work harder, but it also uses ‘more water to flush out the naturally-occurring nitrogen in protein’ – as noted by Monica Reinagel a board-certified, licensed nutritionist who features regularly on the Huffington Post.

And lastly there is salt and sugar to consider. Too much of either of these can also be detrimental in terms of remaining properly hydrated, not to mention the other more obvious health concerns like diabetes and high blood pressure. When you eat too much salt or sugar your body needs more and more water drawn into the intestine in an effort to dilute the excessive amounts you’ve eaten, which can ultimately leave you parched.

In short, if consumed in moderation, none of these foods or drinks will cause dehydration; but if consumed in excess, without increasing your trips to the water cooler to right the balance, dehydration is a concern. So, keep it mind the next time you’re inclined to overindulge on cocktails, steak and rich desserts.

Water Cooler Weight Loss

Water Cooler Weight Loss

by | Sep 19, 2018 | water cooler

What do your water cooler and weight loss have in common you might ask? And the answer would be that while water itself is not a miracle fat-burner, drinking water can definitely help you to lose weight.

The reason for this is that very often the triggers for thirst and hunger are the same. In most cases when those first rumblings of hunger begin, we immediately grab a snack. But our Pavlovian response should be to drink water instead – particularly if we’re trying to lose weight. If after a short while the hunger pangs persist only then should we head for the fruit bowl and enjoy a healthy snack. Another reason is that by regularly heading to the water cooler and quenching our thirst, we’re not drinking sodas or other sugar-laden liquids, all of which add unnecessary calories to our day.

Many of us have simply fallen into bad habits – we awake desperate for coffee which we drink before we leave the house, we buy a cup on our way in to work and we have another cup once we arrive at the office. By mid-morning we’re ready for another caffeine boost so instead of heading for the water cooler we head back to the coffee machine or the soda machine for a sugar boost and so the day continues.

While one or two cups of coffee early in the day are hardly a health risk, by relying too heavily on caffeine and sugar drinks we not only drink more calories than we should, but we also affect our sleep patterns which recent studies have shown play a huge role in our fight to lose weight. With healthy sleep our bodies function optimally – part of optimal function is our ability to secrete Cortisol, a hormone that regulates our appetite. When our sleep is disturbed, which often happens if we have too much caffeine or sugar coursing through our veins, the secretion of Cortisol is affected which in turn affects our ability to lose weight. And when we wake up, the vicious cycle begins again.

In short, by visiting the water cooler on a more regular basis we quench our thirst, we feel sated, we help our bodies to function healthily and we sleep better – all fundamental factors in losing weight.