Proper Hydration With Ayurveda

Did you know that at least 70% of the world's population is dehydrated?

Chronic dehydration is one of the greatest causes of disease in modern times.
But fear not, Ayurvedic principles and health practices can do wonders! In this track, you'll learn time-tested and easy-to-apply Ayurvedic techniques to achieve proper hydration.

Here's a sneak peek: drinking more water will NOT necessarily hydrate you! You need intra-cellular hydration for optimal health!

Transcript

You are probably dehydrated.

Majority of the population is.

Hi,

My name is Dylan Smith and I'm a teacher on Insight Timer to share with you how to live life with abundance,

Purpose,

Pleasure,

Maximum health and freedom.

All based on the wisdom of Ayurveda,

The science of life and laws of nature.

And whenever I as a health practitioner is assessing the health of anyone,

Any health condition or anyone wanting to optimize their health,

We need to start at the foundations.

One of them being proper hydration.

Conservative studies suggest that 70% of the global population is dehydrated,

While several in-field experts indicate that in their practices they encounter 100% of dehydrated patients.

This continues despite drinking the recommended daily limits of water.

We tend to associate hydration to how much water we drink,

But that is just irrigation.

We can drink water all day long,

But it doesn't necessarily mean that you're getting hydrated.

I am talking about intracellular hydration.

So why are we chronically dehydrated even though we are drinking more and more water?

Firstly,

It is the quality of the water we drink.

It is no longer alive.

The tap liquid,

Which is a better term,

Flowing through the straight-edged and right-angled pipes of the municipitals of our cities and towns is not exactly real water.

We will return to this topic of water quality soon.

But secondly,

The other reason why we are chronically dehydrated is because our metabolic ability to digest water into our cells for hydration is impaired.

We will also return to the topic of digesting and metabolizing water.

The ability to properly hydrate yourself is extremely important for a number of things,

Some of them being energy levels,

Capacity to concentrate or if one is experiencing brain fog,

Mood stability,

Mental health,

Skin health,

Sleep health,

Inflammation,

DNA structure,

Musculoskeletal health,

Including joints in the spine.

The list goes on and on and on.

But before I go into solutions on how you can properly hydrate yourself,

I want to shed light on the correlation between dehydration and the epidemics of biological dryness we are seeing.

Dryness can manifest as dry gut,

Dry bowels,

This can look like constipation,

Passing stools with difficulty or incomplete bowel motions,

Hard motions,

Dry skin,

Dry brain,

Which is neurodegeneration,

Dry mind,

Which can look like anxiety,

Insomnia,

Bipolar,

Low immunity,

Dry bones,

Which can manifest as osteopenia or osteoporosis,

Spinal conditions like scoliosis,

Back pain,

Neck pain,

Disc degeneration,

Impaired lymphatic system,

Which in Ayurvedic medicine,

The science of life,

The mother of all medicines,

That is a huge aspect of Ayurveda.

It's the number one tissue.

There are three times more lymphatic fluid than there is blood.

The lymph fluid is 96% water,

So not achieving proper hydration levels,

Slows down,

Inhibits waste removal in the body,

As well as many other important roles of lymph.

Dry fascia,

Which is the thin casing of connective tissue that surrounds and holds every single organ,

Blood vessel,

Bone,

Nerve,

Fiber.

So this cannot be rejuvenated if it is not hydrated.

So especially if you are living in a windy environment,

Cold weather,

Or are over 60 years old,

Or approaching around that age,

You need to be extra careful about lifestyle factors,

Foods,

And the water you are drinking,

As dryness is already playing a dominant role in your life.

In Ayurvedic medicine,

Which is the ancient science based on the laws of nature,

We call this increase of the vata dosha,

Which is associated with dryness.

So,

How do we properly hydrate?

Number one,

The water you drink.

Let's look at tap water,

The common water that most people drink.

The problem with tap water is a bunch of things.

First of all,

Heavy metals.

They're in the tap water.

Number two,

Toxic chemicals.

This includes residues of medications.

It's commonly seen in a lot of cities,

Residues of specifically the contraceptive pill found in waterways,

And that is due to the recycling water systems.

Number three,

Chlorine.

Chlorine is so toxic that it is used as an antibacterial.

It's used as disinfectants,

Antiseptics,

Pesticides,

Antibiotics.

Chlorine gas was used to kill soldiers in the First World War.

Chlorine bleach and disinfectants produce toxic disinfection byproducts.

It goes on and on and on.

When these chlorine is ingested,

It causes some poisonous acids in the body,

Causes issues,

Toxins on the skin,

Toxins when inhaled,

Toxics for the young.

Chlorine is even what's leading to plumbing leaks because it's eroding the flexibility of the water hoses.

Even the pipes,

It's causing pitting in and creating mold in buildings.

It leaches leads.

We could do a whole series on chlorine and even the hazardous waste that it produces.

But also in tap water,

There are pesticides,

There are unwanted viruses,

There are unwanted microbes,

There is radioactive waste,

There is rust and sediment.

So we want to basically,

First of all,

With hydration,

Check the water you drink.

Definitely don't drink.

Better than tap water,

A better name is tap liquid.

The most ideal water to drink,

The most ideal water to drink is spring water.

The requisites of life-sustaining water are the same as our bodies.

Healthy water needs to eat.

She needs to absorb minerals and electrolytes from the earth.

But when she's robbed of these minerals and electrolytes,

Like many filters do,

Water becomes an aggressive solvent,

Leaching these minerals from our body in an attempt to fill herself back up again.

So we want to be drinking spring water,

Which is full of these minerals and enzymes and electrolytes and has this structure,

This free-flowing movement,

Dynamic movements that give us that beautiful molecular structure to properly hydrate.

If you can't get spring water,

Or in addition to getting spring water,

The second ideal is to filter and restructure your water.

Consider your whole house,

Right?

Not just the water you drink,

But especially the whole house,

Because bathing in clean water is perhaps even more important than drinking water.

So the common thing which we say is get a filter or be the filter.

So we definitely want to filter out all the chemicals and toxins which we mentioned,

But we also want to restructure it.

Healthy water needs to move.

The more penned up,

Stagnant,

Bottled,

And quarantined that water becomes,

The more water loses her structure,

Her vivacity,

This dynamic movement.

So there are certain filters that,

Number one,

Filter,

But then also restructure the water.

And there are many ways to restructure water,

Things like vortexing methods and technology,

Putting the water through a flow form,

Having near-infrared radiation,

Magnetics,

Hydrophilic surfaces like crystals.

There are so many ways,

And we talk about that in more specific water devices that we do.

So we really want to move from a quantity-based to a quality-based model for drinking water.

Number one is to assess the water you drink.

Number two,

Improve your ability to metabolize water.

You need to have a high electrical charge in your body to absorb the water you drink.

Modern science measures this electrical charge by the phase angle,

A measure of both energy and hydration.

But what's more important is how much water can your body actually absorb and retain.

This is related with digestion,

Tissue metabolism,

Overall cellular metabolism,

And health of the lymph and the fascia.

How well does the water in your body shift between various inner hydrological systems?

Can water easily transition between your tissues to hydrate the right tissues at the right time when needed?

Or does the water end up in the wrong place,

Stagnant edema,

Fluid retention,

Or water waste?

This in Ayurveda is called Shvetadushti Vimagagamana,

Which means vitiated channels in the body causing a diversion of the contents to flow improperly.

For proper hydration,

We want intracellular hydration.

We want to drink the water,

But we want to move the water from our gut into the blood and then into the cells.

This is intracellular hydration.

Having a biological capacity to effectively move things in the body and absorb them,

Like water,

Is what we want.

We want to avoid dryness and we want to be well lubricated in order to help this.

To improve this intracellular hydration,

Assess.

Are you eating good quality fats in your diet,

Like ghee?

Are you eating drying foods,

Like cheap rancid oils,

Takeaway foods,

Restaurant foods?

I don't care if it's a five-star restaurant,

They're probably using rancid oils which actually dry you out.

Potato crisps,

Chips,

Dry crackers,

Raw foods,

All this is going to dry out.

And are you putting oil on your skin regularly?

If not,

Look up the daily routine of Ayurvedic self-oil massage,

One of the beautiful daily rituals called Abhyanga.

Healthy digestion in general is also important for proper hydration.

Here are some factors to think about healthy digestion.

Do you feel comfortable and even a little energized after eating food?

I.

E.

No gas bloating,

No reflux,

No acid,

No lethargy in any form or any discomfort.

Do you have a complete bowel motion each morning before breakfast or coffee?

Do you feel you have a good appetite,

I mean proper hunger when it's mealtime?

If you didn't answer all of these questions,

You have room for improving the digestion and that's going to help move that water intracellularly.

So we had number one,

The water you drink.

Number two,

Improve your ability to metabolize water by making sure you're well hydrated and having good digestion.

Number three,

Move your body dynamically.

This makes your biological waters move and metabolize rather than remaining stagnant.

If you already do move,

Perhaps consider how dynamic your exercise moves.

Instead of running in straight lines or right angles or on flat concrete like a dead water in low life force moves amongst 90 degree straight pipes,

Run or walk in the bush or in the forest,

Swing on a tree,

Walk on the sand,

Run on the sand,

Swim to dynamically move your body.

Number four,

Reduce and avoid dehydrating stimuli from your life.

We mentioned some of these,

But some more are drinking tap liquid or highly processed water,

Purified water,

Reverse osmosis or distilled,

Eating cheap and rancid oils,

Non-native electromagnetic fields can cause dehydration in the cells,

Blue light causes dehydration,

Caffeine and alcohol,

Living a sedentary lifestyle because your body is a system of hydraulic networks that need to be moved to hydrate the cells,

Stress,

Adrenal exhaustion is a huge one,

Which impacts the hormones,

Which can definitely have an impact on the body's level of fluids and electrolytes.

So adrenal fatigue is a big thing in dehydration.

Negative emotions make the intracellular fluids less conductive and prescription medications and nutraceutical supplements.

If you have a possibility and intention to get off these with the guidance of your health care professional,

These may help your hydration capabilities.

So in summary,

Drink and bathe in quality water.

If you can,

Drink spring water and cook clean and bathe in Filton Plus restructured water.

Number two,

Improved digestion and tissue metabolism.

Learn how to do this or consult with a quality health care practitioner.

Number three,

Dynamically move your body.

And number four,

Reduce and avoid dehydrating stimuli from your life.

I'm going to end with a quote from the Mahanarayana Upanishad,

Which is an ancient Vedic text.

And it says,

The whole universe is made up of water.

All beings are made up of water.

Water is truth.

All the deities are water and all the worlds are made up of water.

Reviews

This was really interesting. Thank for this talk. I drink tap water and live rural so my water comes from our well and we only filter out detritus and there are no chemicals added.

This is great.I hope to learn about the filtering of water to bathe in and then what to do next about it done more.I appreciate the fact of learning that Spring Water is best as I use filtered water from a system on the counter but I'm using regular filtered water in it .NEVER TAP WATER .Much Love and Peace

Thanks Dylan, very insightful and plenty of practical suggestions. Didn’t realise RO water would be dehydrating! 😮