Don't Stress It! - Lesson 4

Water & hydration explained. And some crucial facts on habit-making.

Oct 24, 2023

Welcome to The Feel Good Life! A newsletter about health, prevention, empathy, and hope. I’m Dr. Mariana and you have just arrived to my practical and medically-guided course on managing stress. (To get started from lesson 1, go here.) Happy to have you here. :)

Hello again! Welcome to lesson 4.

You’ve made it! We are halfway through our course’s journey. I’m really excited to be sharing this with you, as it is the first course out of many that I have planned. This in particular is a detailed and comprehensive one, taking up to eight lessons, filled with so many nuggets that I hope you will find insightful and useful from beginning to end.

In our last lesson, we established that to fight off stress, your body needs the right quantity of three things: water, sleep and exercise.

So, that leaves three big question-marks hanging in the air - because what exactly is the "right quantity" of these things?

This course is going to take a working doctor's perspective, so I'm going to try to cut through a lot of the hype and misinformation available out there - and water is a great place to start, because so many people misunderstand hydration, with potentially serious consequences.

In today’s lesson you will learn:

8 Glasses of Water per Day: Wrong!
The Facts on Habit-Making + The Pee Challenge Explained
Challenge #4: The Phone Challenge

8 Glasses of Water per Day? Wrong!

So, to begin with, let’s tackle that question in exactly the wrong way.

Let’s say you’ve heard that to stay healthy, you need to drink 8 tall glasses of water a day.

Okay then! You get your biggest glass out of the cupboard, and you immediately glug back two full glasses, followed by a third, because you're feeling extra-virtuous.

Then, for the next two hours, you knock back two big glasses of water every hour.

Seven glasses! Nearly at your daily target! Awesome!

Yes, you’re feeling slightly light-headed and you have an almost uncontrollable urge to pee for the rest of the day, but getting healthy was never about comfort, was it? (Did you know that we should pee, on average, between 5 and 7 times in a day?)

It’s the evening and now, of course, you have a disturbed night’s sleep (toilet break! Another toilet break! One long toilet break!) and tomorrow you’re so sleepy that water just isn’t going to cut it, so you drink coffee or tea or some other popular stimulant - and within 24 hours, you’ve completely forgotten about that water-drinking promise to yourself.

Sounds familiar? Well, it should. We've all done it at some point - and it's a very common way of getting started (or, more accurately, not getting started.)

This story holds the key to why we fail to stick to healthy habits, again and again.

So let’s pull it apart and find it.

Simply put?

It’s wrong.

This 8-glass-per-day theory probably originated in a nutrition report from 1945 that suggested most people need to consume at least 2.5 litres of water a day, which is - you guessed it - around 8 tall glasses of water. Unfortunately, most people sharing the 8 glasses rule ignore the next sentence in that report, which points out that a lot of this water could be found in the food we eat every day.

Fact: there’s no proof that drinking 8 glasses of water a day is necessary for the average human being to stay healthy. Plus, let’s not forget that everyone’s needs can vary depending on different circumstances, such as medical conditions, physical activity, environment, diet type, medications, just to mention a few.

That’s the bottom line.

If you do want to drink 8 glasses, it won’t harm your body. Too much water, drunk too quickly, is really dangerous, as I’ll explain in a minute - but 2.5 litres, spread over a whole day? You're fine.

8 Glasses myth? Busted.

But like all myths, it contains a tiny kernel of truth - and in your case, it’s supremely important for tackling stress.

Have you been keeping up with the Pee Challenge from the last e-mail? (Please say yes! It's super-important.)

If you have, you may have noticed one or more of the following things:

You’re peeing more frequently. Obviously and unsurprisingly.
You’re feeling more alert and aware.
You’re having less frequent low-intensity headaches - or less of that annoying sense of dullness in your thoughts that lingers all day.
You’re less irritable.
You have more energy.

If you’re experiencing (1), well, that figures.

If you’re experiencing any or all of (2), (3), (4) and (5) - that’s a clear sign you needed to drink more water. Not 8 Glasses A Day more - but certainly more than you’ve been having, even factoring in the beverages you’ve been drinking and the water you've been getting in your food.

Another big problem with 8 Glasses A Day is that it assumes everyone reading is at the same level of hydration, and they have exactly the same bodies.

Nope, nope, all the nopes.

The Facts on Habit-Making

The broad facts are these.

Humans are made up of around 75% water.

According to this study by the USGS, their blood is 92% water; their bones are 31% water, their lungs are 83%, the skin around 64%, and both their muscles and brains are around three-quarters water.

(This is also nicely summed up in this great scientific article from the Journal of Biological Chemistry.)

Beyond these relative certainties, know that you are unique. Your body may be naturally hardened against the effects of dehydration - or unusually vulnerable to it. You may have a diet rich in water, or poor in it. You may be in the best of health or currently sickening for something, or recovering from it.

The 8 Glasses A Day method tunes these factors out as if they don’t matter - and that’s kinda dumb. It’s as dumb as assuming that if drinking a glass of water a day makes you healthier, drinking 100 glasses a day would make you 100 times healthier, right?

Uh - no. And don’t even try it.

(The result of drinking that much? You’ll overload your organs, flush out all the minerals and essential salts in your body, and could enter a terrifying salt-depleted state called hyponatremia, which is often fatal. The good news is that it takes a lot to get to that state - more than a gallon of water a day. You’d have to really overdo it. I strongly suggest you don't.)

Oh, and a word about symptoms. We know from last lesson that it's good practice to pay attention to what your body is telling you - while staying aware that stress can actually change what your body is telling you.

Water is a great example of this principle.

When your body needs water, you get thirsty. Seems like a great early warning system, right? Yes - except when stress makes your thirst "untrustworthy". You may indeed need water - but stress is suppressing your sense of thirst, so you're being misled by it. You can't rely on thirst alone. Bummer.

So here are some other physical symptoms of mild dehydration to look out for:

Compact stools. If I said "rabbit droppings", we wouldn't need to go into more detail than that. OK? Awesome.
Excessive yawning. No, it's not just because you're tired.
Dry, flaky skin. If those oils are drying up, it could be because that water is needed somewhere more critical.
Headaches. There are many types of headaches that might require a proper medical examination. However, in most mild cases, it’s safe to say that hydrating adequately first will be more effective than paying a rushed visit to the emergency room.

There's another reason why this 8-glass habit is doomed to fail in creating a good new habit.

When you tried to drink all that water, most of it in one go, your body reacted in a predictable way - with confusion.

Hey, that’s more water than you usually drink! Why are you….woah, seriously, more? What’s going on? What - even more? Do we need to sit down and have a talk here? That’s a whole lot of...ARE YOU KIDDING ME? MORE? Okay, don’t distract me, I’m too busy with all this...

Your kidneys and bladder go into overdrive - and they’re still in an excited state even when you’re trying to get a good night’s sleep. Next day, you’re sleep-deprived and cranky...and the not-so-proud owner of a brand new mental pathway, a little formula that kicks in the next time you tell yourself you should give that hydration thing another go:

If [8 Glasses Of Water], then [Terrible Night’s Sleep] + [Feeling Awful The Next Day]

In other words, you just made a new habit. Unfortunately, it's an entirely unhealthy one. The habit is:

1. You think about drinking more water...

2. ...some part of your brain associates it with sleepless, cranky misery...

3. ...and on some level you shy away from the whole idea, without being completely aware of why you’re doing it.

So, in summary, your science was bad and your technique was bad. No wonder your new habit sank so fast. That’s a seriously crappy outcome, right? There must be a better way!

And of course there is.

The Pee Challenge Explained

Let’s have another look at the Pee Challenge.

First, it’s putting a very safe amount of water in your body, just like in the picture above.

Let’s say your bladder loses its mind today and you have to go pee a wearying 10 times in one day (ugh). This is unlikely, but let's pretend for a minute.

Taking the Pee Challenge, that’s 10 x 250ml (approx.) of extra water you're drinking, which is 2.5 litres - similar to those 8 glasses a day. Except not in one go. More likely, you'll pee maybe 4-6 times in a normal day, which means you’ll be drinking a litre to a litre-and-a-half of extra water with every little glass you drink after you pee. (It’s all nicely spaced out, because you only take one 250ml glass per toilet break. Evenly-spaced bursts of hydration help your body adjust.)

That's enough water to perk you up and feel the benefits of being fully hydrated all day. It’s enough to help your body do its work, and enough to help you manage stress. Also, it’s something you'll do automatically, without having to remember to drink that water and summon the willpower to do it.

Second - and most powerfully - The Pee Challenge happens because of something that you do naturally, without thinking and it’s 100% non-negotiable.

When you get the urge to pee, you go pee.

There is no “I’m not in the mood to pee right now.”

You can’t say to yourself, “It’s fine, it's fine, I’ll just pee twice as much tomorrow.”

In fact, when that alarm in our bladder is ringing (louder and louder and LOUDER), you only have one thing you can do - and of course, there's an added incentive: it's such a glorious, delicious relief when you do it. Great work, evolution. You really know how to motivate us.

With the Pee Challenge, the habit of drinking a small glass of water after you pee, is triggered by something that you always do, no matter what is happening in your life, no matter what mood you’re in - and no matter how little willpower you have.

This is one of the key elements of a great habit that sticks: it’s triggered by something that always, always, always happens in your daily routine. You need to pee, you put out around 200ml of fluids, and you immediately replace it by drinking 250 ml of fresh water.

Let's now revisit the challenges from lessons 1 and 2 of this course:

Challenge 1: Keep A Journal Of The First Hour Of Your Day.

Challenge 2: Identify The "No-Brainers" In Your Morning Routine.

That first hour of your day is a great place to build new habits, by using the rock-solid triggers you already have - like that first visit to the bathroom, the most common no-brainer habit in everyone’s morning routine. See how the two challenges connect?

Set them habits up right, and they'll require no willpower at all. You won't be sat there thinking, "I really should get up and do [healthy habit]".

You will never be faced with that hurdle, because your no-brainer (known in the habit-building profession as the "trigger") will kick in, and then you'll do the habit straight afterwards, automatically, without thinking.

In summary, the point is to tie a new goal-habit to a regular daily habit. The old habit will help you remember the new one right away. Eventually, through the power of consistency and repeat, your brain creates new pathways and then, your new habit will be created for good.

I hope you can see the point of those challenges now. I hope you can see the power behind them.

In our next lesson, we're going to look at the other half of the habit equation - the reward - and we will create a rock-solid formula that you can apply to anything you want to turn into a habit. We're also going to dig into the science of water a little deeper, and start talking about the magical anxiety-busting properties of a good night's sleep.

But for now? Another challenge awaits you, next.

GET TO IT, SOLDIER.

Challenge #4: The Phone Challenge

If you're like me - and like most people in the world these days - this one is going to be surprisingly hard. But it won't look hard. I'm going to set you a single task, just one, and it's going to look easy. You'll shrug and mutter "seriously?".

DON'T BE FOOLED ABOUT THIS.

When you actually try to do this challenge, your brain is going to rebel against you. It is going to do everything it can to fight you. All kinds of clever excuses. Be ready for that.

So - shall we begin? Here we go:

When you go to bed at night, and you've finished using your internet-connected gadgets, you will leave them outside your bedroom door - and turn on Flight Mode, killing your internet connection.

By all means, check Facebook, read your e-mails, watch some Netflix a little bit before bed.

But when you're ready to turn the light out, you...

(1) disconnect from the internet, and...

(2) you clear the room of internet-ready equipment. All of it.

Your brain will hate this. If you're like most people, your brain will desperately try to convince you to leave at least your phone inside the room. The phone's ok, right? You'd even turn the sound off, so it just buzzes? Wait, what about the alarm? You need the alarm on your phone to wake up, right?

Okay - just turn up the volume on the alarm! Or get a separate alarm clock for your night table. Because if the phone is still in the room, you fail this challenge.

Be absolutely clear about this. The challenge is to disable the internet for the night, and to make it impossible to access it again without getting out of bed and exiting your bedroom.

We'll explore the medical reasons why we're doing this in our next lesson - and trust me, it's totally worth the hassle. You’ll be surprised to see what this does to your brain.

See you in Lesson 5!

Hugs,
Dr. Mariana

PS: If there’s any question you’d like to ask about the challenges or the lessons so far, please, just hit Reply to this email or message me at thefeelgoodlife@substack.com. I’ll be right with you! :)

Image credits:
Water glass photo by Manki Kim on Unsplash
Phone photo by Rodion Kutsaiev on Unsplash

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