What would you say is the most important thing you need to stay healthy? A healthy diet? Thirty minutes of exercise a day? Plenty of sleep? If you answered any of these things, you’re wrong. While these are all essential to saying healthy, the most important thing your body needs is plenty of water. The same thing goes for your skin. Your skin is what everyone around you sees, so you want to keep it looking healthy. In order to keep your skin looking and feeling great, you need to drink plenty of water.
Even when you’re not sweating, you’re losing water through your skin. If you don’t replace the moisture you lose, your skin can’t be replenished and will get very dry. When skin cells are dry, they crack, peel and change colors. Dry skin can also be itchy and painful, as well as unsightly. Lotions and creams are just like putting a band-aid on a cut. It may help the problem in the short term, but the real healing comes from within. To properly hydrate your skin, you need to drink plenty of water.
In the body, water is what flushes all the waste products away. Without water, there’s nothing to get rid of all the harmful toxins that build up. This keeps yours cells from working properly and prevents them from being as healthy as they can be. Your skin cells are no different. And if your skin cells aren’t healthy, it shows.
Do you have problems with puffy bloated skin? You may be tempted to cut back on water so it doesn’t fill your skin cells, but the problem is actually lack of water, not too much. If you’re not getting enough water, your cells are aware of the lack. This triggers a response to hold on to as much water as they can in case they don’t get more water later; the result is puffy, unhealthy looking skin. If your cells are regularly hydrated, they’ll have no reason to hold on to excessive water, giving you smooth, even skin.
So, if water is so good for your skin, shouldn’t you take a lot of baths and showers? Actually, taking baths, showers, and swimming in pools can remove moisture from your skin. Excessive contact with water, particularly if it’s hot or contains chemicals like chlorine, breaks down the lipid barriers on your skin and actually makes your skin look and feel drier. If you can’t avoid being in water, just remember to drink more water than you normally would. If necessary, water vapor does not have these affects and can be used to hydrate your skin.
If better looking skin isn’t enough of a benefit for you, remember that other cells in your body need water as well. Drinking enough water can help you look better, feel better, and even lose weight. So stay healthy and beautiful by getting your eight glasses a day (or more if you’re really active.)
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