HYDRATE! HYDRATE! HYDRATE!
We paddle on the water all the time. There is water all around us! Water dripping down our arms from the paddles. Splashing on us in our boats. But we run the very real risk of NOT DRINKING ENOUGH.
Because there is so much water around, it fools our bodies to think that we have enough to drink and so our “thirsty” reflex sometimes doesn’t get triggered. And we don’t drink often enough, or as much as we should. And we get dehydrated.
Not as bad as our friend here, but badly enough so it interferes with our performance, and our thinking.
Have you ever come off the water feeling a little logy? Sluggish and lethargic? It is a sign that you haven’t drunk enough water.
Different circumstances change how much you should drink, so there isn’t a hard and fast rule. Some experts recommend 8 – 8 ounce glasses of water per day, depending on how much you are exercising.
Once I went on a bike ride on a warm summer day. I drank two gallons of water during the bike ride, and still lost 4 pounds of water weight. I could have sworn I was drinking enough. At times I sloshed. But evidently, I didn’t drink enough, and barely made it back home.
Also, that depends on whether it is a hot and sunny day, or a wet and cool day.
You have to look to your own body’s performance to gage whether you are drinking enough. All things being equal, you should be having to pee at least every couple of hours, and the pee should be clear and pale yellow. If it is dark and cloudy, you should have been drinking a lot more over the past couple of hours. And you should be thinking clearly enough to recognize it. If things are getting confusing – maybe drink more water.
Beyond the difficulties of not thinking clearly, dehydration affects most of the organs of your body, especially your heart and your blood and your lungs.
Since your blood is mostly water, when there is a lack of water, your blood turns to sludge, which makes it difficult for Oxygen to transfer in your lungs, and difficult for your heart to pump the blood around to your liver, your spleen, your lungs, and your brain. Feeling sluggish? Your brain isn’t getting enough Oxygen.
Probably many of the deaths that are attributed to “heart attacks” of people out camping or hiking, or the elderly, aren’t heart attacks caused by disease, but simply caused by dehydration. Your heart can’t pump sludge. And it collapses.
If you are paddling in a desert environment, in a canyon perhaps, or in the heat of the day, remember to drink more water.
Be safe out there!
See you On The Water!
Harmon
