Summertime. It’s hot! You need to drink more water, but you aren’t thirsty and it is just too much work. You likely think that you don’t exercise hard enough to work up a sweat, so why bother.
Not true. A lot of changes are going on in your body, and you are about to find out that not drinking enough water can lead to a wide range of health issues.
Water is essential for the body to function, yet most of us fall short of our daily hydration needs. Let’s look a little more closely at how hydration affects aging bodies.
When you were younger, dry skin could be treated with moisturizer but now it goes deeper than that. Aging skin is papery thin and looks like snakeskin, but you are not a snake. You can’t shed your old dry skin and find a moist supple version beneath.
Gut health is another senior issue. As the amount of fluid in the intestine decreases, bowel motility slows and constipation, with a capital C, ensues. If you have ever had to go to the ER because of a bowel impaction, you know that you don’t want to do this again.
Dizziness is pretty common among seniors. Low hydration has been known to cause circulatory problems (low blood pressure, lightheadedness, and dizziness).
Of course the symptom that we fear the most is Impaired cognitive function (decreased concentration, mood changes, altered attention span. and short-term memory issues). Yikes. We don’t even want to go there.
The most noticeable, of course, is decreased urinary output. You likely drink less because the diuretics you are taking make you go to the bathroom too often. So annoying. However, when hydration levels are low urine becomes more concentrated. The risk of infection skyrockets.
You need to drink more. I stayed at a hotel once that had big jugs of water in the lobby. The jugs of water had colorful slices of cucumber, berries and fruits floating in them. So tempting.
You can do this at home. Get into the habit of sipping water often and tempt your palate with foods rich in water content. You can do this. You must do this.
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