by emmaburns

To most, the phrase “drink eight glasses of water a day” is one that is likely famil- iar. It becomes impressed on us by our parents, doctors, and disillusioned middle school gym teachers who for some reason also teach health. Many of us are probably sick and tired of hearing it. We scoff at this supposed wisdom and go about our days convinced that the three sips of water a day from our water bottles is enough to sustain us. I too was once like this, taking tiny sips from a bottle that was hon- estly more for decoration than anything else. Feeling proud about my one glass of water before bed. I genuinely believed that the water with my morning meds was plenty. But something was wrong. I was tired, groggy, constantly wondering why my head felt like it was going to pop off. I couldn’t put my finger on just what was going in with my body, but in my heart of hearts i knew that i wasn’t operating optimally.

I went on like this for years, never once stopping to consider that perhaps my body was not in fact being properly lubricated. This continued until a lot more recently then i would honestly like to admit, when one day i woke up to a thirst the which i had never experienced before. The obvious solution was to drink water and so i guzzled h20 in mass amounts. All day long i was reaching for my water. It felt excessive and decadent, and it was also the first time in years that i was fully energized. I swear to god my brain felt mosturized. I cleaned my room, went for a walk, made a full meal! I am of the genuine belief that if i had tried i could have even done an algebraic math problem successfully. It was like something inside of me had been unlocked.

A fuller and more efficient version of myself rose from the ashes of the person before me. Day after day i consumed water religiously. I started tracking the amounts just to make sure i was hitting a healthy amount. Since discovering the power of drinking enough water to actually support my body life has been so much fuller. I can never go back to just barely putting healthy liquid in my body and walking through the world like a dusty and dehydrated zombie.

This whole time in order to avoid weird pressure be- hind my eyes and vague headaches that never go away i just had to listen to my body’s natural cues? ? ? Why did i not do this sooner? ? ? I am a full convert to the ways of water and i will tell anyone who listens why they should be too. Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this monumental discovery is that i probably should have listened to my parents more.

Categories: emma burns, kay sheeger