I used to have a younger teaching colleague who had trained her class to help her drink more water using a light. She had a habit of forgetting to drink water while she was teaching, and her doctor had told her that it was contributing to some significant health issues. She had the idea to train her grade 5 students to help her drink more water.
She bought a special water bottle with a flashing light timer on the top to signal when she needed to drink. The students were allowed to interrupt her lessons anytime the light flashed and she didn’t take a drink. Obviously, it worked well. The class of 10 year olds were eager to have a reason to tell the teacher what to do.
The Hydration Struggle
Drinking water is something that many of us struggle with, especially during the hot and humid summer months. It becomes even more of an issue when you’re trying to hydrate vulnerable people in your family such as the very young, and the older ones.
Recently, we had a family discussion about water and realized that each one of us had very specific preferences when it came to the type of water that we would readily drink. (Who knew? We didn’t!)
Whenever our preferences weren’t taken into account, we found that we drank very little water. Tepid water made some folks feel nauseous. Ice water caused some folks to cringe from the shock to their gums. Other people enjoyed the refreshing experience of sparkling water, while it was a gassy turn off for someone else. We discovered that when we paid attention to how we liked our water, we drank more and stayed hydrated.
How Do You Take Your Water?
It’s water. How many ways are there to enjoy it? Well, we started by asking these basic questions:
- Iced water or room temperature?
- Flat or fizzy?
- With a straw or without?
- In a fancy glass or container, or doesn’t matter?
- With lemon/cucumber slice or without?
If someone enjoys iced water in a container with a straw, they will avoid drinking room temperature water from a glass. I know it sounds silly to be this specific about water, but finding your preference and discovering the preferences of those you care for, can make the difference between tolerating the hot weather, or becoming dehydrated.
It’s a simple thing to learn about yourself and others, but we hadn’t thought about doing so until recently. Now, we can provide the hydration each of us prefer and all of us need.
I’m sure that there are other ways to drink more water, please share them below. Cheers!
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