For many people, drinking water before bed is just a nightly ritual they don’t think too highly on. After all, with bodies made up of over 70% water, it’s the one substance we absolutely cannot survive without.
Literally, every function in our body is somehow geared around the regular consumption of water, so this very much is not a luxury; it’s an absolute necessity.
And while you’re asleep, you’re not hydrating of course, so the logic states to drink before sleeping to hold onto that hydration. But what effects are nocturnal hydration having on your body? Is it really as good for you as people say?
If it’s not as healthy as people claim, what are some possible drawbacks to this particular habit?
Well, we’re going to dive into the facts of drinking water before going to bed and find out precisely if you should develop this habit or let it fall to the wayside.
Pros
Let’s wade in, starting with the pros of drinking a tall glass of water right before snuggling down for the night.
Hydration
This one goes without saying, of course.
You’re replenishing the water levels in your body before you go to sleep to not only keep your body functional but also to keep you from waking up needing a drink in the middle of the night.
Since you aren’t active while you sleep, your water level isn’t necessarily going to go down, so adding a little boost just before hitting the hay can only benefit it.
You use up a lot of water just by sleeping, such as sweating, breathing, or needing to use the bathroom, so it’s important to make sure you go to bed with fully replenished water levels to allow for this preemptively.
Burns Calories
No really, a glass of icy water can actually burn calories for you while you’re sleeping.
This forces your body into over-drive to keep itself warm, which eats up those calories faster.
And with nothing else to do except keep itself warm at night, it’ll keep itself busy as well by keeping you toasty and chewing up calories in the process.
However, the drawback to this is that the results vary. What works for one person may not work for everyone.
While it’s definitely good to get into the habit of drinking water before bed, you shouldn’t go into it expecting to burn a ton of calories every single night.
Do it in moderation, along with healthy habits throughout the day to create a steady decrease of calories, assisted nightly by the water you’ve made a habit of drinking.
Cleansing
You hear all the time of people going on juice cleanses and the like, drinking all kinds of interesting concoctions with the intention of ridding their bodies of every unwanted toxin or element that shouldn’t be there.
Honestly, while there may be some truth to that, the best cleanser you can rely on is just plain water, pure and simple.
So many toxins from outside pervade your body, damaging it and making it hard to stay healthy. This is why water is such a blessing.
Having a well-hydrated body keeps your health at a higher level, so taking in a big glass of water while you sleep only adds to this effect.
While you’re sleeping, your body has little else extra to do except metabolize the water and clean out any unwanted elements or toxins with the added liquid assistance you’ve just provided.
Mood Improvement
We actually lose close to two pounds of water while we sleep, most of it in breathing. Because of this, hydration is absolutely critical.
Drinking water before bed can actually help to better your moods.
No, we’re serious. Losing even as little 1.5% of fluid can cause our mood to tank, allowing such negative emotions as anxiety, headaches, disinterest, and lack of concentration to set in. Just feeling thirsty isn’t enough to clue us into the need for fluids.
In fact, if you’re thirsty, you’ve already lost quite a bit, to begin with.
This is why constant hydration is such a good thing, especially before going to bed.
You’ll wake up in a much better mood the following morning.
Better Sleep
Too many people avoid drinking water at night as a means to improve their quality of sleep.
In reality, drinking water before bed will do just that.
It basically balances out our bodily functions and energizes all our core components, such as muscles, bones and tissues.
Hormones are balanced out as well, providing a more stable state for our bodies to rest in, allowing us to relax more fully and deeply.
It also helps us wake up feeling more refreshed and energized in the morning, with relatively little effort put into the process.
No really, just drink water slowly and at room temperature every night and watch your nightly sleep patterns improve by the day.
Better Focus
You’ll find yourself pleasantly surprised to learn that drinking water before going off to sleep can actually help to improve your function in daily life as well.
You might normally wake up groggy, have a difficult time snapping out of sleep mode for the day ahead.
This could be because you’re not getting enough water normally.
Drink more water before crawling into bed at night to help refresh your brain for the coming morning and make it a little easier to get on track for the day.
Cons
Okay, now we’ve all seen some of the pros regarding drinking water before bedtime, so now it’s time to investigate some of the cons that could be considered with such a practice.
There can always be too much of a good thing, even something as universally beneficial as water.
Nocturia
We’ve all been there. We’re in the middle of a deep, restful sleep when suddenly, our bladder sends out a violent alarm ringing us awake.
Frustrated and groggy, we reluctantly leave the warm, softness of our welcoming blankets and trudge to the bathroom, struggling to get in, go and finish up before we wake up too much to go back to sleep.
For many of us, nocturnal bathroom breaks are an occasional inconvenience and little more.
However, it’s often found in elderly people with lacking bladder control who can sometimes wake up several times per night to use the bathroom.
This kind of unfortunate dilemma can lead to sleep deprivation and fatigue, and it’s often brought on by drinking too much water right before bed, or else near bedtime.
People with dry mouth tend to develop this condition due to their near-constant attempts to moisten up their gums and ease the discomfort with water and other drinks.
Kidney Dedication
There’s almost no such thing as too much water, and your kidneys love every ounce of it within reason.
But of course, you don’t necessarily have to have nocturia to experience overactive bathroom breaks during the night.
Drinking too much water can overload your kidneys, whose primary function is to remove waste.
If you flood them with more water than they know what to do with, they’ll simply send the excess out with the waste.
This makes them work overtime, which can send you into the bathroom far more frequently than you’d probably like.
Drinking Water Too Fast
Many people gulp water down in quick succession when thirsty, but while this is what we do instinctively, this is actually incorrect.
By doing it this way, we give our bodies far too much water at once and it won’t know what to do with it all, so it just sends it on its way that much faster.
The best and most effective way to ingest water is to drink it in small sips between breaths while sitting down.
Treat drinking water as you would eating a meal. This allows your body to process the water, thereby making you feel thirsty for less time and enabling more fluid to be used more efficiently.
Possible Weight Loss Backfire
We know we just said otherwise, but it is possible for a nighttime hydration regimen for weight loss to backfire as well.
Hear us out. If you drink too much water at night, your body may end up just retaining the extra fluid instead of expelling it.
With nowhere else to go, the extra water just becomes water weight, which creates the exact same effect as normal weight gain, spitting in the face of your ideals for weight loss using water habits.
It’s better to just take in a healthy amount both during the day, as well as at night to prevent this from happening.
Water is the one major substance we literally cannot survive without, so much so that our bodies straight up don’t function without it.
Yes, there are a few disadvantages to drinking water before bed, but the pros far and away outweigh the cons in this case.
Make a habit of drinking water every night before bed and we can guarantee the results may just astound you.
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