Why Water Is Important

A long time ago, before the invention of houses, castles and skyscrapers, human beings lived outdoors. We soaked up sunshine, ate organic food (though we didn’t call it organic back then) and drank water. Last week I talked about why sunlight is good for you, and this time is about why water is important to us.

You can look at this like the classic elements. I talked about fire, in the form of sunlight, last week. This week I’ll talk about the next element – water. Everybody knows that our bodies are mostly water. The number varies from around 70% up to 85% depending on where you get your statistics, but on average everyone seems to agree that around 3/4 of your body is water. So you need to know why water is important and how water is used in the body.

Why Water is Important

Could you imagine life without water? We use it for recreation – boating, skiing (snow or water), swimming, sledding and ice skating.

Water is crucial for transportation. Almost all international trade takes place on huge cargo ships that sail the oceans.

We use it to cook our food and again to clean the dishes afterwards. If you enjoy fish or seafood, then your food actually comes from the water.

Of course, what this post is about is why water is important for your body.

What Water Does for Your Body

You use water both inside and outside your body. Outside the body, you use water for moisturizing and hygiene. Inside your body, water is used in just about everything that happens.

Let’s look at the water you use on the outside of your body first. You wash your hands, splash water on your face, soak in water in the bath tub and stand in a running stream of water in the shower.

Would you bathe in water from a muddy stream? It seems to me that would kind of defeat the purpose of taking a bath. A lot of people do though. Maybe the water isn’t muddy, but it is full of chemicals like chlorine and others.

Water cleans because it has the ability to dissolve and carry away a lot of the dirt that we pick up during the day. Chlorine doesn’t. Chlorine strips the oils from your skin and hair and leaves them feeling dry and irritated. It is a toxic chemical after all.

How Water is Used In the Body

The biggest reason why water is important is because of how water is used in the body, which is for just about everything.

Just like ships transport cargo on the oceans and rivers, water makes up the volume of your blood so that your body can move nutrition, oxygen other cargo through your body, and carry the waste back out.

Water provides the medium in which most of the chemical processes take place in your body. Without water you can’t digest your food, manufacture proteins, or contract your muscles to walk. Your brain can’t think clearly without water either.

You Need a Good Water Filter

You know why water is important to drink. When you exhale, you lose some water on your breath. You lose water in the form of sweat when you are at the gym. Finally, you lose water when you eliminate waste. Your body needs water, so you have to make sure that you drink water regularly throughout the day to keep the level up.

Thanks to indoor plumbing, most of us don’t have to worry about carrying a bucket out to the well on cold mornings anymore. You don’t even need to have your own well at all because the city will pump water right into your house for you. Do you know where that water comes from? Unfortunately, most cities pull water from that muddy stream that you didn’t want to take a bath in before. Of course, they make it all better with chlorine.

You don’t want the chlorine in your body any more than you want it on your skin or in your hair. You need a good water filter. Fortunately, even simple water filters can remove chlorine and most of the other chemicals that go into the water during the chlorination process.

How Water Filters Work

At their simplest, a water filter has a media that will catch small particles and absorb chemicals as the water flows through it. That’s what a carbon filter does. Water filters sometimes contain other media that better trap certain contaminants like lead and have have resins that exchange ions with the water to make it alkaline.

Which water filter is best for you depends on your water source and what you want to get out of it. I like my gravity water filter because it cleans the water and removes a lot of contaminants that may or may not be in my water. It also makes my water alkaline. Gravity water filters don’t use electricity to work and have a small storage tank that holds the filtered water so that you still have water when the power goes out.

You can also take care of that water in your shower with a good filtered shower head.

Water Bottles

When you travel or go out to eat, you have no idea where your water comes from. A water bottle is best for those times. I fill my liter water bottle from my water filter every day and take it with me everywhere I go, both at home and when I’m out.

Which water bottle is best? That depends. If you aren’t going too far, then any sturdy BPA-free water bottle should do. If you’re going to gone for very long then a filtered water bottle is better so that you can refill it on the go.

What Do You Think?

FYI, some of the links above point to affiliate products. I may earn a commission if you order through them.

Do you filter the water that you drink and shower in? Do you agree that you probably should? I do too. Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think, and please share this post with your followers on social media.