Every single day, I have at least two coffees. At meals, I maybe drink one glass of water and/or juice and call it a day.
I’ll wake up every morning with chapped lips and dry hands, assuming that it’s just the dry, freezing cold weather taking a toll on me.
That was until I read an article on Bustle. In this article, the author decided that she would drink 96 ounces of water every single day for just a week. Apparently, women are supposed to drink 91 ounces of water. The author of the Bustle article decided that was approximately three Nalgenes of water per day, so that’s exactly what I did.
I kept this up for two weeks, and these are the changes I noticed.
Nails
My nails are prone to peeling, breaking, and splitting. I have always had very thin, weak nails that would not grow past a certain point unless they had layers of strengthening nail polish slathered on them. After these two weeks, my nails began to grow. Nothing significant, I just haven’t broken one yet. My nails usually sport peeled layers that are impossible to cover up. For the first time in a very long time they are in one piece. It’s only been two weeks so the change isn’t mind blowing, but I’ve found that it’s much easier to resist the temptation to pick at your nails when you have nothing to pick at.
Hair
I haven’t noticed much change in my hair; after two weeks there isn’t much growth so it’s hard to tell. I did notice that it does not get greasy as fast. Apparently, when your body is more hydrated, your body secretes less oil to prevent your skin from drying out. I have never been able to sport that “second day hair” look—my hair is often WAY too greasy to risk that. Hesitantly, I just recently started to leave it down after not washing it for an entire twenty-four hours. It’s manageable and doesn’t lay as flat as it did when those nasty oils used to get the best of it.
Lips
Is anybody else suffering from chapped lips? I used to experience it the worst after my morning coffee or while running around at work. I thought it was the physical exertion of walking to class every day or climbing stairs between the kitchen and the dining room at work. My lips would peel, split, and bleed pretty often. It’s easy to pass this symptom off as an unavoidable side-effect of this nasty weather that we’ve been having, but I think this problem is more related to how hydrated you are.
I literally noticed a difference in my lips after the first day of drinking more water. It was the first part of my body to repair itself and it definitely acted as a wake up call to me. If my body was that parched that it literally caused my lips to crack and peel then I was doing something seriously wrong and needed to make a fast change. I haven’t been needing to use chapstick as much. I still carry around my handy-dandy Burt’s Bees stick in my purse—but I have found that I don’t need to apply it at least once an hour like I did for the majority of winter.
Face
I honestly couldn’t understand why I was breaking out. I wash my face regularly and moisturize but could not figure out where this excess oil was coming from. Dermatologists have told me that the less you moisturize your face the more natural oil secretes from your pores to keep your skin from drying out (as I mentioned before) but they never reiterated as strongly that you needed to keep your body hydrated from the inside as well.
Now I’m still suffering from the occasional stress pimple but I have not (knock on wood) experienced any actual breakouts of acne since my previous breakouts have faded. The bags under my eyes have faded as well (they’re still present, I am a working college student after all) and my skin is a lot brighter looking.
Energy
All semester I’ve been struggling to get out of bed. I don’t know if I’ve adjusted and this is a false correlation, but after committing to my routine of three Nalgene bottles of water per day I have noticed that I don’t press the snooze button at all. I’m up the second my alarm goes off and I don’t fall back to sleep. I’ve definitely been prone to skipping showers once in a while and sleeping through classes, so this newfound energy has helped me stick to some healthier habits.
Hopefully this personal experiment becomes a lifestyle, because the benefits to drinking enough water a day certainly outweigh the one drawback of having to pee a little bit more frequently…forgot to mention, by the end of the first day you will have gone to the bathroom at least three times as often as you usually do.