What Does It Feel Like To Be Fully Hydrated?
In other blog posts we’ve covered the signs and symptoms of dehydration. One thing is abundantly clear: from headaches to dizziness, dehydration is a drag. But with as much as 75% of the US population living with chronic dehydration, it’s time to start asking: What does proper hydration feel like and how do I know if I’m living my life with enough hydration?
Before We Dive In: Familiarize Yourself with Signs of Acute Dehydration While this article will cover ways to know that you are hydrated, here’s a brief refresher on the signs of dehydration:
- Headaches
- Dizziness or a Racing Heart
- Lack of Energy or Irritability
Ok, so those are symptoms of being dehydrated but how do you know if you’re hydrated?!
3 Signs of Good Hydration:
Reactive Skin Elasticity: With your left palm flat on a table, pinch the skin of your knuckle with two fingers of your right hand. When you’re fully hydrated the skin should settle back onto the knuckle fairly quickly. Interestingly enough, veterinarians perform a similar test on dogs and cats to determine their hydration status during a checkup.
Lemonade-Yellow Urine: When you’re in that sweet spot of optimal hydration the color of your urine should be lemonade yellow. Paler than that and you’re really saturated on hydration and darker urine means you need to increase your fluid intake. Some articles may claim that there’s also an ideal frequency of urination throughout the day, but we think don’t feel that’s a good measure of hydration status. Everyone has different bladder sizes and access to bathrooms throughout the day can vary wildly. Urine color is the best way to know if you’re properly hydrated.
Reasonable Recovery Times: You know your body well, and you know what a reasonable recovery time should be for a workout. While there may be factors that cause recovery time to fluctuate (like an increase in intensity or a long break in training frequency) if you’re being consistent in your workouts your recovery time should be consistent as well. A longer than usual recovery time could mean that you’ve missed out on some crucial hydration. If you consistently struggle with longer than average recovery periods after workouts you may want to consider adding a recovery-focused hydration supplement to your routine. Nuun makes two products that are aimed at recovery hydration: Nuun Rest and Nuun Recover. Nuun Rest is a magnesium-rich supplement that is perfect for recovering from moderate workouts. Nuun Recover is packed with vegan BCAAs for promoting muscle recovery from longer, more strenuous workouts.
