How to Optimize Your Water Quality & Intake for Health

If somebody tells you that you should drink alkaline water or alkalized water, as it's sometimes called, in order to keep your body more alkaline and less acidic, there is essentially no basis for that at a macroscopic level or even at a local level.

For every hour that you are awake in the first 10 hours of your day... you should consume, on average, 8 oz. of fluid ... 8 oz. fluid is approximately 235 mL of water.

If you are sitting in the sauna, I highly recommend consuming at least 8 oz., and probably more like 16 oz., of fluid—so that translates, again, to about 240 or about 480, let's just round up, 500 mL of fluid—for every 20-30 minutes that you are in a hot sauna.

Fluoride negatively impacts thyroid-stimulating hormone and so-called T3 levels... even in the standard concentrations that are present of—and here's an important number—0.5 mg/L ... Get ahold of the fluoride concentrations in your tap water ...Even just 0.5 mg/L of water can disrupt thyroid function.

It is true that water that is more alkaline—that is, pHs of 7.4 or higher—can move more readily across the aquaporin channel. And in terms of absorption of water from the endothelial lining and the other cell-type lining of your gut into the rest of your body, it is true that higher pH water... is going to be absorbed more quickly.

I do believe that governments are trying to provide people with clean water but, in doing so, oftentimes will introduce things to that water that are not good for us. Now, it's very clear that DBPs [disinfection byproducts] can cause endocrine disruption in ways that are not good for reproductive health ... It's very clear that DBPs have been shown to disrupt ovarian function, spermatogenesis, and fertility outcomes.

If the pH of the water that you drink is too low—that is, if the water that you consume is too acidic—it will not move as quickly from your gut into the other regions of your body, and therefore, the other cells of your body that require that water will not be able to access it as readily.

What I highly recommend is, depending on your budget, that you go online and you search for at-home water filters that can filter out fluoride.

Higher magnesium in water, lower cardiovascular mortality ... People consuming drinking water with magnesium contents of 8.3-19.4 mg/L... was significantly associated with decreased likelihood of cardiovascular mortality by 25% compared with people consuming a magnesium content of 2.5-8.2 mg/L.

There is some evidence that letting tap water sit out at room temperature and outside the pipes that deliver that water can help remove some, not all, of the contaminants in that water.

Many of you are probably wondering whether or not you can simply boil your tap water and thereby decontaminate the tap water ... It turns out that some of the contaminants present in water are actually made worse by heating water.

Distilled water and double-distilled water... has magnesium and calcium removed from it. So, my recommendation would be to not drink distilled water.

There are data showing that if one gets into very cold water up to the neck... in the 6 hours after strength or hypertrophy training that some of the strength and hypertrophy increases that one would observe are blocked by that deliberate cold exposure. However, after 6 hours does not seem to be a problem.

It does not appear that cold showers disrupt the adaptations to strength and hypertrophy training—even if they are done immediately after strength or hypertrophy training.

If you're going to use cold showers to do deliberate cold exposure, you're going to want to stand under the shower itself and essentially have it hit your head, the back of your neck, and your upper back—which is where most of your brown fat stores. are concentrated.

There are many, many—if not dozens, hundreds of studies—pointing to the fact that when we are dehydrated, our brain doesn't function as well and our body doesn't function as well.

Our cognitive performance—including memory, focus, creative thinking, flexible thinking of different kinds—are all significantly impaired when we are in states of dehydration.

If you gulp down a bunch of fluids, you are going to excrete those fluids more quickly than if you... sip them slowly.

The bad news is that much, if not all, tap water... contains things that are bad for the biology of our cells.

Basically, we are anywhere from 70% to 90% water, depending on how you define 'being water.'