Athlete's Mental Gym
Mental Skill: Increase Your Mental Speed and Agility By Drinking Water
One of the most effective tools you can use to keep your mind alert and working at full strength in your sport and life is abundantly available to you each day. It’s Water. Your mind and body communicate with each other through a network of tiny nerves that send electrical charges throughout your mind and body to initiate everything you think, feel, and do physically. Water helps those electrical charges move efficiently through the millions of nerve networks and helps develop those networks so your mind and body can communicate well.
As an athlete, you know the importance of keeping yourself hydrated by drinking the proper amounts of water in order to stay healthy. You may not realize that drinking water consistently throughout the day can help your mind work with greater speed and agility.
Water makes up approximately 70% of an adult’s body weight. Lean people have a greater proportion of water to total body weight because fat has very little water, while muscle has a lot. Water comprises more of the brain (with estimates of 90%) than any other organ in the body, with muscle next at 75%, and then kidneys.
Because your mind and body are oceans of water that need to be replenished to work well, it is recommended that under normal conditions a person should drink one third of an ounce of water per pound of body weight (about a quart per hundred pounds of body weight) each day with that amount doubled or tripled in times of stress, such as during sports practice and competition or studying for a test.
Many athletes drink most of their daily water when they are training or competing, and drink significantly less during the rest of the day. You should also sip water throughout the day to continually maintain a good balance between water and important salts and minerals. This balance is needed for your mind’s optimal performance. Furthermore, when you are under emotional and physical stress in your life and sport, drinking a consistent amount of water throughout the day will help your mind and body better manage and recover from the stress.
Certain chemicals, called diuretics, dehydrate your body (decrease the water level). These chemicals include alcohol and caffeine found in coffee, tea, some carbonated beverages, and chocolate. By indiscriminately using them, you may actually decrease your mental and learning potential because the chemicals reduce the amount of water in your body. To quench your thirst and maintain the proper amount of water in your body, the most sensible drink throughout the day is water.
Having water available in handy one-quart bottles makes regular sipping easy throughout the day and keeps your mind and body hydrated and working at optimal efficiency.
