by Belinda Ollewagen | Feb 18, 2019 | instant tap, water cooler
We’re all in need of a good laugh sometimes, and there’s never a better time to share a good joke or chuckle than when we’re gathered around the water cooler or waiting in line to use the instant taps in our breakout area for that much needed cup of coffee.
When they say ‘laughter is the best medicine’ – they actually mean it. ‘Study after study has pointed to the health benefits of laughter: Research from Loma Linda University showed that laughing improved the memory of adults in their 60s and 70s; University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers found that hilarious movies improved the function of blood vessels and increased blood flow in a group of 20 thirty-somethings. And other research has shown that laughing can improve immunity, help regulate blood sugar levels, and improve sleep.’
Laughter definitely lifts our spirits and whatever makes us positive, generally also makes us more productive, so the next time you’re at the water cooler grabbing your glass of water or busy with your caffeine fix, here are 5 of our favourite, safe-for-work, delightfully silly jokes to bring a little joy into everyone’s day.
- Yesterday I saw a guy spill all his Scrabble letters on the road. I asked him, ‘What’s the word on the street?’
- What’s the best thing about Switzerland? I don’t know, but the flag is a big plus.
- Hear about the new restaurant called Karma? There’s no menu: You get what you deserve.
- A man tells his doctor, ‘Doc, help me. I’m addicted to Twitter!’ The doctor replies, ‘Sorry, I don’t follow you …’
- A German walks into a bar and asks for a martini. The bartender asks, ‘dry?’ The German replies, ‘nein, just one.’
Okay, so they’re definitely not going to win any awards, but I’ll bet they brought a goofy smile to your face none the less, which is another interesting fact about laughter – it’s contagious. ‘When you see people laughing, you just can’t help but smile, right? That’s because your brain makes it nearly impossible not to. That’s the result of research from the lab of Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London. When she monitored subjects’ brains while she played laughing sounds, she found that the premotor cortical region of the brain, which prepares the muscles in the face to move, was activated.’
So go ahead and share silly, funny moments – make that office water cooler chat a positive experience for everyone and spread the joy!
Source: Reader’s Digest
by Belinda Ollewagen | Feb 11, 2019 | instant tap, water cooler, water dispenser
The weather is still pretty grim and as much as frequent visits to your office’s instant taps or water cooler might help you stay hydrated, it can be a little challenging to keep drinking that much liquid during the cold winter months; so another option is to up your intake of water-rich fruit and vegetables!
Not only does certain produce help with water intake, but fruit and vegetables are naturally low in fat and calories, and they’re an important source of many nutrients including potassium, fiber, folic acid, Vitamin A and Vitamin C. These nutrients help our bodies maintain healthy blood pressure, reduce blood cholesterol levels, regulate our bowel movements, aid healthy fetal development in women, and protect against various infections – the benefits are endless. For all this, in addition to aiding hydration, it’s easy to see why we should include more of this food type in our diets.
So, if you’re struggling to drink those eight glasses of water each day from the water cooler, consider eating more of the following – in order of highest water content:
FRUIT
Watermelon holds the highest percentage of water at 92%, followed by Strawberries 92%, Grapefruit 91%, Cantaloupe 90%, Peach 88%, Raspberries 87%, Pineapple 87%, Cranberries 87%, Orange 87%, Apricot 86%, Blueberries 85%, Plum 85%, Pear 84%, Apple 84%, Cherries 81%, Grapes 81% and Banana 74%.
VEGETABLES
Cucumber holds the highest percentage of water at 96%, Lettuce (iceberg) 96%, Zucchini 95%, Celery 95%, Radish 95%, Tomato (red) 94%, Cabbage (green) 93%, Tomato (green) 93%, Cabbage (red) 92%, Cauliflower 92%, Peppers (sweet) 92%, Spinach 92%, Eggplant 92%, Broccoli 91%, Carrots 87%, Peas (green) 79% and Potato (white) 79%.
Whether it’s a fruit salad you bring along to the office, or perhaps a home-made soup, be sure to include more of these in your diet and then you won’t need to visit the water cooler dispenser quite that often in the chilly months.
by Belinda Ollewagen | Feb 6, 2019 | instant tap, Water Boilers, water cooler
In less than two weeks winter will officially begin in the UK and while reclining in a warm sunny garden, cold drink in hand, might now be a distant memory, what we shouldn’t change is the drink in hand bit. The weather might have changed, but our basic bodily functions haven’t and we still need our daily intake of drinking water to ensure optimal health. That said, it’s not as easy to drink water in the colder weather and while pure water remains the healthiest of options, all liquids – with the exception of alcohol – do count towards your daily requirements. So, it’s a good idea to try and experiment with a variety of warm and tasty herbal teas to ensure your healthy liquid intake remains high.
While a water cooler will always be a necessity in the office, it’s at this point that water boilers and instant taps in staff kitchens or breakout areas became very handy. When it’s chilly and we’re all wanting a hot cup of something to warm us up, it can be very frustrating waiting in line for a kettle to boil. But with hot water taps there is a limitless supply of boiling water, ready at just the touch of a button. It’s the perfect opportunity to sample your way through a wild variety of herbal teas that not only hydrate you, but offer a host of other medicinal benefits too.
Peppermint tea
It can help relieve abdominal gas and bloating as well as relieve muscle spasms. It can also be used for nausea, heating up the body and making you sweat.
Ginger tea
Great in aiding digestion, it can curb nausea, vomiting or help settle an upset stomach. Adding lemon and honey can help your body fight off colds and flu, plus the honey’s powerful antioxidants can help eliminate free radicals.
Chamomile tea
Very helpful for insomnia, it has a gentle calming and sedative effect. It is also recommended for use with a cold or fever, and when used as a gargle it can help with inflammation of the mouth.
Rooibos tea
It is high in vitamin C and has many antioxidant properties which can help strengthen your immune system – it is also recommended as a topical treatment for skin irritations such as eczema.
Lemon balm tea
It can help lift your mood and is also said to help improve concentration.
Milk thistle and dandelion tea
Known as a gentle liver cleanser, it can help the liver regenerate and function more optimally. As with ginger, it too can aid digestion.
Rosehip tea
An excellent source of vitamin C, it can also help optimize your skin and tissue health, adrenal function and immune system.
by Fern Shaw | Jan 28, 2019 | instant tap, Water Boilers, Water Coolers
Sneaky because maintaining good hydration habits in winter can be just that: studies show that we can be up to 40% less thirsty in winter.
Dehydration is less noticeable in winter: During the summer in the UK, it’s far easier to equate how thirsty we are with how dehydrated we may be. Hot weather tends to make us sweat more, making dehydration much more noticeable. However, in winter, thirst isn’t as immediately apparent and perspiration turns to water vapour very quickly. As an example, when you step outside from a warm environment into a cold one and you can see your breath – that’s water vapour, which means you’re dehydrating.
Staying hydrated in winter helps us stay warm: Our bodies use water to help maintain our core body temperature. Dehydration can cause our core body temperatures can drop. Therefore the benefits of staying hydrated in winter are twofold: we stay hydrated and we keep warm when it’s cold outside.
… And gives your immune system a welcome boost: Our instinct in winter is to hibernate, especially indoors. Modern life, however, makes this untenable: we’re in and out of doors on a daily basis and the radical changes in temperature can easily and negatively affect our immune system as our systems fight to bring our body to the right temperature. That’s why it’s important to make sure we don’t decrease our water intake during winter. A good hydration habit is one of the simplest and best ways to keep the immune system boosted and ready to battle common winter illnesses like colds and flu. Whether you’re at home or at work, installing a water cooler will help you to easily keep up your water consumption, with refreshing drinking water available at the touch of a button.
Weight maintenance and loss: The cold weather can often lead us to exercise less and eat more. Weight gain because of this is often further exacerbated by not staying hydrated through winter. Maintaining hydration enables our bodies to be more efficient at breaking down fats and converting them to energy.
A few tips to maintain proper hydration during winter:
- Keep water in your line of sight – keep a water bottle on your desk or put a glass next to the kitchen sink to remind you keep drinking. Remember too, AquAid have a range of desktop and counter top water coolers making them the best reminder there is.
- Set yourself a reminder – An alert on your phone can remind yourself to top up your water bottle.
- Eat water rich foods – soups, salads or fruit as mentioned in our series on water rich fruit.
- Plump up your plain H2O – Adding a slice or wedge of lemon, lime or even cucumber gives your water an extra refreshing burst of flavour.
At AquAid Water Coolers, we provide a wide range of water dispensers to a broad and diverse set of customers from small, medium and large businesses through to medical facilities, universities, colleges and schools.
With more than 20 years’ experience in the provision of the right water coolers, water boilers, Instant Taps and water fountains to more than 33,000 customers, you can be assured that we will have the right water cooler to help keep you properly hydrated, whatever the time of year. Speak to us, we’ll be happy to help.
by Belinda Ollewagen | Jan 18, 2019 | Hot Water Taps, instant tap, water cooler
Marc Levy, France’s widest read author wrote: ‘Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank, its name is time. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off at a lost, whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and health. The clock is running. Make the most of today.’
It’s a rather sobering thought isn’t it? And a rather novel way of viewing what many consider to be our greatest commodity. We are slaves to busyness and time, and not always in a good way either. Without doubt, time is the one thing we have no control over, so best to use it wisely and in Levy’s words ‘if you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours’.
So what does this have to do with hot water taps you might ask? The answer is simple – convenience. Convenience is like a time cash cow, the more convenience you can squeeze into your day, the greater the generation of time. And hot water taps are one way that can help make things simpler, smoother and faster. Boiling water at the touch of a button saves us from having to wait for a kettle to boil – it saves on energy bills too, but that’s an aside – from a convenience point of view hot water taps are a great time-saver. It can take around 3 minutes for a kettle to boil; if you drink 4 cups of tea or coffee a day at the office, that’s 12 minutes a day wasted – and while that might not seem like a lot initially, that’s 264 minutes a working month, or nearly 4.5 hours.
So, to make more of your 86,400 seconds a day bank balance, invest in hot water taps from AquAid – the UK’s leading supplier of all things office-water related – and make those seconds count!
by Belinda Ollewagen | Jan 18, 2019 | instant tap, water cooler
Is there such a thing as drinking too much water? Should you decrease your number of visits to the office water cooler? The answer to the first question is yes. And the answer to the second question is no.
Yes, you can drink too much, but it’s an extreme ‘too much’. Runner’s World ran an article a while back entitled busting eight hydration myths, and one of those busted myths was that ‘you can’t drink too much’. If you over-hydrate it can lead to a condition called hyponatremia. As defined by the Mayo Clinic, this ‘occurs when the level of sodium in your blood is abnormally low. Sodium is an electrolyte, and it helps regulate the amount of water that’s in and around your cells. When [hyponatremia] happens, your body’s water levels rise, and your cells begin to swell. This swelling can cause many health problems, from mild to life-threating’.
And why should you not decrease your number of visits to the water cooler? Because of your thirst mechanism, that’s why. Another busted myth is that ‘thirst isn’t a good hydration tool’ – yes, it is. Your body knows what it needs, and when it needs water, it will trigger your thirst mechanism – whether you’re attuned to that trigger or not is another matter of course. So, if you learn to listen to your body and give it what it needs when it signals it, you should be fine. If you’re an athlete and you’re concerned about the amount of water you lose while exercising, knowing your sweat rate and compensating for it, is another way to ensure you receive proper hydration. Doug Casa, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and COO of the Korey Stringer Institute says the ‘goal isn’t to match your sweat rate, but you should try to get as close as is comfortably possible. For some runners, that may mean replacing two-thirds of the fluid they sweat during the run’. He also adds that you shouldn’t try to drink more than you lose.
And here’s another busted myth ‘caffeine dehydrates you’ – no, it doesn’t. If taken in moderation, coffee or tea can count towards your hydration quota for the day. So, if you feel the need for another hot drink, then head over to the instant taps in your breakout area and make another cup – not only will it aid your hydration levels, but the break will do you good too as both these factors are productivity enhancers!
