by Fern Shaw | Mar 4, 2016 | Water, water cooler
Does Drinking Water make you Smarter?
Quite simply, yes, it does. How so, you ask (with a healthy lean towards scepticism)? Well, it’s like this:
Every single organ in our bodies relies on being hydrated (i.e. water) to function; this includes the brain.
While you may not realize it, dehydration causes more than just thirst. Water plays an important role in the function of our cells, tissues and organs. Water transports oxygen to the brain, which allows it to communicate important messages to the rest of the body. Even the slightest lack of hydration can reduce your concentration and impair your ability to think clearly and perform well.
Water plumps up our cells, every single last little man jack of them. Think of the benefit of water in terms of when you have dry skin. It becomes shrivelled and crêpe-like the more dehydrated you are. Look at what happens when you rehydrate – your skin becomes noticeably more plumped up, smoothed out and more elastic.
Now picture this example in terms of at a microscopic level – imagine your brain cells lying all flat and sad looking, like a person in a desert, dragging themselves along, trying to function with their body’s resources depleted. They then see an oasis and manage to drink from it. Skip forward in time and that same sad looking, flattened out individual has been transformed into a fully functioning, walking, talking and much happier person all round. The same goes for your cells.
Ergo, our brains depend on proper hydration to function optimally. Brain cells require a delicate balance between water and various elements to operate, and when you lose too much water, that balance is disrupted. Your brain cells lose efficiency.
Years of research have found that when we’re parched, we have more difficulty keeping our attention focused. Dehydration can impair short-term memory function and the recall of long-term memory. The ability to perform mental arithmetic, like calculating whether or not you’ll be late for work if you hit snooze for another 15 minutes, is compromised when your fluids are low.
Over the course of a typical twenty-four hour period, the longest spell most of us go without fluid intake is the six to eight hours we spend sleeping. Sleeping is hardly the kind of activity that you sweat over, but that doesn’t mean you’re not losing water during the night. With every somnolent breath, you expel moisture, and the cumulative effect of a night’s sleep is to dry out.
This may sound like a tome of doom and gloom, but really, if you think about it, it really isn’t. In general, our nearest water source is a small reach or just a few steps away and that’s such good news.
If you want to test the theory, dearie, (I’m not suggesting that you purposefully dehydrate yourself), as you may already know that you probably aren’t drinking enough water daily, or you’re feeling sluggish or don’t have much get-up-and-go; why not try up your water intake? Take your own water bottle to work, replenish from your water cooler often, drink water when you arrive home. You’ll be amazed by the differences and it won’t take too long either if you stick with the ‘hydrate me, myself, I’ campaign.
Before long the only thing that’ll be flattened is that pile of work at your desk and all your paperwork at home. Cheers.
by Fern Shaw | Feb 29, 2016 | Health and Hydration
Two weeks ago I was blathering on about how simple it is to effectively reduce vehicle incidents on the road by instituting driving hydration (and no, this doesn’t mean hydration through drinking your favourite alcoholic tipple and then roaring off down the M1). I tacked the article onto the AquAid FB page and was interested to see the great response it received.
I suppose there are a lot (as in millions, not thousands) of us little humanoids that may take their water hydration very seriously, but there’s perhaps one area where we fall short, and that’s when we get on the road and a driving we will go.
There’s always talk about making sure you’ve had enough rest when you’re about to embark on a road trip or that you’ve eaten well (so you don’t faint while driving and so that your body has sufficient fuel (aha!) for the trip); we do carry on (rightly so) that you shouldn’t be drinking the devil drink before or during driving, but on occasion it seems, we don’t attach enough importance to a very simple solution that will keep most of us bright eyed and bushy tailed whilst travelling and that solution *drumrollllll* is making sure that we’re sufficiently hydrated when driving.
The results from a variety of studies have borne this information out to be true. If you drink sufficient water (alongside with all the other recommendations – sufficient rest, sufficient food, not taking any medication that’ll make you drowsy [so, yes, that cold flu stuff you’re glugging back is a definite NO]) you will be safer (and consequently will keep other road users safer) while driving.
So perhaps this trend is not so much a trend (we hope) but just a rather simple and clever way, borne out by research, to keep you and other road users (we salute you all, those that drive for a living) alert and focused while you criss cross the length and breadth of the country, happily driving and hydrated.
by Fern Shaw | Feb 18, 2016 | Health and Hydration
A while ago I wrote about a slight accident I had while driving a friend’s car, entitled A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Water Cooler. The blog was all about irony, karma, call it what you will.
I’ve also mentioned day-time fatigue that’s brought on by not drinking sufficient water. You don’t need to take my word for it though, honestly; there are reams and reams of research that clearly indicate the link between performance and hydration.
More recently, I’ve been thinking about the amazing drivers on our roads (said in all seriousness, can you Adam and Eve it) ranging from delivery drivers, cab drivers, bus drivers, and couriers through to emergency services drivers and all of those in-between.
If you think about it, when you’re driving on the road you need to be at your peak, especially if you take extended trips or driving is your job! But in today’s world with more and more vehicles on the road; time being of the essence; working long hours and a number of other contributing factors affecting one’s concentration when driving; it’s not always possible to be fully alert.
But what does keeping hydrated have to do with safe(r) driving, if anything?
Well, extensive research into driving and hydration for one has shown through studies there’s a marked difference in driving performance between a hydrated and dehydrated driver.
It’s also been proven how driving and hydration are vital in reducing vehicle incidents. During this study, it became apparent that, ´… mild dehydration is equal to a 1% drop in hydration levels, the level at which the sensation of thirst is experienced. Previous studies have shown that more severe dehydration reduces cognitive performance even further, thus potentially resulting in an even higher amount of driver errors. GP studies show that up to 60% of the workforce going to work remain dehydrated throughout their working day.’
Food (or water) for thought, methinks. Perhaps it’s a good idea to ensure that you remember to drink enough water prior to setting out on the road, and not just while you’re at home, in the office, or perambulating along. Toot, toot!
by Fern Shaw | Nov 9, 2015 | Water
Last year I blogged about Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night as it’s also called. Although the tradition of Guy Fawkes stems from an historical political event, it’s lighting up the darkness, so to speak, and so fits right in with a number of autumn time traditions, some originating hundreds of years ago.
There are men who carry flaming barrels of tar through a Devon village; folk who pour cider over apple tree roots and cross-dressing troupes who perform something called Soul Caking to ward off evil spirits.
Souling is a centuries-old tradition in Cheshire where actors known as ‘mummers’ perform a play for All Souls Eve on 1 November.
The tradition of Souling was intended to protect communities against outsiders and dark spirits.
Souling plays were fairly widespread until the 19th Century. The most famous ones performed nowadays are at Antrobus, Comberbach and Warburton.
The tradition is also known as soul caking – due to mummers traditionally handing out confectionery known as ‘soul cakes’ to the audience at the end of the play. In an example of how tradition piles upon tradition, this is itself believed to be based on the even older medieval practice of handing out cakes to beggars in remembrance of the dead.
The Ottery St Mary Tar Barrel Festival, in Devon, on 5 November is also believed to have started after the Gunpowder Plot.
The tradition sees competitors – who have to have been born in the town – running with burning barrels on their backs until the heat becomes too unbearable or the barrel breaks down.
At some stage through the ages Ottery St Mary decided rolling and kicking lighted barrels through the streets was a little tame so they were picked up and carried through the streets on the shoulders of the participants,”
However, this is one tradition in danger of being snuffed out, because of increasing public liability insurance costs. At last year’s event, 16 people suffered minor burns. Refer to my notes on water later on in this blog.
Then there’s Punkie Night, only celebrated in Hinton St George, Somerset, which has traditions of pumpkin carving and night-time walks that are remarkably similar to the Halloween rituals we all know.
The village’s Punkie Night takes place on the last Thursday in October. Children carry ‘punkies’ – lanterns traditionally made from a large turnip known as a mangel-wurzel – and stop at key locations to sing the Punkie Song.
Far from courting the dead, like Halloween, the tradition allegedly stemmed from a bunch of inebriated villagers.
“The men folk of the village went to Chiselborough Fair about four miles away and they had too much to drink,” says local historian Charles Bird.
“The women folk went to fetch them and, because it was so dark and windy, carved mangels and put a candle inside it”.
There’s even a Punkie Song (origins of the Punk Movement? Nah, probably not!):
It’s Punkie Night tonight!
It’s Punkie Night tonight!
Adam and Eve would not believe
It’s Punkie Night tonight!
Give me a candle
Give me a light
If you haven’t got a candle
A penny’s all right
On the whole however, English autumn traditions are concerned with marking the end of the harvest and respecting the dead.
In case you’re wondering about the title, think about it in these terms – there seems to be a lot of tomfoolery; imbibing of alcohol and fire involved in carrying out these traditions, therefore perhaps best if you’re of a mind to participate in any of these Autumn time traditions that you carry a lot of water with you;
- For drinking because you’re revelling;
- For drinking (again) because you’re imbibing and need to keep hydrated or;
- To pour over yourself in case you catch alight.
Right, off you go then, make merry and enjoy the Autumn festivities!
by Fern Shaw | Oct 19, 2015 | Uncategorized
That would be … me! Yes, yes, on occasion (usually during the change of season) I don my culture vulture headgear (a jester’s cap no less) and get out there in the World Wide Web and eddicate myself. I was all geared up initially to find out which countries were wearing what jerseys for the Rugby World Cup but after reading about how England’s players had to wear red because Fiji won the toss and are wearing white, I thought it best to step away before the rainbow turned into a hodge podge of colour.
This led me to reading about a dish called Poutine. I like to think of myself as having pretty fair general knowledge, but poutine? Poutinely unclear! Turns out it’s a dish that according to the wonderful Wiki is ‘a British inspired Canadian dish, originating in the province of Quebec, made with french fries and cheese curds topped with a light brown gravy-like sauce.’ Yum! (not). I have a pathological dislike of anything curd like.
Casting my food net further afield I discovered a few more unusual dishes that may not exactly endear you to your dinner guests. The alternative title for this list of scary is ‘Minimum three glasses of water per dish meals’.
Second up there’s a dish called Surstromming – Baltic Sea herring fermented with just enough salt used to prevent it from rotting. Mainly found tinned in brine these days, when opened it releases such a pungent aroma that it usually needs to be eaten outside. Sounds delightful.
Thirdly, there’s Fugu, made famous by The Simpsons (it’s specifically the ‘One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, BlueFish‘ episode 11 in Season 2 if you care to watch it) this little delicacy has the potential to be deadly if prepared incorrectly. As such, only chefs that have been drilled to perfection are allowed to handle the serving of the pufferfish. Good luck with that!
Before you get all ‘these dishes aren’t anything like what we eat at home, we’re safe’, think again.
What about Singing hinnies? The name for a northern dish of currant cakes cooked on a griddle. ‘Singing’ refers to the sizzling sound of the cakes as they cook in fat, while ‘hinny’ is, of course, a Northern term of endearment.
And then there’s Cullen skink which is a speciality from the town of Cullen on Scotland’s north-east coast. It’s a thick soup made from haddock, potatoes and onions. Theories as to where the word ‘skink’ comes from differ: it may be a variation on the Scots skink, meaning soup made from shin of beef.
There are actually loads more weird and wonderful British born dishes / meals, but that’s for another time. I’d like to say ‘celebrate your cultural differences – embrace the different’, but with dishes like these, my enthusiasm falls a bit short.
Culture vulture out!
