Why Does Hydration Matter?

Everybody talks about how important it is to hydrate. After all, a few days without water and you will die. But, water intake is especially important for those with chronic pain.

Drinking water keeps your cells healthy and more able to properly function. Chronic dehydration can cause spinal discs to shrink, leading to back problems as the vertebrae pinch the nerves between them. Chronic dehydration also increases pain sensitivity, so the brain expects any pain to feel worse than it would otherwise¹. This is to say drinking water decreases how bad the pain can feel both in the present and future.

Although research is still being conducted on how much drinking water can help relieve chronic pain conditions, you should still strive towards hydration. It may not be the cure-all, but hydration is still crucial in living a healthy lifestyle.

Hydration Resources

Apps:

Hydro Coach: Regular reminders to drink water.

Daily Water Tracker Reminder: set reminders with daily water goals, easy to log water you have drank.

References

¹Bear, T., Philipp, M., Hill, S., & Mündel, T. (2016). A preliminary study on how hypohydration affects pain perception. Psychophysiology, 53(5), 605–610. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12610