How Much Water Should I Drink Every Day?

Something as simple as how much water should I drink every day seems like a very very easy thing not to mess up. But I see a lot of these articles on the internet that say you should be drinking this much water or these instagrammers saying everyone should be drinking a gallon of water a day. Now I have not yet seen an explanation outside of Chinese medicine for why certain people feel thirstier than others. I'm not talking about exercise or exertion or digging ditches out in a tropical climate. I'm talking about why some people are fundamentally thirstier than others. And I thought this would be a great talking point for this video because there's a very specific reason that many of us see clinically that I don't know that many people are aware of. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master the Day on Amazon, doctor of Chinese medicine. Now before we jump into this video two very important links. The first link is for my free weekly video newsletter. It's right below. You'll get a free download as well which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine, the contact info for my private practice is right below this video. So let's go back to this idea of damp versus dry constitutions or even constitution. So a person's constitution is what in the old days was the term for basically your genetic predispositions, right? It's when someone says, oh my grandma always had stomach problems and I always have stomach problems or you know when asthma runs in a family line or allergies or eczema and skin conditions. It's these kind of things that people say this just runs in my family. This is your constitution, right? Your genetic makeup. A predisposition that you did not choose based on diet or lifestyle. Now constitution is an extremely important part of treating a person for chronic health problems because it is the constitution that is the primary thing that dictates what problems a person will be predisposed to when they break down. So the person who has always eaten healthy their whole life but has digestive problems, it's constitution most likely and not necessarily something environmental in my opinion and experience. And when you treat the constitution with formulas or with acupuncture they can go back to eating those things that were allergies or problematic in my experience. So this idea of constitution is exceptionally important to understand because people will manifest predictable problems when they break down if you understand their constitution. This idea of constitution is very important when it comes to thirst, something as simple and seemingly non-diagnostic. But I want to point out a few different criteria related to constitution that are helpful to know. The first is someone's body temperature. A person's body temperature can change obviously based on their body weight, their physical exercise, their circulatory capacity, cardiovascular health, the weather obviously, etc. But generally speaking you will see family lines of for example thin women predisposed to anemia or to thyroid conditions. You will see that run in families and you will see the opposite run in families true where we're a bunch of big boys that are big boned, weigh a lot, we're big, we're red in the face, run super hot, sweaty, warm, etc. Now some of the other factors are appetite and thirst. Good appetite or excessive appetite sometimes in Chinese medicine is called stomach heat. Very very low or non-existent appetite is often called stomach cold. Very important and very different and those often occur with certain constitutions in general. Two other final factors are complexion and body type. People with a rosy red complexion are often more on the warm side of the spectrum and people with a pale pallor to them, ashen, kind of like how I am, are obviously more on the pale and usually the cold side of the spectrum. And then body type is one final way to assess constitution. Again these are all very generalized aspects, okay. I would not make a diagnosis of one to one on any of these but generally you see these to be true clinically. So these are very important to know because these are one of the main factors that predispose people to feeling thirsty or not thirsty. And let's talk about why that is in Chinese medicine specifically. So when we talk about someone who experiences thirst or no thirst, these are very useful clinically, at least for an herbalist. And it's a very specific reason. I want to give you the example of someone that I see quite a lot in my private practice which is the damp cold tendency constitution. This person is usually pale-faced, is usually prone to mucus or phlegm in their throat, always clearing their throat after eating. Sometimes they're just phlegmy, post-nasal drip, allergies, brain fog, this low-grade kind of pressure in their head, prone to bloating, prone to issues with their bowels. These are what Chinese medicine consider dampness. These are people who have issues with their mucus membranes, often with their sinuses as well or chronic sinusitis. It's a very common constitutional pattern. For these people, the mucosa are chronically too wet from a Chinese medicine perspective. And so they are very phlegmy types. You know the mucus in the throat, sometimes they have very fat swollen or scalloped tongues on the sides. These are signs of what we consider the spleen failing to transport because really the pathological factor of the spleen in Chinese medicine is dampness, so excessive moisture. Now the reason why these people are very often not thirsty is because, you guessed it, they are already too damp. But the dampness is really centered in the digestive system. So they may have lots of phlegm or mucus in their throat. They may have a runny nose all the time. They may have tons of bloating, tons of gas. They may have urinary dysfunction. Frequency. The body is already inundated with water that it cannot physiologically process well. And so when you give a formula that works on those on the mucosa, these people will then begin to experience either a healthier appetite or a more regular thirst. And that is because, again, there is already what we consider dampness or moisture that is there. Physiological moisture, but it's not being used properly. So the reason they are not thirsty and the reason why they should not drink a gallon of water a day is because it will worsen those problems. This idea of everyone should just drink a ton of water doesn't make much sense at all. This is kind of like very generic, I don't know, fitness trainer advice. Everyone should do this. Everyone should do that. The reason why these people are not thirsty is a very specific reason. And the body does not want more water because more water will make it feel worse. Now on the other side of the spectrum, you have a big old southern boy. He's big, big boned, built like a truck, sweaty, red face, runs hot. He's just drinking water, ravenously thirsty all the time. And that may be a product of his constitutional type or it may be factors related to lifestyle. But in general, what I see is with the damp type, these people are often putting down a lot of excessive water or a lot of excessive fluids and liquids that they don't really need because the body is already pretty inundated. So I thought that was kind of interesting how many people I see recommending drinking all this water. But clinically, the formulas that I'm using or in a class of formulas in Chinese medicine we call for people with impaired water metabolism. So it's very interesting when I see people recommending that. I'm thinking, no, but for the love of God, do the exact opposite. Don't not drink water, but drink, just drink water when you feel thirsty. And I think this is something that is underrated and again goes back to trusting the information your body is trying to tell you. Unless it is giving you really bad information like you're craving sugar as a diabetic, trust some of the signals that it is trying to give you. Random video, but I thought it was pretty cool, pretty interesting when I heard that myself as a practitioner. And I see it every day in my clinic and I am one of those damp wet types that is not that thirsty. All right you guys, before you go, again check out the two links below this video. One is for a free download for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. The second link is if you want to become a patient of mine locally or online via telemedicine. The link to my private practice and clinic is right below this video. All right, check out these two related videos and I'll catch you guys soon.