Summer fun means sunshine, cookouts, traveling, and making lots of memories. All too often, however, lack of preparation, awareness, and action creates discomfort, injury, or even worse. While it is not the answer to everything, there is one concept to remember that can help you get the most out of your summer: WATER! Here are two specific ways to use and enjoy water:
Hydrate Hydrate Hydrate
According to the Cleveland Clinic, “If you’re thirsty, you’re already mildly dehydrated, and that can cause symptoms
like headache, fatigue, dizziness, and more. Dehydration can contribute to life-threatening illnesses like heatstroke.”
How often do you feel thirsty, experience headaches, fatigue, or dizziness in the summer (or any other day)? The number one way to prevent these symptoms before they start is to drink water consistently! Not only do we feel more energized and present throughout the day, consistently consuming enough water helps aid our digestion and eliminate waste, lubricates our joints, balances body chemicals to help in hormone and neurotransmitter development, regulates our body temperature, and so much more.
So what’s the “sweet” amount of water for YOU to drink to stay hydrated? Drink half your body weight in ounces. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, your daily goal is 100 ounces of water. Keep in mind how mobile you are, if you’re sweating, and if you have any medical conditions or take any medications that require you to consume more! If you are way below your mark, gradually increase your intake every few days – let your body get used to it. Any lifestyle change is a process.
Tip: Drink 8-16 ounces of room temperature water before doing anything else in the morning!
This not only sets the tone for your day, but research has shown an early morning glass of water to help with
premature aging, alleviating pain, weight loss, improves digestion and blood circulation, and the list could go on.
So, what are you waiting for? Go get some water!
Swim Float Survive
According to the CDC, “Drowning is the number one cause of accidental death for infants and young children between the ages of 1-4.”
And while children are most at risk, “anyone can drown.”
Between bath time and baby pools, kids learn to love the water. And it’s no wonder. Swimming pools provide hours of fun, whether you’re competing in the 100m freestyle, having cannon ball competitions with your friends, splashing your parents, or simply playing with fun water toys! The challenge, however, is that air is not free… and many of the shortcuts we take to have fun prevent us from learning our own weight in the water and how to work for the air we need to survive.
Infant Swim Resource (ISR) provides a multi-layered approach to water safety, including Survival Swim Lessons! These lessons help young children (as young as six months old) understand their body weight in the water – in order to get air, it takes work. Floaties and puddle jumpers teach a virtual posture that doesn’t require work versus learning a survival float or “swim-float-swim” technique that can get them to safety. Water fun should be just that, fun – but even more importantly, safe…without assistance of toys or floatation devices!
Tip: Check out the Family Aquatic Safety List to review tips for safety in/around the pool, hot tub, bathtub, boat and lake, and the beach.
Keep your summer safe and fun with (and in or around) water!!
