Do you know all the benefits of water? This essential substance greatly enhances our physical, mental and spiritual lives. That’s pretty amazing for a tiny molecule composed of just two elements – two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen.
What’s so good about water? Starting from the inside out:
It ensures healthy body function
When the cells in your body have enough water, every aspect of your health improves, from joint and spinal health to the ability to fend off disease and absorb nutrients from the food you eat, not to mention your brain function and ability to think. Either too much or too little water can make you feel sick, drowsy or weak – every action your body attempts suffers.
Beyond the vital task of bringing in the good stuff, water helps flush out the bad stuff. Solid and liquid wastes leave the body through our excretory systems through water – and did you know that includes sweat? Call it gross or simply au naturel, sweat does important double duty by simultaneously pushing toxins out through skin pores and maintains a healthy core temperature. That’s especially good reason to drink water as you exercise, no matter the temperature outside.
Water is a cleaning agent
And once you’re done, who doesn’t love a refreshing shower in the summer or a hot bath in the winter? Cleansing is just one more of water’s benefits.
It supports your exercise regimen
Wait, don’t forget the pool!
Physical interaction with water has always been part of the human experience and a whole range of water sports are part of many people’s fitness routines: swimming, water-skiing, surfing, paddle-boarding and water aerobics are just a few of the beneficial water activities humans have enjoyed, many of them for centuries.
There are aquatic activities for participants from age 0 to 120. Pool-based and open-water programs are especially popular because they develop and maintain muscle strength and endurance, counteracting the combined effects of sedentary living and aging, all the while protecting your joints, meaning reduced chance of injury on land.
Water is naturally therapeutic
Water can also be a cure: the therapeutic benefits of water are evident from the popularity of diverse healing practices that incorporate it throughout the world, from thermal baths to wet and dry saunas, to Turkish baths and ice pools.
Healthy body function, cleanliness, exercise and therapeutic value are all physical benefits of water, but we also connect with this precious material on an even deeper level.
Mental and spiritual benefits
Our spiritual relationship with water is part of the reason walks along the beach and rooms with views of coasts and lakes are so popular.
Even the sound of water is calming.The tones of waves and streams are a natural aid for reflection, concentration and sleep, audible in nature, offices and sleeping rooms. Each culture reveres water and uses it to pacify, strengthen and purify in its own way – a profound testament to our enduring relationship with this precious resource. It holds profound and foundational significance for us and our most ancient memories identify water as a vital necessity for our well-being and for that of our planet.
The very existence of water is the defining difference between our habitable earth and the rest of our universe. We need water physically, spiritually and existentially… and we always have. Today, we treasure water as an endangered natural resource and fear its mighty power, knowing we have only partially tamed this natural force through modern engineering. Floods, storms and droughts still remind us that our relationship with this precious fluid is tenuous and commands respect.
One way of instituting respect for and preserving this natural resource is coming into contact with it. Experiencing the nourishing, refreshing nature of water is a good way to remember how precious it is.
At AIRE, you can immerse yourself in water and all of its benefits. Here, fresh, clean water is available to you to drink and refresh yourself and enjoy the therapeutic thermal baths that assuage your weary body. Blissful calm offers mental and spiritual benefits as you delve into pools and sense the change of temperature and humidity in the air. Come to AIRE and experience the benefits of water.
