Water is truly the elixir of life! Up to sixty percent of your body is water, playing a role in everything from digestion, absorption of nutrients and even excretion. It also helps to maintain a normal body temperature and is critical in eliminating waste material from the body. And warm water, research shows, can take these benefits up several notches. But is it worth giving up your cold water and switching to warm water instead?
If you kick start your day by drinking a glass of pure warm water, fat deposits and toxins circulating in the blood are eliminated from the body. It can help you assist with nasal/throat congestion, ease constipation (add lemon and honey to it!), boost digestion. It is an easy tactics to crank up your metabolism to aid weight loss goals and reduce cholesterol quickly.
Bid Mucus Accumulation Goodbye
A warm beverage can decrease the accumulation of mucus in your nose, throat and gastrointestinal tract, lowering the chance that viruses or bacteria will grow there. This was established in a study on the effect of hot water, cold water, and chicken soup consumption. Sipping on hot water helped improve nasal mucus velocity up to 8.4 mm per min, compared to its earlier 6.2 mm per min, indicating the utility of drinking hot water in keeping mucus moving.
Boost Digestion
Warm water can have a mild vasodilatory effect, that is, it causes blood vessels to dilate and lowers blood pressure, which in turn improves digestion. Because the temperature of your stomach is generally high, when you drink a warm beverage along with your food, it helps to break it down more easily.
In addition, warm water can ease swallowing for some people. A study has found sipping hot water helped people with esophageal motility disorders. The condition causes you to regurgitate food and makes it difficult to swallow. Cold water doesn’t help the swallowing, but drinking hot water does.
Improve Metabolism
Drinking warm water can increase body temperature, which inches your metabolic rate up. It also helps your kidneys and your gastrointestinal tract do their job better. And that’s good news for anyone hoping to crank up their metabolism or lose weight.
Drink Warm Water For The Pleasure Of It
Warm water doesn’t just feel good to a sore throat or on a wintry day. As it turns out, it can actually make you feel pleasurable sensations anytime! When you drink hot water, receptors in your mouth and throat, and intestines and stomach, stimulate the pleasure center in the brain. Most of us naturally crave the comfort of a warm beverage in the morning. Did you know that just holding a warm beverage in your hands can make you a friendlier person? The theory is that our brain processes warmth in the same area that processes our judgments about other people. So holding a warm drink can make you think that other people are “warmer.”
Relieve Constipation
Homeopathy recommends drinking warm water for anyone who has a constipation problem. It also advocates adding honey or lemon to warm water to ease constipation. The British Homeopathic Association suggests having a glass of warm water as soon as you wake up before you have breakfast.
Cleanse And Purify Your Blood
Ayurveda, the Indian system of holistic medicine, advises you to start the day with a drink of warm water that has been kept in a copper vessel overnight. This is supposed to help purify the blood and eliminate waste. Copper has a cooling effect on the liver and anti-aging properties.
It also advocates sipping hot water throughout the day. Doing this helps the body stay hydrated and flushes out waste. It is thought that heating the water speeds up all the processes involved.
Prevents premature ageing
In addition to cleansing your body of toxins, warm water increases your skin’s elasticity and enhances its ability to perform repairs, thereby reducing the signs of premature ageing such as wrinkles, dry skin and dark patches.
Fight Obesity and Cholesterol Problems
A glass of hot water with a teaspoon of lime juice and a teaspoon of honey mixed in, taken in the morning, is considered useful for obesity and cholesterol.10
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) also advocates drinking warm water to improve digestion and keep the bowels healthy. According to TCM, warm water can also help break down fats in your food and keep you slim. To consume it the traditional way, keep a flask of hot water at hand through the day, pouring it over tea leaves and drinking between meals whenever hunger strikes. Do not drink it right after a meal, keeping a bit of a gap for best effects.