Been seeing that you should keep drinking until your pee is clear, but its quite astounding how quickly the pee turns dark. Like just 4h of no water or eating a meal will turn it dark. If water is needed so often how do people of the past (who probably don’t have that frequent access to water) even live?
In: Biology
The human ability to sweat is part of what makes us such a superior long-range endurance species. It’s also what makes us terrible by nature in hot temps in arid environments (deserts), because it’s a struggle to replace that lost moisture.
Wolves, lions, tigers, etc., don’t sweat. This limits their endurance hunting significantly, but it also means their water requirements are far lower.
Also, you don’t need to drink until your pee is clear and that often is counterproductive as it means you lose an excessive amount of electrolytes (sodium/potassium/magnesium), which also need to be replenished. You should generally keep drinking regularly if your pee is anything more than a very light yellow though.
A moderate level of dehydration isn’t going to kill anyone, at least not quickly. Were our ancient ancestors living with suboptimal hydration levels between times they could get to a water source? Perhaps. But you don’t need things to be perfect to live.
The color of your pee is an indicator. You are not dehydrating to any unhealthy level after 4h of not drinking.
Humans can survive 2 days without water, thats not healthy anymore, but mlre than 10 times as long as you expected. Is that still too much? Compared to many other animals thats a normal time.
Humans are quite literally the sweatiest animals on earth. During exercise a person can sweat out 0.5-2 litres of water per hour, and even while being relatively sedentary you can sweat out 3 litres in a day. As for access to water it will vary from region to region, but depending on diet you can get a good amount of water from the food you eat. Ancient peoples in arid regions had and still have a vast wealth of knowledge when it comes to sources of moisture, that may come in the form of certain roots that have a high water content or eating certain plants, or just being able to read the land to know where a small pocket of water is hiding.
To be clear I’m no expert in these things, just going off the limited knowledge I have and I’m hoping someone can add to this!
A few things.
First off, there’s a substantial gap between “less than ideally hydrated” and “dangerously dehydrated.”
Secondly, people had a lot of access to water in the past. Water sources are necessary to grow crops and to raise animals, many of which require a lot more water per day than any person.
As for how people in history survived, well, a lot of them didn’t.
You’re conflating a few basic facts. Dehydration does not mean you are dying. You’re not dead after 4 hours of not drinking water. Humans can survive 2-3 days without water.
The purpose of replenishing fluids frequently is to maintain optimal hydration – think of it as topping up your fluids. Once you go for a few hours without hydrating, your body begins to deteriorate in function, which you will recognise through symptoms like lack of focus, heads, tiredness, drowsiness, etc. You’re not dying, but you’ll start being cranky and tired.
People in the past did have access to water. There’s a reason why civilisation grew around rivers and lakes.
1. Our bodies are like machines, and water is the fuel that keeps them running.
2. People lose water throughout the day. When we breathe, sweat, piss, or cry, we’re losing water like a bucket with a hole in.
3. On hot days or when we play outside, we sweat a lot. Sweating helps cool us down, but it also means we’re losing water.
4. Sometimes we get sick, and our bodies fight off germs. When we have a fever, we get hotter, and that makes us lose even more water.
5. Sometimes we forget to drink enough water. If we don’t drink enough, we become like a dried-up plant.
Also don’t drink until your piss is clear that’s very unnecessary
Your pee should not be clear. That’s bad.
A nephrologist once said “drink when you are thirsty. Your body tells you these things.”
Your kidneys do a job filtering your blood. You don’t want brown pee or clear pee.
If your urine is clear, you are losing electrolytes for no reason.
Drink when you are thirsty. Our bodies usually know better than our minds.
You don’t really need to observe the color of you pee in order to avoid dehydration in any significant sense. Obsessing over a specific water intake that is perceived as *good* is a fairly new trend.
People were fine before because the human body is really good at telling you when you need to drink (and also when you don’t need to). So unless you can’t drink or actively resist drinking for some reason, a good rule is to “drink when you’re thirsty”.
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