How Hydration Impacts Your Productivity

Here at Office H2O, we’ve discussed the health benefits of staying hydrated before. Hydration impacts physical performance, significantly affects brain function, and can even aid in weight loss, just to name a few. But did you know that your level of hydration can impact your productivity? That’s right, how much water you drink may actually affect your ability to be productive and get everything done over the course of your workday.

With many of us still working from home for the time being, staying productive can be difficult, and we need all the help that we can get. Today, Office H2O will be explaining the way that hydration impacts productivity and what you can do to experience the benefits!

How Hydration Benefits Productivity

When you consider the fact that a whopping 73% of the human brain is actually water, it isn’t much of a surprise that hydration would also have an impact on your cognitive performance. In fact, research has shown that even mild dehydration (a body water loss of between 1%- 2%) impairs cognitive performance. Another study in 2013 uncovered that its participants who drank water showed an overall boosted productivity level of around 14%.

To better understand the way hydration impacts our productivity, it may be more helpful to look at how dehydration hinders our ability to be productive. Studies have shown that just 1% dehydration has been found to decrease worker productivity by a total of 12%. Even worse, 3%-4% dehydration can bring as much of a decline as 25% in worker productivity. This proves the importance of staying hydrated in terms of doing your best work possible! Next, let’s look at a few specific ways that our minds become less productive when we’re dehydrated.

Delayed Reaction Time

One of the biggest ways that dehydration impacts our abilities is in that it can slow a person’s reaction time to the same extent as .08 blood alcohol content. At this level, you are up to five times more likely to be in a car accident, for example. For this reason, not only would a 3% dehydration level impact workplace productivity, but it would also make an employee much more likely to suffer a workplace accident.

Impaired Mental and Physical Performance

Dehydration also impacts productivity because it can reduce mental and physical performance. There are a variety of things that can result in water loss, including stress and workload. One of the most common causes of dehydration in the workplace is actually found in air conditioning. Air conditioning causes low water content in the atmosphere, leading to increased water loss through the skin and the lungs. This lack of hydration can result in symptoms that affect productivity, including loss of concentration, headaches, and tiredness. Staying hydrated is crucial to avoid these threats to your productivity levels.

How Much Water Should You Be Drinking?

Now that you know the benefits of drinking enough water to stay hydrated so that you can be the most productive, how much water should you be drinking? The common belief is that we should drink up to 8 glasses of water per day, but this isn’t the most plausible option for everyone.

While there may not be a one-size-fits-all solution to exactly how much water you should be drinking due to factors such as exercise level, age, gender, and body type, there is a calculator you can use to find the right answer for you. Using this calculator, you can determine your liquid intake. This calculator takes into account your height, weight, age, gender, and level of physical activity to give you the best estimate of how much water you should be drinking on a daily basis.

Hydration Made Simple with Office H2O

Looking for a way to make hydration as easy as possible? Of course you are! Thankfully, Office H2O is here to offer the solution. The importance of maintaining a healthy body and mind cannot be understated in terms of productivity. To avoid the negative side effects associated with dehydration that can hinder your job performance, you must drink plenty of water! That’s where our bottleless water systems come into play.

Our bottleless water systems make drinking an adequate amount of water simple and convenient. Pick out the right system for you and stay hydrated, giving your productivity levels a boost! There are many reasons to love our systems aside from convenience and simplicity. For one, each of our systems features a 9-stage filtration process to ensure that your water is always clean, fresh, and ready to enjoy. Take a look at our selection of systems today and find the one that works best for your home or office! You’ll be happy that you did.

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