At the risk of stating the obvious, hydration is thirsty work right now. Perhaps you’ve noticed the endless TikTok videos on the subject. Or the sports drinks flooding the market, promising scientifically engineered liquids that increase your ‘performance’ like the oil in a car.
Then there are the hydro homies. A subpopulation of the wellness bro, hydro homies are people who take their fluids extremely seriously.
They add salt to their tap water, track their liquid intake via phone apps, and walk around with water bottles the size of modest ground-to-air missile launchers.
It’s tempting to mock but they’re not wrong, of course. Hydration is a serious business. The brain, the kidneys, the heart, the muscles: all of them like a drink. In fact, every cell that makes up your body requires water to function.
And if you’re not getting enough, it shows. In 2023, a National Institutes of Health study in the US found that people who aren’t sufficiently hydrated age faster. They’re also more susceptible to chronic disease and are even at a greater risk of early death.
