#electrolytes

About a year ago, I started supplementing magnesium. It's been literally life changing. I've been working on a lot of issues with my health – asthma, migraines, fibromyalgia – but if I could only keep one fix I think it would be this one. 

(I'm glad I don't have to actually pick. You can pry my migraine medications out of my cold, dead hands.)

So, basically there is two aspects to "drinking too much". One is that, indeed, you can drink so much that your kidneys cannot keep up with it. And what happens in that case is that basically a bunch of important osmosis stuff in your body gets unbalanced because it is diluted too much, and that is bad. Though admittedly: if you are a healthy adult, it is indeed quite hard to drink too much. It is possible. But under normal conditions it is very hard.

The bigger danger is exercise associated hyponatremia.

For this you gotta understand a big thing about exercise: when you exercise and use your muscles and everything, your body basically enters exercise mode. Which means it knows you will expend a bunch of energy, and also will likely heat up a bit, meaning that your body knows it will have to cool you down. So it basically says: "for the moment sweating is our priority". Which also means that it kinda lowers the energy put into the kidneys for the moment, because you need that water to sweat.

Only that... this obviously means the water does not get excreted as much. And due to the misinformation largely spread by gatorade as part of their marketing campaign, people often drink too much while working out, creating hyponatremia.

As you might notice: hyponatremia means you are low on sodium (natrium). But is not because you did not take enough sodium in many cases, but because you took in too much water. In almost all hyponatremia cases in healthy adults it is due to them drinking too much while working out and their electrolytes becoming unbalanced. And yes, that even happens when you drink the sports drinks that usually put sodium into your system.

They did a study on several marathons. And in many cases 20-30% of the runners were hyponatremic due to having ingested too much fluids.

So, yes. You can drink too much.

I really cannot stress it enough: drink when you are thirsty. If you drink when you are thirsty until you are not thirsty anymore, then you have drunken enough. With, again, the caveat obviously being that is you are on somehow disregulating medications (which can include a bunch of psychoactive medications) that might shift your sense of thirst, hunger, and other base instincts.

Drinking enough water can make you piss a lot. Especially if you're not used to it. So that's not inherently a bad sign! But if you're worried, the best way to determine your relative hydration level is by elevaluating the color of your urine.

Pale yellow or clear urine are signs of healthy hydration levels. The brighter yellow your urine is, the less hydrated you are. If your urine is a dark yellow you are badly dehydrated.

However caveat that certain medications can also affect the color of your urine, so if you are taking any medications check to see if they can affect your urine color before relying on this test.

If you're worried that you're not getting adequately hydrated from the water you're drinking, you can drink more electrolytes!

You can do this by drinking pre made electrolyte drinks or you could drink coconut water or dairy milk which are both great sources of naturally occurring electrolytes.

You can also add electrolytes directly to your water to make it more hydrating. Try adding the tiniest sprinkle of sea salt in your water, about an 1/8tsp but the right amount will vary slightly person to person and even day to day. If the water tastes salty, you've added too much.

Pour it out and reduce the amount of salt. It may change the flavor of the water to some degree but it should not actually taste salty. You can also add and fruits like watermelon, citrus, strawberries, or ginger (an incomplete list)

You can just eat more of those fruits to improve your hydration, but if your goal is to specifically make your water more hydrating, making water infusions as mentioned above is a great option.