Human health necessitates the use of water. A human cannot live for more than a few days without water, and appropriate daily hydration is essential for healthy physiological function.
While most people think about hydration in terms of nutrition and activity, a growing body of research is looking at the relationship between hydration and sleep.
Dehydration may make it difficult to sleep, and not getting enough sleep might make you more dehydrated. At the same time, too much fluid consumption might lead to excessive urination, which can disrupt sleep.
Finding the appropriate fluid balance might help you feel better overall and sleep better without having to go to the toilet often or waking up dehydrated.
What's the Connection Between Sleep and Hydration?
Dehydration affects various physiological systems, which is why it may cause a variety of symptoms, including sleep disturbances.
People who are severely dehydrated frequently feel excessively weary, sluggish, or fatigued1. Other dehydration symptoms, such as headaches, dry lips, and nasal passages, and muscular cramps, also make it difficult to sleep comfortably.
Excessive hydration, on the other hand, might lead to sleeping issues. Nocturia, or frequent urine during the night, may disrupt sleep by requiring many visits to the restroom. Nocturia may be particularly bothersome for persons who have trouble falling back asleep after getting out of bed.
Dehydration may also be exacerbated by a lack of sleep, according to research. Persons who slept just six hours each night had much greater rates of dehydration than people who slept eight hours, according to a study of over 20,000 adults in the United States and China.
While this was observational research with no way of proving causation, the fact that the link occurred in two different cultural settings lends credibility to the results. Furthermore, there may be physiologic reasons why a lack of sleep might impact hydration.
The body loses the majority of its water via urine, but it also loses fluid through the skin and breathing, which is referred to as insensible water loss. Breathing loses roughly 300-400 milliliters of water throughout the course of a day. A significant portion of the loss occurs when sleeping, however, the quantity varies depending on whether a person breathes mostly through their mouth or via their nose.
Because there is no fluid intake during sleep to compensate for insensible water loss, it is thought that the body's internal clock, or circadian rhythm, steps in to maintain a healthy level of hydration. Circadian signals lead the body to release a hormone called vasopressin, which increases water retention, in the latter stages of sleep.
This normal process may be affected if sleep is interrupted or cut short, interfering with the hormonal signals that cause water retention. As a consequence, sleep deprivation may cause dehydration directly.
How to Stay Hydrated While Sleeping
It's natural for the body to lose water throughout the night, but there are precautions you can take to avoid dehydration.
Concentrate on Getting Enough Sleep
Preventing dehydration requires a significant quantity of high-quality sleep. During sleep, the body goes through a number of complicated processes that allow for general health recuperation. Allowing these processes to occur and allowing your circadian rhythm to properly maintain your body's fluid levels is made possible by sleeping the correct amount.
Making sleep a priority is a good way to start sleeping better. Having a regular sleep pattern that allows you to obtain the sleep you need is a common premise of sleep hygiene. Other examples of good sleep hygiene include limiting late-night electronic device usage, having a soothing bedtime ritual, and sleeping on a comfy mattress.
Ensure that you stay hydrated throughout the day.
If you're regularly thirsty at night, it's possible you're not keeping hydrated throughout the day. You'll have less to worry about when sleep comes around if you stay hydrated during the day. The following are some hydration suggestions:
- Drinking fluids on a regular basis, including creating a schedule reminder if you have trouble remembering to do so.
- Using a water bottle to keep a drink close at hand and keep track of how much water you've drunk.
- Drinking water as your main beverage and avoiding sugary beverages such as soda or juice, as well as caffeinated and alcoholic beverages.
- Eating a well-balanced diet that includes lots of fruits and vegetables, which contain more moisture and may help you obtain more water from meals.
Find a Room Temperature That Is Comfortable
Perspiration throughout the night may cause water loss, and if your bedroom is too warm or you sleep hot, excessive sweating might make you more likely to wake up dehydrated.
To prevent this, make sure you can easily maintain a suitable temperature all night long. The majority of experts advise keeping your bedroom thermostat set at a lower temperature. You may also avoid overheating by wearing light, loose clothes and using breathable bedding.
During the night, stay hydrated without urinating often
Knowing how to keep hydrated when sleeping without having to get up regularly to go to the toilet is a typical difficulty. There are a few things you can do to prevent dehydration and frequent visits to the bathroom:
- Reduce your fluid intake an hour or two before bedtime. While sipping water is OK, avoid consuming big amounts of any beverage in the hours leading up to night.
- At night, stay away from alcohol and caffeine. Both of these may have a diuretic effect, causing you to wake up in the middle of the night to pee. Additionally, alcohol and caffeine might disrupt your natural sleep pattern and quality of sleep.
- In the evening, elevate your legs. When you're laying down, your body reabsorbs water from your legs, which causes some overnight urination. You may enable this procedure to take place without disrupting your sleep if you raise your legs a few hours before bed.
- Before you go to bed, make sure you pee. Empty your bladder as part of your bedtime ritual to reduce the likelihood of a significant need to pee throughout the night.
It may be inevitable in certain instances for you to have to get up at least once throughout the night to pee. Many individuals experience this, and it gets more prevalent as they age, as well as as a result of certain medical problems or drugs.
It's critical in this case to make it as simple as possible to fall back to sleep after you've returned to bed. Here are a few easy methods to help you fall asleep again:
- When you go to the restroom, use a low-wattage and/or motion-activated night light so you don't have to switch on a lot of lights.
- Maintaining a clear route to the restroom that is free of obstacles that may cause you to trip or collide with anything.
- When you wake up, resist the impulse to check your phone or any other electronic gadget.
- Using a sleep mask, white noise machine, or earplugs if required to block out as much light and sound as possible.
- Creating a simple relaxation practise, such as taking a series of deep, controlled breaths.
Consult a Physician
Consult your doctor if you're concerned about frequent dehydration, poor sleep, or numerous midnight excursions to the toilet. Examining your scenario might help you figure out whether you have an underlying medical problem that could be causing your symptoms. Your doctor may also provide particular dietary and water intake suggestions.
