Water Water Everywhere But You're Probably Not Drinking Enough!
Water, Water Everywhere... But You're Probably Not Drinking Enough!
Your brain operates on two systems.
System 1: Fast, intuitive, automatic. This is autopilot. It handles everything you do without thinking—driving in traffic, brushing your teeth, scrolling your phone.
System 2: Slow, deliberate, conscious. This requires effort. It's the part of your brain you use when learning something new or making complex decisions.
Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow explores how almost everything starts as System 2 (exhausting, conscious effort) and eventually becomes System 1 (effortless, automatic).
Think about learning to drive. The first time, it was overwhelming—mirrors, pedals, steering, traffic. Now you can drive for an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic and not remember how you got home. System 1 took over.
Here's the problem: your System 1 autopilot is programmed by mass media, advertising, and cultural defaults designed to keep you addicted to products that wreck your health.
The autopilot isn't broken. It's just following faulty instructions.
The good news: System 2 can override System 1. It takes effort—about 66 days of consistent effort to reprogram the autopilot. But it works.
And one of the simplest, highest-impact habits you can reprogram is drinking enough water.
You're Dehydrated (Even If You Don't Feel It)
Most people are chronically dehydrated. Not severely enough to pass out, but enough to degrade energy, cognition, digestion, and metabolism.
Your System 1 autopilot doesn't prioritize hydration. It prioritizes coffee, soda, convenience. You don't feel thirsty until dehydration is already affecting performance.
The baseline you should aim for: 2/3 of your body weight in ounces of water daily.
Example: If you weigh 240 lbs, you need 160 ounces (about 1.25 gallons) per day.
If you weigh 150 lbs, you need 100 ounces per day.
This isn't extreme. It's the minimum for optimal function.
The Morning Water Habit
Here's the simplest way to reprogram your hydration autopilot:
Drink 24-33 ounces of water first thing when you wake up.
Not after breakfast. Not after coffee. First thing.
Wake up → Pee → Drink water. Or better: keep water by your bed and drink it before you get up.
Why This Works
1. You're already dehydrated when you wake up.
You lose water overnight through respiration and perspiration. Your organs, glands, and tissues are running on reserve by morning.
2. It kick-starts your lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system (your waste removal network) relies on hydration to flush toxins. Morning water gets it moving.
3. It stimulates bowel motility.
If you're "slow" in the morning, water on an empty stomach activates peristalsis and helps you eliminate waste.
4. It supports fat metabolism.
Proper hydration is required for lipolysis (fat breakdown). Dehydration impairs your ability to burn fat efficiently.
5. It sets the habit for the rest of the day.
When you start the day hydrated, you're more likely to continue drinking water throughout the day. System 1 learns the new pattern.
How to Make This Stupidly Easy
Step 1: Fill a large glass or bottle with 24-33 ounces of water the night before.
Step 2: Add a pinch of high-quality sea salt to the water. (This provides electrolytes and helps the water actually hydrate your cells instead of flushing straight through.)
Step 3: Place it by your bed.
Step 4: Drink it when you wake up.
That's it. I tried to make this harder and couldn't.
Water Quality Matters
Drinking enough water is step one. Drinking the right KIND of water is step two.
Tap water is contaminated with fluoride, chlorine, chloramines, and heavy metals. These compounds disrupt thyroid function, compete with iodine absorption, and accumulate in tissues over time.
Not all bottled water is the same. Reverse osmosis and distilled water strip out minerals, leaving you with water that passes through your system without properly hydrating cells.
Mineral water, spring water, or properly filtered water with minerals restored is what your body actually uses for hydration.
If you're chugging 160 ounces of demineralized RO water daily, you're peeing it all out and staying dehydrated. Quality matters as much as quantity.
Your Challenge This Week
Drink 24-33 ounces of water first thing every morning for the next 7 days.
Set up the water the night before. Add a pinch of sea salt. Drink it before you do anything else.
Then work your way up to 2/3 of your body weight in ounces throughout the day.
System 2 will resist. It's lazy and prefers to let System 1 run the show. But if you consciously override the autopilot for 66 days, the new habit becomes automatic.
Your health doesn't nosedive because of one bad decision. It nosedives because your autopilot is flying in the wrong direction and you haven't taken manual control.
Hydration is one of the simplest levers you can pull to course-correct.
For more on building sustainable health habits and supporting your body's regulatory systems, visit the Regulate Your System pillar page.
Struggling with chronic fatigue, brain fog, or digestive issues despite "doing everything right"? Dr. JJ Gregor uses Applied Kinesiology to identify underlying imbalances—including hydration status and mineral deficiencies—in his Frisco, Texas practice. Schedule a consultation to identify what your body actually needs.
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