Hydration in the Workplace and Why It’s Important

Why You Need to Keep Your Workforce Hydrated

When you’re in the office working on multiple projects, sometimes hydration can be the last thing on your mind. Between emails and phone calls and spreadsheets, it’s easy to forget to drink water. Before you know it, it’s the end of the day, and you’ve only had one coffee all day. You might not think this is doing you any harm, but it is. Dehydration is dangerous and can also affect your productivity. If you find it hard to concentrate at work, this might be why.

Staying hydrated is important for your body and your mind. Water helps to regulate your body temperature and keep your muscles and heart healthy. It helps improve focus and enhances cognitive performance while minimising aches, pains and tiredness. Without water, you may experience fatigue, dry mouth, cramps and headaches. All these negative side effects, if you’re dehydrated in the workplace, will stop you from being able to work as efficiently as possible.

Studies suggest a serious link between dehydration and decreased cognition. “Even a mild dehydration might have a significant impact on work capacity and productivity,” says Giuseppe Faraco, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College. A loss of water or dehydration can affect flow to the blood vessels around the body. This specifically affects the blood vessels in the brain leading to poor short-term memory, attention and reaction times.

How Billi Can Help

Not only is dehydration physically dangerous, if you don’t make sure your workplace understand the importance of hydration, their work could suffer.  Without realising, if staff members don’t drink enough fluids, their brain’s functioning can be hindered. To combat this, ensure staff stay hydrated and educated! Install Billi systems across the workplace to ensure that hot and cold water is available at the touch of a button. Billi systems also run at a fraction of the price of traditional water coolers. While keeping your staff at peak hydration and productivity, you’re also saving money.

Drinking water can result in a 14% increase in productivity. Keeping your workforce hydrated benefits everyone. Providing fresh, clean drinking water is a legal responsibility for any employer. However, why not go one step further and put your employees first. If you install a Billi system, you take away the need to wait for the kettle to boil. There’s also no more queues for the water cooler, and there’s the added excitement of sparkling water on demand too.

Other Ways to Stay Hydrated

As well as drinking water, there are other ways you can stay hydrated at work.

Eating a healthy balanced diet that is full of fruit and veggies is one of the primary ways, as your body can take in water through food too. Around 20% of our daily consumption of liquids comes from food. So try to include hydrating fruits and veggies into your diet. Foods like cucumber, celery, carrot, watermelon etc will all help you stay alert and hydrated!

Avoid foods that are dehydrating. It may be easy to sip on a can of coke, but this is not good for you. Processed food and drink is known for being dehydrating. This is because the sugars found in these foods require a lot of water to break down and metabolise. If you’ve had a few drinks the night before, and aren’t feeling too fresh, it’s likely you’ve got a hangover. Hangovers are your body’s way of telling you that you’re dehydrated. Drinking lots of water is key to replenishing those lost electrolytes.

If you struggle to stay hydrated at work, why not bring in your own bottle. Having to refill your glass or mug over the course of the day is easy to forget. Having a large drinking bottle sat on your desk all day should remind you to drink enough. Bringing your own non-disposable bottle prevents multiple trips to the tap, and also prevents plastic waste by reducing the need for disposable water bottles.

Some people just don’t like water. This can mean that they don’t drink enough water. A good way of changing this is encouraging them to infuse the water with something else. Why not try sparkling water from your Billi tap with strawberry and cucumber? Refreshing and tasty. You might not even know it’s water!

Benefits of Hydration

Staying hydrated at work means higher levels of productivity and motivation. If you’re struggling with that mid-afternoon slump, why not reach for a glass of water. Try and hydrate yourself before snacking or drinking hot beverages. Sometimes, your body can think it’s hungry when it’s actually just thirsty. If you keep hydrated and always have a bottle of water with you, you might stop snacking so much. Losing weight can be easier when you keep drinking water and stop your food cravings!

Aside from the obvious of keeping your body and mind healthy, there are more reasons to drink water.

Drink Water For These Reasons…

One of the main benefits of drinking enough water is that it can help to improve your sleep. Your body does most of its reparation while you sleep. Drinking water before bed allows your body to replenish your organs and systems overnight. This means you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, rather than exhausted.

Water is known for strengthening immune systems. If your body can’t flush out toxins, then you’re more likely to get ill. Without water, there is no way to flush these toxins out. Staying hydrated is key to a healthy immune system.

Improved energy is something many people forget about water. It can act as a natural energiser and prevent fatigue. This is especially important if you have an active job. Your body loses water through sweat, so make sure to replenish it by drinking enough.

We often consider physical health when talking about hydration. However, mental health is affected by hydration too. Dehydration can lead to poor moods or feelings or confusion or irritability. If you’re suffering from any of these – make sure you stay hydrated.

Headaches make it incredibly hard to concentrate, especially when you’re at work. Headaches can also be a tell-tale sign of dehydration. Unfortunately, the tell-tale signs of dehydration often occur after the negative effects have taken place.

The best way to ensure your staff stay hydrated is to have several water points around the building. It’s also important to have refillable non-plastic bottles or glasses available to reduce plastic waste. If your workforce is educated on the danger of dehydration, they’re more likely to remember to drink. Stay hydrated, stay productive!