too much water

[bonniekins]

Is it possible to drink too much water every day?

[Penny]

Yes, you can absolutely drink too much water. In fact, you need to be careful not to overdo it. Yes, most people need to drink a lot more water than they actually are at the moment, but at the same time, you shouldn’t be chugging down the H2O at every moment. It’s especially important to just sip your water throughout the whole day instead of backing down full glasses of water at a time. If you drink too much, you risk feeling sick, you can lower your potassium too much, and you can end up with some overall health problems over time.

[PaulLo]

I've heard about people who are exercising and who drink too much water and who end up hurting their health.

[madscientist]

I had no idea that you could have too much water every day. Is that an easy mistake to make? Like, would one glass of water too many really make much of a difference if you keep it up over time? Or is it if you really chug down way too much and you do that sort of thing a lot? How do you know if you are drinking too much water? Are there symptoms that are obvious or is it easy to mistake them for other things? I guess it must be relatively hard to do since you don’t really hear about it. I’d never heard about it at all before.

[Kyra]

I think that when you have too much water you start to flush out too many parts of your nutrients, and even too much sodium will leave your body because they are all water soluble. So that could end up being hard on different parts of your body, including your kidneys. I think that’s pretty extreme, though. I don’t think that you’ll drink that much water by accident. You’ll start feeling waterlogged far before then unless you’re running a marathon or doing something intensely physical, when it’s harder to tell.