Water and Brains

Perhaps it's just a coincidence but for the past two nights, following days when I've made a conscious effort to drink a lot more water, I've had some extremely vivid dreams. Last night's dream involved having to have a kitten's front leg and paw reattached by Andi Peters, a children's TV presenter from my youth, who was in Newcastle when I called him, while I was in Manchester.  For some dreamy reason Andi Peters was the only qualified veterinary surgeon in the country at the time.  Meanwhile, I was having a massive mental breakdown as I was about to perform in the debut of a Shakespeare play.  A previously unperformed Shakespeare play, so there was a lot riding on it.  In my distress, I forgot all of my lines and had to be replaced by an understudy.  Thankfully, the operation went well, and then John MacDonnell very kindly took me back to his house for spaghetti bolognese.  Then I woke up.

Get out of my head, Andi Peters

I don't remember my dream from the night before that, but it was just as strange.  I woke up feeling...refreshed.  As if my brain had defragmented overnight, freeing up space for the processing and joy of new experience. I wonder if this isn't coincidence because you always hear at this time of year well-meaning so-and-so's reminding you how important it is to drink more water.  Annoying though such people may be (I'm one of them) they are of course right (as annoying people often are.  Especially me).  I can't find any statistics for the UK but a few years ago it was widely reported that 75% of Americans are "chronically dehydrated".  Americans are human beings, despite whatever impression you may have been given, so it's likely that a similar majority of humans elsewhere are dehydrated too.  Recent NHS guidance advises that 35% of people admitted to care homes (i.e. the elderly and otherwise vulnerable) are malnourished, and that a whopping 95% of those living "in the community" (that is, independently) are the same.  "Dehydration is also common although the numbers affected are less clear".

If most of us are dehydrated, that means that most of us may have poorer cognitive functioning (including short term memory loss, decreased concentration and poorer decision-making) worse overall psychological health and a range of physical deficiencies from headaches to kidney problems.  Or possibly not, it's not 100% certain: but such is the nature of science.  And, indeed, of everything else.  Concerns of popular scaremongering have also been raised. As for me, when I drink water in the morning, I feel good.  When I drink water before I go to bed, I wake up feeling good.  I am also a human, and so are you.  Therefore drink more water. Some other thoughts on the subject of water: Water has existed on this planet for 4.6 billion years.  It is a fundamental prerequisite of all life.  For an inconceivably long stretch of time, all of the water that exists on earth has been the same water, endlessly recycled by the biosphere.  This is something worth meditating on. Many of us are dehydrated, the population of the earth continues to grow, and fresh water shortages are of serious global concern.  Plausibly, they are triggering new incidents of human misery even now. Drinking only water could be an act of minimalist rebellion.  Water is free, or sort of anyway; though rest un-assured if they could privatise altogether, they would. There are 333 million cubic miles of water on earth.  I haven't done all the requisite sums, but it seems like that should be enough to go around.  A human who lives for 80 years should drink 86,700 litres of water.  1 cubic mile = 4,168,182,000,000 litres.  As with money, the reason for poverty isn't because there isn't enough of it.  The reason for dehydration isn't that there isn't enough water.  There's plenty of it, it's just in the wrong place.  A little more of it should be inside your body, fuelling it.  Fuelling your mind.  How else could you ever hope to dream of eating spaghetti with the Shadow Chancellor while a TV presenter you haven't thought about consciously for 25 years repairs the severed paw of a beloved pet?



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