Let’s face it, you know you’re dehydrated and need to drink more water. But how do you do that when you don’t feel thirsty or forget to drink during the day?!
First, let’s talk about how your body recognizes you’re thirsty. Did you know that your thirst mechanism is also the same mechanism that tells your body it’s tired or hungry, hot or cold? This mechanism is called the hypothalamus, a gland that is apart of your endocrine system. This is the reason why you can easily confuse thirst with hunger, fatigue, or temperature discomfort. Many people find that a lot of the time if they are hungry, tired, too hot or too cold, it’s usually because they are actually thirsty and are dehydrated. When you refuse to drink water after your hypothalamus has already told you that you need water, your hypothalamus then goes to measures of telling you to put anything in your body that will help bring water to your cells. At this point, your hypothalamus is also depleted of the water it needs, so it has a hard time functioning. Because of this, your body can become more sensitive to everything! You’re hormones go out of whack so you can easily get hot or cold or sad or mad!
Now that we know how we get thirsty, we are now going to dive into how we lose that thirst. What studies have found about the hypothalamus is that it has a tendency to easily whack out and go into “starvation mode.” 
When you don’t let your body have what it needs, your hypothalamus then starts to tell the body to conserve its nutrient reserves so it doesn’t have to use so much. It puts the body in a mode where it saves everything you put in it so that it can last the drought, emotional trauma, famine, or other drastic situation that it thinks it’s being put through. So the more you don’t listen to your body’s cry for water, the less you will feel the urge to drink because your body is starting to convince itself that it really doesn’t need that water due to it being in starvation mode even though it’s dying for it. Classic hypothalamus move!
So, now that we know how thirst works, we can now figure out how to get that thirst back so we can drink more water and heal our bodies from the trauma of being in starvation mode.
#1 Start small.
Just like breaking any other bad habit, you have to start small. Your body has a very hard time changing and so starting small is essential to long-term success in breaking bad health habits.
Because your body has retained so much water in response to it being starved of what it needs, your body thinks it doesn’t need any more water. So, even though you feel like death due to dehydration, when you try to drink more by chugging down a big glass, your body says, “Ew, gross! I don’t need that. I already have enough of that!” Then, what does it do? It pees it all out, everything you just drank! What a waste! So, what you have to do to avoid that is you have to drink a little bit at a time, and frequently. By doing this, your body can get a little taste of what it needs and think, “Hey! That makes me feel better! Give me some more of that!” Then, you can give it a little more. After a while, your body will eventually start to ask for more and more water the more you give it until you are able to rehydrate your entire body and get it back to where it’s supposed to be, water-wise.
#2 Let Go.
Like I said at the beginning, your body can easily think it is having a traumatic experience and holds in water in order to prepare and protect itself. So, if you are having or have had any kind of major emotional life event, your body could be retaining water for that reason. Letting yourself heal from the stress that has been put on your body can help to improve water retention and get you functioning at your best. If you feel you cannot seem to let go of some unresolved grief, go and see a homeopathic doctor who will be able to help walk you through letting go or give you a natural medicine to help with that process.
#3 Listen!
Don’t wait! Just drink! By listening to your body and giving your body what it needs when it needs it, you won’t have to go through the hassle of getting your body out of its mode of starvation. It is so much easier to just give your body water when it asks for it instead of bringing it out of this mode. You will find that you will like life a whole lot more with water than without.
I know it may be a struggle to 
have to keep getting up and refilling your glass but there are ways to go around this. They actually sell half gallon water bottles that you can just fill up and go. You’ll only have to refill it once! Or you can also look on the bright side of having to get up and drink all the time by thinking you are giving yourself the opportunity to move, stretch, and get your wiggles out from sitting for such a long period of time. Plus, it helps you think faster and get things done easier, so that’s a major plus, too!
I can’t even tell you how important it is to drink enough water. It makes you feel so much better when you do. How do you like to get yourself to drink more water? I would love to hear your stories and ideas. Just comment below!
References
http://www.brainfacts.org/Archives/2008/The-Neural-Regulation-of-Thirst
https://www.emedicinehealth.com/anatomy_of_the_endocrine_system/article_em.htm#what_is_the_endocrine_system
http://arcanum.ca/2012/03/03/if-im-dehydrated-then-why-dont-i-feel-thirsty/
http://www.sonima.com/food/dehydrated/
http://arcanum.ca/2012/06/15/what-if-youre-still-dehydrated-after-drinking-more-water/
https://www.amazon.com/Powerade-Pro-Jug-Bottle-Cyan/dp/B01GV6L5QY/ref=sr_1_25?ie=UTF8&qid=1530015152&sr=8-25&keywords=64+oz+insulated+water+bottle
Ferv Co. 