5 Tips for Staying Hydrated With COPD

Staying hydrated is important for anyone, but if you have a chronic disease like COPD, it’s even more important, and there are many reasons for this. Water helps you regulate your temperature, eliminate waste, and lubricate your joints (something that many of us at this age need), but if you have COPD or other health problems, there are other things to consider.

The importance of hydration in COPD symptom management

For people with COPD, being properly hydrated helps to thin out the mucus, which makes it easier to cough up. I don’t know about you all, but I have plenty of mucus that I cough up many times a day, and the thinner it is, the easier it is to get up.

A study has shown that dehydration may also affect small airway function, making breathing harder. Not drinking enough water can also cause dehydration, which means that the body doesn’t have enough fluid to work at its best. It can cause issues such as constipation, electrolyte imbalances, kidney problems, and loss of balance.¹

Many things contribute to dehydration. Weather and sweating out what fluids we take in are some of those factors. Some signs of dehydration, to name a few, are: dry mouth, dark-colored urine, and muscle cramping. The treatment for these (in most cases) is to drink plenty of water.

Wow, isn’t it amazing that something such as water can have so much effect on our bodies? If you don’t have any fluid restrictions, you should at least be drinking six, 8-ounce glasses of de-caffeinated beverages daily.²

5 tips to stay hydrated

1. Get a nice, cute cup or water bottle that you like to drink out of. You don’t have to go crazy on price, either. I know there are so many out there that will pay for a certain brand name. That doesn’t matter. You just want something that you like and something that doesn’t cause harm to your body or lungs.

   Some of these drinking bottles are made with BPA, etc., and using glass or stainless steel is our best bet. We should also stick to drinking bottled, filtered, or boiled water. We can get lung infections from drinking plain tap water.

2. There are water bottles out now that keep track of how much water you drink. One of the reusable water bottles that I have at home has time marks on the side, so it shows you how much you should have drunk by a certain time. This helps me keep on track.
3. Another great way to keep your water intake is on any of the apps on our phones for health or nutrition. Most of them have somewhere to mark your water intake. This is helpful if you are forgetful like me and can’t remember how many glasses of water you have drank.
4. If you drink bottled water, a great way I kept track was to put a number on my cap each time I got a new bottle. When we were waiting to get a new filter put in, we were purchasing bottled water, and this is how I kept track of it all.
5. Try to keep water with you at all times. If we have it next to us we are more likely to drink it than if we have to get up to get a drink each time that we are thirsty or think about it.

Remember, if we are thirsty, it means we are already dehydrated. Try not to reach that point, but keep that water flowing, and enjoy the rest of your summer!

How do you keep hydrated? Please share with us in the comments below.