As human beings we like things that bring us pleasure and dislike things that bring us pain. This, of course, is an over-simplification of complex psychological processes, but for our purposes we can boil our decisions down to this pain/pleasure response.So when we take a drink in our modern society, we often find the most pleasure in sweet beverages, such as soda, and find little pleasure in a utilitarian drink such as water. If we lived in other times perhaps this association between pleasure and sweetened drinks would not be as strong, or perhaps it would be stronger. It’s difficult to judge from our perspective.
What’s certain is those types of drinks were not widely available as they are today. The Romans may have sweetened their wine with lead, but I don’t think they had 7-11s on every corner selling Big Gulps.
What I’d like to help you do today is to strengthen your positive association between water and pleasure. This is especially helpful for those who don’t drink plain water now and have trouble forcing themselves to do so throughout the day.
Try dedicating yourself to at least two weeks (preferably the rest of your life) following a simple rule. Whenever you’re very thirsty, drink only water. After you’ve had the water, you can drink other drinks if you must, but I want you to spend the next two weeks quenching your thirst with plain water.
The first thing you’ll notice is that water just works better than other drinks at really quenching your thirst and keeping you hydrated. I should mention that in certain extreme cases where a person is really dehydrated, a small amount of sugar along with electrolytes, mainly sodium and potassium, can speed up the absorption of fluid by the body. However, this is not necessary for normal hydration. If you’re severely dehydrated or an athlete or worker who gets several hours of exercise each day, then you might consider sports drinks that deliver slightly more than water at the appropriate times for quick recovery.
What I’d like you to do specifically is workout really hard until your mouth is feeling dry. Then I want you to get some water and as you drink it, consider how wonderful the feeling is. Recall that you are drinking plain old water as you do this and picture in your mind the pleasure of that cool, clear water washing away your thirst. Continue you this exercise on every workout day for a couple of weeks and you should quickly start to feel the positive associations for regular water building.
