Bottled water by my bedside

Before I get into the rest of my Sonoma trip, I wanted to do a quick post on a new habit I’ve picked up. Remember how I wrote about a first domino being something that creates a big impact? Well, I’ve stumbled upon a new “first domino” that is really helping me get healthy.

Everyone says that drinking water is a quick way to improve your skin, managing your weight, and just generally improve your health. (Here’s a Greatist article on 12 reasons to drink more water). In the past, I’ve tried to count my glasses of water or otherwise increase my consumption. But I discovered something that’s even easier than that: drinking a bottle of water immediately when I wake up.

I’ve heard from a lot of different sources (like A Life of Productivity) that drinking 16oz of water when you wake up is a great morning habit to fire up your metabolism. Your body is super dehydrated after 8 hours of not drinking, so giving it water helps fix that dehydration and also supposedly helps to jump start your metabolism. But for me, the most compelling part is that it literally only takes a minute or two of willpower to do.

I don’t have to think about it all day, or keep track of anything. Before I go to bed, I just put a 1/2 liter bottle of water on my nightstand, and when I wake up in the morning, I immediately grab it. Sometimes I chug it down all in one shot (oops, guess I really was dehydrated), and sometimes I carry it around with me for a bit. But I don’t have to think about it at all, and nine days out of ten, I finish the bottle within five minutes of waking up.

I have no idea if this little habit has affected my skin or my weight – and I doubt that I’d see tangible results from just a few weeks of doing such a small thing anyway. But psychologically, it also achieves the goal of starting my day with an easy win. (Which is why experts say that the similar habit of making the bed is correlated with a greater sense of well-being and high productivity: see this post by Gretchen Rubin.) I feel like I’ve started my day on a healthy note, and so I then am more conscious of eating healthy foods and drinking more water throughout the rest of the day.

Plus, it helped me survive three straight days of wine tasting in Sonoma 🙂