Evidence based
You wake up to sticky, greasy dishes in the sink. (We know YOU didn’t leave them there, but someone did 😉 ).
Any chance you’re going to clean those dishes with cold water? Not happening. We all know it’s warm water that gets the gunk off.
Should we be cleaning our insides the same way?
Today we’re exploring the possible health benefits of starting your day by drinking warm water.
What We Know
Proper hydration can help us feel happier.
It’s true! Simply drinking more water can increase feelings of calmness, satisfaction, and positive emotions.¹
And those benefits seem to be amplified when you’re drinking something warm — research shows it could lower stress and reduce anxiety.²
The feel-good vibes are an added bonus, but the most common reason for drinking warm water is actually to improve digestion.
Drinking warm water has been shown to improve gut motility, helping move food through your body more efficiently.³ It also seems to help relieve constipation.³
How? Just like washing last night’s dishes, warm water helps break down the food in your digestive tract more easily than cold water.⁴
Cold water may actually have the opposite effect (slowing down digestion).
According to Ayurvedic principles, cold constricts blood flow to the stomach, slowing enzyme secretion, and causing your metabolism to slow down.⁵ This suggests you should try to drink water that’s as warm as your own body – at least after meals.
|
Speaking of metabolism… if your goal is to lose weight, switching from cold water to warm might help! It has been shown to increase metabolic rate. How? Drinking warm water increases your internal body temperature, making your body expend energy to bring it back down!⁶ |
Before you drink it, you may even want to inhale it…
The steam from a cup of hot water can help if you’re feeling under the weather, relieving symptoms like tiredness, a sore throat, and nasal congestion.⁷
Shivering on a cold day? Drinking warm water can help make it stop.⁸ Putting warm liquids in your tummy helps regulate your body temperature.
What We’re Still Learning
Straight up – the topic of drinking warm water is not something that has been studied much here in the West.
While we wait for more studies revealing what warm water does to our insides, we can compare it to what warm water does from the outside.
Yup, we’re talking warm baths.
Warm temperatures make our arteries and veins expand. This increases blood flow and relaxes our muscles (aaaahhh bathtime!). This suggests that bathing yourself with warm water from the inside (drinking it), could also help improve circulation and muscle relaxation.
The Bottom Line
No question: staying hydrated is good for you. You should drink your water in a way that makes you most likely to drink enough. But if you only drink cold water, realize there are centuries of medicinal traditions (and even some studies) that say warm water helps our bodies function optimally.
If you’re looking for a little digestion help or want to stoke your metabolism, it could definitely be worth giving warm water a try.
Also, there’s certainly nothing bad about drinking warm water (just don’t make it scalding hot!). So why not give it a try and see how you feel?
How do I get started?
| Toes In |
☕ Have a cup of hot coffee or tea in the morning. Resist the iced versions until later in the day. 🍋 Drink a cup of warm water with lemon before breakfast. |
| Waist Deep |
🛏️ Fill an insulated thermos with warm water before bedtime and keep it next to your bed. This way you can drink it right when you wake up when your body is most dehydrated. 🍵 Drink a cup of warm water or hot tea with your snack or before lunch. |
| Full Immersion |
🚰 Try the centuries-old Japanese “water cure” tradition, where you drink 4 glasses of warm water first thing in the morning – even before brushing your teeth 🫖 Try the Italian digestion secret: canarino. 30-60min after a meal, place a dried lemon peel in a cup and pour hot water over it. Let it infuse and enjoy. 🌺 Start a nighttime ritual with herbal tea to set you up for restorative sleep. |
