Whole being thirsty isn’t optimal the actual risk of something serious happening is negligible. Especially since I monitor my urine color and other signs. It’s more convenience and the habit of convenience we’re all so used to these days.
I’m not so sure about that. Some people are more susceptible to it than others. There’s also some weird trait that makes some people drink less water than others. Both my father and myself seem to share this trait. We have to force ourselves to drink water. For whatever reason, I could go an entire day without drinking water. Not sure why it is, but it causes problems. I was on vacation with my father and he collapsed in literally the middle of nowhere because of dehydration. It was pretty scary and he almost didn’t survive.
This strikes me as something constantly asserted but never proven. It should be pretty trivial to find out if this is the case, medically, so there should be data. I went ahead and searched around and although I see a lot of headlines about it, there is a lack of definitive corroboration. I found these sources:
"According to the lay press, 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. While this is not supported by medical literature, dehydration is common in elderly patients."[0]
" In fact, scientific studies suggest that you already get enough liquid from what you're drinking and eating on a daily basis. We are not all walking around in a state of dehydration."[1]
"The notion that there is widespread dehydration has no basis in medical fact"[1]
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555956/ [1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/water-works-2/
My mother in law was hospitalized twice for dehydration. She is mindful of it and still some days she doesn’t drink enough. Drinking is hard for her as other commenters mention here too. After that I just started drinking an extra liter of tea by just carrying the bottle around. Even the extra peeing stopped after a few weeks.