As I said in this article, mindfulness can help with pretty much any problem you have in life. When you develop that kind of bodily awareness, anything is possible. You can recognize your thirst signals and differentiate them from hunger signals. When you can finally hear them, it becomes easier to listen to them. This will help you understand when you aren’t drinking enough water, as well as identify when you are drinking too much before it’s too late.

Replacing any drink with water is a great idea, because water is the only beverage our body really needs. We didn’t evolve to need fruit juice, or coffee, or even tea. And we definitely didn’t evolve to require soda and alcohol! Sugar (even fructose), caffeine and alcohol are all bad for you in many ways, but water doesn’t really have any drawbacks – unless you go overboard and drink an ocean’s worth. So every time you crave any of the above non-H2O liquids, go for water instead.

Commit to drinking water about 30 minutes before every snack and meal. Not only will this make sure you’re not mistaking thirst for hunger (which happens more often than you might think), but it will also lubricate your stomach lining and prepare your digestive tract, making it easier for you to eat less and to absorb the nutrients of your food more efficiently.

Eating raw fruits and vegetables means you can eat your water instead of drinking it, allowing you to combine hydration with the nutrient-rich tastiness of foods that have a high water content. Here are a few examples:

• Water is 100% water (minus a few salts and minerals)
• Strawberries, lettuce, cucumbers and pickles are 90% water
• Fruit juice, apples, grapes and oranges are 80% water
• Bananas, corn, potatoes and avocados are 70% water
• Pasta, legumes and beans are 60% water

So, when you eat any of those things, you can easily calculate how much water you’re actually getting in a day, without having to count glasses.

Keep a bottle of water with you wherever you are; in your car, at your desk or in your bag. That way, good quality water is always accessible. Make sure you can see it at all times, so you can subconsciously reach for it when you’re thirsty. Eventually, seeing it will trigger thirst and remind you to drink more often than you otherwise would. It’s also convenient when you don’t have to get up to go to the tap and don’t have to wash a bunch of glasses every time you want some water.

Make the most of current technology, like smartphone and smartwatch apps that can remind you to drink at a certain time of day. They even make smart bottles nowadays that connect to apps, if you’re willing to make the investment. You can choose to receive email notifications, in-app reminders and even phone calls that remind you to drink! Alternatively, you could set a timer to go off every couple of hours, at which point you can take a sip or two.

If technology isn’t your thing, you can always remind yourself in a more analogue way by using every day activities as memory triggers. Maybe you can drink a cup of water every time you walk past the kitchen, or every time you receive a text from a specific person. It’s up to you! You can even write it down and leave yourself a note in places where you will see it at a particular time of the day. 

This is kinda like the above point of reminding yourself using a trigger in your daily life, only this time you purposefully create a habit that goes hand in hand with a habit you already have in place. You could put a glass of water by your nightstand, so it’s the first thing you see when you wake up. Drink a cup of water as soon as you wake up to jump start your bodily functions, drink a glass after you brush your teeth or right after you go to the bathroom to replenish what you’ve lost. This will soon become a habit you can’t shake and you won’t even think about it. Don’t drink right before bed though or it will make you wake up in the middle of the night, and disrupt your sleeping pattern.

Mark your water bottle with time-oriented goals or buy a bottle that’s already marked. Each mark should stand for a 250ml (1 cup) increment and have a timestamp on it. Write 7am at the 250ml mark, 9am at the 500ml mark, 11am at 750ml, 1pm at 1000ml, 3pm at 1250ml, 5pm at 1500ml, 7pm at 1750ml and 9pm at 2000ml. That way you’ll have consumed 2 litres of water by the time you go to bed and it won’t seem so hard, coz it’s really just 250ml every two hours. Say you miss a few hours and by 1pm you’re still on the 9am line, you’ll know exactly how much to drink to make up for it, coz you only ever had to drink up to the time of day it is.

If you make drinking water into a game, it becomes infinitely easier to stomach. Say you reach your intended water intake by 7pm. You can then reward yourself by doing something you enjoy, like watching a movie or playing a video game. But make sure to be strict and not allow yourself to indulge unless you’ve reached that goal. It should be pretty easy to make up for the deficiency, if you find you’re a few millilitres short by 7pm. You could even make it a competition between you and some friends or family to see who can stay consistent the longest. Don’t risk making it too competitive though, coz we don’t want people drinking too much just to win. Bragging rights aren’t worth the hassle of over-hydration.

Keeping your water interesting and yummy can make all the difference. Often people don’t drink water coz it’s simply not as intriguing as colourful fizzy drinks. Adding some pieces of fruit to your water can boost its flavour, color and nutrients without adding extra sugar or calories. Freezing some fruit juice or fruit pieces and using them as ice-cubes can also help make water easier to drink. You could even add herbs to make iced tea. Adding sparkling water to a small bit of fruit juice can create a healthy soda substitute.

Drink warm water at night. Not tea. Just water. Heat it up in a kettle and maybe add some lemon juice, lavender or fresh ginger to make it into a soothing drink that can ease you into a restful sleep. It’s also a great way to warm yourself up on a cold day, if you’re trying to avoid sugar and caffeine.

If you absolutely MUST drink sugary sodas, try at least diluting them with water or ice. Although this will weaken the flavour, it will increase the water content and lower the amount of sugar in each serve, making it slightly less unhealthy.

These days there are so many alternatives you can use to substitute unhealthy drinks like soda. You could choose sparkling water or tonic water, natural soda (like kombucha or water kefir) or you could use a Sodastream to turn any healthy drink (even plain water) into a fizzy masterpiece.

If you’re an alcohol person, commit to drinking one glass of water after every glass of alcohol. Not only will this make the night cheaper by drawing out your drinking over the course of a few hours, but it will also make sure you stay hydrated and keep you from getting that dreaded hangover the next day.

Enjoy a homemade popsicle by adding some water and fruit (or juice) into a plastic mould and freezing it. It’s a a delicious, healthy snack that can cool you down as well as hydrate you with an added punch of nutrients.

Use a straw every time you drink anything. This makes it so you drink faster and thus, you drink more. I see no drawbacks, as long as what you’re drinking is healthy.

Eat spicy food. This will mean you reach for more water while eating. Don’t go overboard and drink too much though, or you might dilute your stomach acid and give yourself heartburn. The added bonus is that spicy food can boost your metabolism. It’s a win-win!

Try out these masterful tips for the next 7 days and if you’re still finding this advice hard to implement, ask for help in the comment section below, send me a message, or book a FREE breakthrough session to see how I can help you through Skype.

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Until next time, remember: Happiness doesn’t require energy. It requires Strategy.