When an ape uses a stick inserted into a termite mound to pull a tasty stick of bugs to slurp, it is using a tool. When humans build computer networks to watch over the transmission of electrical energy, they are using a tool. Sometimes, making a manufacturing process more automatic and machine governed is called "mechanization". Sometimes, especially in Europe, the process can be called "rationalization" since doing so requires thinking out the process in a systematic way, a way that machines can handle. The book "The Right Stuff" and comments in the writing of Guy Kawasaki, important in management and Mac computer literature, emphasize the difference between total mechanization where the process can run more or less by iteself, at least for a while, and tool mechanization. Some thinkers believe that augmenting tool use is often more satisfying for people than completely mechanizing the process. I love the theme of mechanization vs. more hand-operated processes and find it is a very valuable way to think about the essence of humans, their lives, goals and needs. I always looked for a good text in the area. The best book for me was "Out of Control" by Kevin Kelly but my students didn't seem to enjoy it or get much from it.
What does all that have to do with drinking water? Personal hydration can be viewed as a natural process, like hunger or sex. We have basic mechanisms in us to drive us to quench our thirst. It can also be partially mechanized as when we carry a water bottle with us or when we use a clock to drink on the hour. It can be more completely mechanized with intravenous tubing. In college, I was not part of a big push to drink water but when I visited the soccer field 30 years later, continuous streams of water arched in the air at the edge of the field so that players could jog over and simply open their mouth and have water squirt right in. When I visit a weight room, I see people carrying water bottles from machine to machine, sometimes drinking between sets. In "Total Fitness" by Morehouse and Gross as in many other places such as "Eat to Win" by Robert Haas, the widespread idea is presented that drinking water often is essential to top performance physically. In my 40's, I read Andrew Weil's mnemonic "n.a.m.a.i.s.", not as much as I should, for the statement that I don't drink as much water as I should. This extra super-natural injunction to drink was based on the premise that by the time, we feel thirsty, we are already in a dehydrated state and should therefore drink steadyily and before we are thirsty.
Then, thanks to an article in the Stevens Point Journal a couple of years ago I learned of the work of Heinz Valtin Valtin is a retired nephrologist (kidney expert) and medical professor from Dartmouth. He explained that our sense of thirst is quite accurate and that overdrinking does little for us but tax the kidneys unnecessarily. He said there is virtually no evidence supporting the old standard, 8 oz glasses of water 8 times a day. So, I decided to cut back on my water intake. Then, Lynn's elderly stepdad needed died on three separate occasions from bad dehydration. Oh, older people's perception of thirst may be less than it ought to be. Meanwhile, bad cramping in my legs caused my chiropractor to state that the most common cause of cramping is dehydration and reminded me of how some tennis pros have had to forfeit a match after reaching a state of dehydration.
I don't expect to live forever and I don't think I want to, anyhow. I also don't want to have to urinate all the time. So, a happy medium is what I am currently aiming for. Keep thirst at bay and drink about 2 points beyond that, morning and afternoons. I haven't heard any challenges to using the urine color as an indicator of good hydration. That, thirst guidance and energy levels are my current favored guides.
