I would like to share how to stay hydrated while practicing yoga.
I am kind of people easily get thirsty and dehydrated especially doing exercise or staying outdoor. It has become a habit to bring a water bottle along wherever I go .
However, many yoga instructors discourage drinking water during the yoga class. Many of them believe drinking water during yoga practice is a distraction for your mind and interrupts your breathing and flow. What’s more is that slurping and gurgling noises may disturb other students in class. If you drink way too much before and during practice, you eventually have to leave class and rush to the toilet. Having a lot of water moving around in your stomach can be uncomfortable while you are practicing certain postures. ( Yes, I’ve ever felt that water was throwing out from my throat while doing inversion due to too frequent water intake in the class.)
If you got watch some sports games like soccer or cycling, you will notice that those athletes spit out their drinks instead of swallowing it. Or some will only rinse their mouth or take sips of water in between the games. I think this shares the same rationale as discouraging fluid intake during yoga practice .
Unfortunately people like me who easily get dehydrated might feel sick if not enough fluid intake or sweating too much while practicing yoga more than a hour. The trick to stay hydrated is avoiding becoming thirsty to begin with , as thirst can be a signal of dehydration. If you are heading to a super sweaty or outdoor yoga class, make sure you drink up before you arrive. Do not drink a whole bottle of water right before the class begins, otherwise you might end up feeling bloated during the class. The best way is keep you hydrated is always having a couple of sips of water in between the sequences and postures without filling the whole stomach.
Also, re-hydration is just as important as pre-hydration. Don’t forget to drink after class in order to replace the fluid you lost during practice. Nutritionists recommend drinking at least 0.5L of water after the practicing.
Nowadays sports drink are very popular but myself still prefer drinking lukewarm water after exercise as most of the sports drink in the market are with sugar contain or with gas. Understand there are a lot of researches showing that sports drink not only help re-hydrate the fluid loss and also replace electrolytes and energy before and after training or competition.
I would say depends on your own preference. Especially yoga is not really a very intense exercise thus we don’t expect the body will be losing that much electrolytes during our practice. At least for myself, I don’t really fancy sports drink.
