Common Causes Of Dehydration

Dehydration is no joke. When you're dehydrated, your body can experience a variety of symptoms, none of them good. Dehydration can even cause brain fog, which results in restrained cognitive capabilities. There are signs that you're not drinking enough water, though, so if you know the signs, you can prevent your body from becoming fully dehydrated.

Common symptoms of dehydration include experiencing a dry mouth, sunken eyes, displaced irritability, a lack of tears when crying, and sunken cheeks in children, and in adults, common symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, relentless thirst, dark urine, and confusion (via Mayo Clinic), but just what has led to you experiencing these things? While it's commonplace to think that dehydration is only caused by not drinking enough water, it can actually be caused by other issues, too.

In addition to not drinking enough water, you can become dehydrated through sweating. The Mayo Clinic explained that this is because sweat is composed of water, meaning the more you sweat, the more water your body is losing. This is one reason why it's especially important to drink a lot of water during hotter months, as you need to replenish the water you're sweating out.

Not drinking enough water and sweating a lot are two sure fire ways to become dehydrated, but there are also other common causes of which you need to be aware. According to Healthline, these causes include vomiting and diarrhea. Both of these bodily functions expel massive amounts of water from the body, leaving you dehydrated if you don't drink a lot of water to counteract them. This is why you can easily become dehydrated when you're sick.

The same logic applies when you have a fever. The Mayo Clinic explained that the higher your fever is, the more dehydrated you'll become. When you have a fever, your body is exuding heat, and at the same time, your body needs water to cool itself down. Your body also needs water to get over the sickness causing the fever. Without drinking water, you'll become dehydrated from your body using up your water to fight against the illness (via Everyday Health).

To prevent dehydration from settling in to begin with, men should drink 124 fluid ounces and women should drink 92 fluid ounces per day (via Healthline). Naturally, if you're sick, exposed to hotter temperatures, or have any other reason that you need more water than usual, you should drink as much as you can to keep your body functioning as best it can.