You already know you should drink more. What tends to help isn’t new information, it is one fixed moment in the day.
Water makes up about 75% of body weight in infants and about 55% in older people. It carries nutrients, takes part in regulating temperature and leaves the body every day through breath, sweat and urine, so it has to be replaced every day.
How much is enough
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) puts adequate intake at 2 litres of water a day for women and 2.5 litres for men. That figure includes water from food, which usually provides about a fifth of the total. It is set for moderate temperatures and moderate activity: in heat and during exercise the body needs more.
What mild dehydration does, and doesn’t do
You may have read that losing 1–2% of body water sharply reduces attention. The evidence is less tidy. According to a review in Nutrition Reviews (Popkin et al., 2010), mild dehydration does not affect thinking in a consistent way; the effect on how alert and tired people feel was more consistent. So it is a sensible habit, not a miracle.
How it becomes a habit
Habits form through repetition in the same setting. In a University College London study (Lally et al., 2010), a new daily behaviour took between 18 and 254 days to become automatic. The median was 66 days among the people the model fitted, and missing a single day made little difference. Pick one moment: waking up, before lunch, or after work.
The water ritual
Lay the disc beside your glass or bottle: 10–15 minutes for a glass, 25–35 for a carafe. Then drink. The disc stays outside the vessel. Do not use it in water.
We make no claim that the disc changes the water. What the ritual gives you is a fixed moment and a small pause before you drink.
VitalRay Matrix is a wellness product, not a medical device. Do not use it if you have a pacemaker or any other implanted medical device: the core contains a neodymium magnet. Before your first session, read Guide and safety.
Sources
Popkin, D’Anci, Rosenberg, Water, hydration, and health, Nutrition Reviews, 2010
EFSA, Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for water, EFSA Journal, 2010
Lally et al., How are habits formed, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010