Is There An Easy Way To Be Happy? One Marketing Survey Says Yes

water hydration happiness soap bubble closeup

Photo: Daniele Levis Pelusi, Unsplash

The Overlooked Wellness Hacks Might Be The Best Ones:

Every once in awhile, you find a piece of info that doesn’t arrive the way you’d think.

Especially if it’s about something you take for granted or is sitting in your blind spot.

This time around, the start of it doesn’t come from a study, but instead a marketing campaign or stunt designed to sell more drink powder.

-Which would normally raise strongly-worded questions.

But the results of their survey might accidentally be worthwhile…

The Short Answer:

Blind spots can hold a lot of problems and also solutions.
Sometimes, those solutions can be a bit like a happy accident.
In your whole wellness program, the easiest thing to overlook is hydration.
Especially since 75% of Americans are dehydrated.
You may also need more than 8 glasses/day.
This can range as high as 11 for women and 16 for men, depending on body-weight.
The happy accident that started this reminder was a marketing survey by TrueCitrus.
That survey found people who drink more water are happier and more optimistic on 3 different metrics.
Strangely enough, scientific research supports those results.
Better hydration was linked to better mood, energy, and cognitive function.
It’s also associated with fewer problems like Anxiety, Depression, and others.
Earlier on this site, we also learned that good hydration can also help you lose weight in a variety of ways.
So it’s easy to miss good hydration’s benefits, because it’s so easy to forget about drinking water.
But if you have a calorie-total you should hit every day, why not a water target, too?
I guess TrueCitrus really did do a great marketing job. They got us to talk about their product!

Read on to find out the details…

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It’s Easy To Overlook Good Hydration:

Let’s face it, hydration is probably the easiest thing to overlook.

The recommendations vary from the old standby 8 8oz. glasses/day, up to 11 for women and 16 for men.

Anyone on a high-protein diet and lifting weights could easily get on board with the latter.

But other than that, or just paying attention to thirst or bathroom breaks, who really thinks about it for much more?

But TrueCitrus’ Marketing Survey Results Might Actually Be Right:

But then, along came the survey by OnePoll that TrueCitrus commissioned to market their “water enhancer” mix.

After asking 2,000 randomly-selected people a battery of questions, here’s what they came up with:

1) 46% of respondents who drank 10 or more glasses reported being happy
2) 22% of those who drank the least reported that
3) 71% of those who drank at least 7 glasses considered themselves optimists
4) 38% of the low-consumption group (>1 glass) called themselves optimists
5) 80% of the high-consumption group valued finding joy in the small things
6) 48% of the low-consumption group said the same

Note: Perhaps the least hydrated group drank other things, because it’s hard to believe anyone drinks only 1 glass/day of water.

And you could very easily cite the old saying, “Lies! Damn Lies! and Statistics!”, and add, “Marketing!” to the end of it to round it out.

When You Look Into The Research, This Marketing Isn’t Wrong:

But it turns out that as much as, “Opera is just fancy screaming.” still holds true,

This might be one of the times that, “Marketing is just well-written bullshit.” does not.

Because drinking water really does have all different kinds of science-backed brain benefits.

Like…

The Multiple Brain & Mood Benefits Of Drinking Enough Water:

1) It raises levels of happiness, motivation, energy, and pain-reduction hormones
1a) This could lower levels of dehydration-related anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and sluggishness
2) It increases alertness & clarity of thought via your sympathetic nervous system
3) It can improve judgment as well
4) Visual attention is also improved
5) It may lower the risk of Dementia

The other part of the situation that can make these changes more dramatic is dehydration.

By the time you’re actually thirsty, you’re already a little bit dehydrated.

So when you get some water, you’re likely to notice them more, starting with the alertness part of the above.

If That Wasn’t Good Enough, Hydration Also Helps You Lose Weight:

Not only that, but it can help you lose weight.

We learned awhile ago on HT that the signals of thirst and hunger are often confused.

So the first thing you should do when you feel hungry is to make sure you’re well-hydrated.

This is especially true in the US, because 75% of Americans are dehydrated.

Then, you might not need to eat anything for awhile.

And it also helps you burn fat, feel more full, raise your metabolism, and reduce your appetite.

All of these are just the digestion & metabolism components of how it could make you feel better as well.

Because when was the last time your metabolism was firing on all 8 cylinders that you didn’t also feel pretty darn good at the same time?

The Case For Getting Enough Water Is Clear, But Rarely Top-Of-Mind:

Anyway since we’re made up mostly of water, you can probably get an idea that there isn’t one system in us that can’t be improved by optimizing hydration.

So you can see that in this case, the marketing is true.

People who drink more water frequently are likely to be happier and more optimistic, maybe by just balancing out all the good hormones in their brains.

Well done, True Citrus! You got us all to promote your product. Bravo!