Good morning!

This week's featured article makes the case for a morning glass of water to activate greater cognitive prowess and balance your mood.

The findings

💧 Dehydration erodes memory in the short term and over the duration of the day, leaves you feeling tired, distracted, and more likely to be anxious.

💧 Drinking water reverses the impacts felt from dehydration.

Why it matters for you

• A night of rest dehydrates the body by up to 2% and for those who get less than six hours of sleep, it’s much, much worse.¹ Make a glass of water your first priority in the day to balance emotional influences on decision making, maintain your focus, and stay feeling fresh throughout the day.

• In perhaps the best news of your day, research shows that caffeine consumption does not influence your hydration levels² . You’re welcome.

What you can do about it

• Make it easy on yourself and fill a glass of water in the evening so it’s ready to go on your bedside in the mornings.

• If you’re going to encourage water consumption with your team, start your meetings at the :05 or :35 to give your people time to hit the loo before hitting the meeting agenda.

• Google props up hydration stations in the office and weaves hydration into their wellness programs, with a particular focus on its impact to productivity and decision-making.

• Salesforce includes hydration education within it’s wellness initiatives, with a focus on the link between hydration and cognitive function.

Explore how dehydration influences leadership effectiveness using these prompts on favourite generative AI platform

• Investigate how dehydration can significantly influence strategic thinking and decision making for leaders, including detailed case studies and examples of successful programs to encourage hydration in the workplace.

• Investigate tactics to boost my hydration throughout the day, with proposed benefits and ways to implement the tactics successfully.

✏️ Quick question before you go!

Have a great week!

M

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1  Asher Y Rosinger, Anne-Marie Chang, Orfeu M Buxton, Junjuan Li, Shouling Wu, Xiang Gao, Short sleep duration is associated with inadequate hydration: cross-cultural evidence from US and Chinese adults, Sleep, Volume 42, Issue 2, February 2019, zsy210

2  Killer, S. C., Blannin, A. K., & Jeukendrup, A. E. (2014). No evidence of dehydration with moderate daily coffee intake: a counterbalanced cross-over study in a free-living population. PloS one, 9(1), e84154.