Description: This week, Dr. Boogren challenges the Squad to an easier self-care goal that can make major positive change.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode 22 of our second season of Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Tina Boogren, and this week's invitation is one that many of you have heard me talk about already. You know, we repeat things to remember them and sometimes hearing it on a certain day and a certain way, it just hits different. So, here goes. This week's invitation is to drink the stupid water. Uh, I know some of you don't think that the water is stupid, and I am envious of you. Like, if you just naturally drink water, that is amazing. Like, pat yourself on the back. Like, you should feel really good about that. Like, celebrate that, but for the rest of us, the reason I just say it in jest, you guys, dumb water or stupid water ... It's just my light-hearted way of saying this is hard for me.
I am the kind of person who, if given the choice would drink coffee all day. I literally get out of the bed in the morning in order to drink coffee, and I can fill cup after cup, after cup. And then, oh, I don't know around noon, I decide maybe I don't want something so hot anymore. And, I could switch to diet Dr. Pepper, and I could drink that or a little Diet Coke all afternoon. Right? And, here's the deal. We know, we know how important hydration. I talk about this in every single book that touches on self-care and wellness in any way. So, this would be level one of Maslow's hierarchy, which I talk about in Take Time For You. This would fall under the category of diet in 180 Days. I talk about diet and nutrition. It's the second week. We move right into the importance of this. In Educator Wellness, Tim Kanold and I talk about this under physical wellness--that very first essential dimension. And, we talk about diet and specifically hydration.
It's so important. And to me, the reason that I harp on this one. If you're like, Oh God, she won't shut up about the water. Here's why. It's such a teeny, tiny, little thing that we can ... You know, some of these other areas of wellness are kind of, it takes a bit to tackle them even, you know, under the same, same realm of our physiological needs or our physical wellness would be sleep. That one can be a doozy to tackle, but water is something, even when we're tired, we can do this, right? Like. We have access to it. It's, it's most, most of us, not all of us can just get clean water from the faucet, or many of our schools now have water filter and refill stations, which is so great. Most airports now I can refill my water bottle. Like, there's a convenience factor there. We just have to do it. And, it's such a low hanging fruit that can help us feel better that I would say let's just start with if we feel totally overwhelmed, we don't quite know where to start. Like, oh God, you know, I should move my body, but I don't want to, or I should make some changes around my food choices. I know that, that I just, I don't feel great, but that can really feel like a lot, especially when we're stressed, if we're kind of still in that disillusionment phase, when things are hard, I feel like water is something that we can do. Full stop. In fact, we don't even have to give anything up, right?
I'm not giving up my coffee, but I do have a little game that I play with myself. Before I can have that first cup of coffee, I got to chug my water. And, every time I go to fill that coffee cup up, I got to have water in between. And, I have discovered for myself, , just little tips and tricks and things that worked for me. So, the true, T-R-U-E, brand of flavor sticks, I can dump those in my water. It helps. I treat myself to real cute water bottle. I'm a sucker for a water bottle to the point that now, if I get a new water about all, I have to get rid of one, because it's just overtaken far too much room in our kitchen. But, I put stickers on my water bottles. I have some water bottles that I use the flavoring in and some water bottles that are just for pure water, because I don't want any flavor in there. We know some people like ... Some people don't like ice. I, for the most part, really need to have a straw. I drank way more moderate if I have a straw. So, all those little, tiny, little, little things, you're going to figure it out on your own.
And, what I will say is this has been something I've been consciously thinking of for a few years now. And, I actually gave up my Diet Dr. Pepper. I know some of you are like, Nope, but hear me out. I just started to feel so much better. I was the kind of person that for a long time, I mean, I just got headaches, and I thought I was the kind of person who got headaches. I had an overwhelming desire to take a nap at three o'clock in the afternoon. And, what started happening is when I increased my water intake, my headaches went away. Turns out I was dehydrated. I didn't have that overwhelming need to take a nap in the afternoon. And, as I just learned how to tune into my body more ... My body does not react well to artificial sweeteners. That aspartame is not good. So, the Diet Dr. Pepper, the Diet Coke, when I connected how it made me feel it wasn't great ... And, it's not to say that I don't every once in awhile treat myself to Diet Dr. Pepper. I just am willing to take the hit. I just don't do it every single day anymore. And, that's just truly, because I made this commitment to drink water, and it's such a simple thing.
And by really being conscious of it, I feel better. And to me, my entire health goals are all centered around feeling amazing. I was going to say feeling better, but it's not even just feeling better. I want to truly feel amazing. When I feel amazing, I show up in the world differently. So, this is my, my just, I preach this on self-care making choices that help us feel amazing.
So, my invitation for you this week is to drink the stupid water. If you need a little nudge, you know, competition can be good or just check-ins loving accountability partners, or there's a gazillion apps you can download. My favorite ... The one I always recommend is Plant Nanny. Plant Nanny. It's free. Put that bad boy on your phone. Every time you drink water, your little plant grows, and it dances, and it's so happy, and you feel so good. And, if you don't, it dies, and you feel terrible. So, it can be really good accountability. If you've got other apps and tricks, please, please, please of course, as always, jump over into the Facebook group and share, but let's just commit to drinking more water. The general rule of thumb is kind of a starting place is we really need to be drinking about half of our body weight in ounces of water each day. Half of our body weight in ounces of water each day. And, that's kind of as a minimum. If it's hot outside, or we're active, or we're exercising, we need a little bit more than that. But again, I'm going to remind you of James Clear's incredible advice from Atomic Habits--Just get 1% better. If you just did the math in your head and figured out the ounces and had a moment of panic, don't. Right? Build up slowly, slowly, slowly. Can you just have a drink of water before your coffee? Before you have any other beverage, can you just make sure that you drink a little bit of water in between and pay attention to do you start to feel better? Because, the minute we start to feel better, it's easier to keep these good habits going.
As always, thank you to Brooke for making this happen. Thank you to Solution Tree and Marzano Resources for this job I get to do. And, thank you to my bad-ass Self-Care Squad. Thank you for sticking with me with some of these weird habits, with some of my weird quirks around drinking the stupid water. May you be well hydrated this week.