Should you drink cold water immediately after coming from outside?

“Sit down, rest and then drink water” This is an ideal statement you get to hear every time you come home from outside or you come indoors after staying outside for a long time. While your thirst-o-meter is very high and your mouth feels like it has entered famine mode, most of the time you do give in to the statement or sometimes you ignore it and continue drinking water, especially cold water, under such circumstances. But is it really good for the body? Indulge decodes the myth and truths around this statement while reiterating the need to drink lots of water and staying hydrated during summers.

Is drinking cold water immediately after coming indoors, preferable?

No major side effects of drinking chilled or cold water have been reported there are a few things to consider before going ahead. Two major advantageous of drinking cold water are first, immediate rehydration and second refreshing. You feel hot and tired when you come from outside, especially in a humid and tropical region. Thus drinking water immediately satisfies your lack of hydration. It is a visible sign of how much the body craved for water. Moreover, it is refreshing and encourages you to drink a lot of water, albeit at once, which you would otherwise not drink on regular days. This is because it reduces the body temperature which makes it accept more water to create a steady balance.

Interestingly, picking up for the same point where it reduces the body temperature, it also gives a shock to the body. On one hand drinking cold water satiates your thirst, on the other; a sudden drop in temperature might also make you feel uncomfortable soon after. This would include heaviness in the chest, slight headache, stomach cramps, and any other way it might manifest in a person. Furthermore, in some traditional wellness practices like Ayurveda it is believed that very cold water can contract blood vessels and slow down enzyme activity, thus causing hiccups in smooth digestion.

Should you drink cold water or not?

After comparing the pros and cons, you would still come back to the main question – Should you then drink cold water after coming from outside or not. To answer this basic query, it is advised to drink cool or room temperature water which satisfies your thirst but does not give a temperature shock to the body. In fact, the ideal way to drink water is to indeed “Sit down, rest and then drink water”. This allows the body temperature to cool off, the sweat to dry off, and the fast beating heart to settle down and then hydrate your body to bring in the overall balance to the system. Take small sips instead of gulping down the water as this method works best.