Water retention health advice

Advice on Water retention 

Water retention or edema is a normal bodily process that happens to everyone at point or the other during the course of a day. Although unnoticeable to many, the body is constantly balancing fluids depending on what we consume in drink and solids. Especially during the mornings, the puffiness or bloated feeling is a common occurrence and a normal phenomenon experienced by many.


The body then gets to start working on adjusting the fluids and correcting the imbalance. At times due to excess intake of salt or alcohol the balance gets thrown off and the body takes longer than necessary to correct the anomaly. Long periods of being passive or in inertia or pregnancy and even hormonal imbalance can cause retention of fluids.




Stay away from diuretics and salt if you notice long periods of water retention than in normal. Salt causes the body to retain the fluid and this water remains in the body till the kidneys get to work and have to push in harder to excrete the salt from the system. The process can take more than a day. In order to put less burden on the kidneys, stick to decreased salt in the diet. This is likely to lead to less water retention in the body.

Water retention health advice 

Water retention is most common in women during the premenstrual phase. However, in other cases, water retention could indicate a problem in the kidneys, gastrointestinal trouble, heart or liver malfunctioning, or it could just be because of an overdose of salty foods.

Some simple home remedies that are recommended are as follows:

• Avoid eating fast foods that are rich in salt. On the whole, reduce your salt intake.
• Include cabbages to your meal in some form or the other.
• Drink some lemon juice or cranberry juice. In other words, add some Vitamin C to your diet.
• Take a cup of low-fat yoghurt when you have overindulged in some type of food.
• If water retention is due to PMS, drink lots of water on a day-to-day basis.
• Include bananas in your diet because bananas are rich in potassium, which in turn helps in reducing water retention.
• Some natural diuretics that might help you pass more urine and therefore reduce water retention are ginger and juniper.
• Avoid wearing tight clothing. Wear comfortable, loose-fitting fabrics instead.
• Perform exercises such as walking, cycling, and running on a regular basis.
• If your ankles are swollen, you can take an icepack, wrap it in a towel, and apply it on the ankles for about 10 minutes. For swollen feet, it is advised that you raise your feet to an incline whenever you are sitting for long hours.
• Cut down on smoking and alcohol.