Yes, It's Possible To Drink Too Much Water — And The Health Effects Are Severe

Are you hydrating enough?

There are now so many ways to get and track your fluids — from customizable Stanley tumblers to in-home IV services to apps that remind you to chug a few extra ounces every hour — that it’s easy to worry you’re not getting enough fluids.

But is it possible to be too hydrated? And what happens if you are?

That’s what we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — asked Colleen Muñoz, director and co-founder of Hydration Health Center at the University of Hartford .

Listen to the full podcast episode by clicking here.

“[Drinking too much water] is a real thing,” Muñoz, who is also an associate professor of health sciences at University of Hartford, told us. “[It doesn’t happen] as often as you would think, relative to somebody who is underhydrated — that’s definitely a more common scenario — but it’s something we need to pay attention to.”

The main issue with ingesting too much water or other fluids is that it can dilute the electrolyte content of our blood. Electrolytes (in this case we’re mostly talking about sodium, but also potassium, magnesium, chloride and calcium) must remain “ in balance in order to maintain healthy blood , heart rhythm, muscle function and other important functions.”

When these electrolytes “get out of whack,” it can cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, muscle cramps and even death.

“If they get too dilute, we start to have some pretty severe ramifications, largely related to our nervous system ... [including] brain swelling, coma, [and then] death ... and pretty quick,” Muñoz warned.

This happened to a woman in Los Angeles in 2007.

“It was pretty soon after the first Nintendo Wii came out and one of the radio stations had some competition — I think it was called like ‘Pee for a Wii’ or ‘Wee for a Wii’ — and unfortunately they didn’t consult anybody before they did this,” Muñoz said. “Whoever could drink the most amount of water in one day won the Nintendo Wii and a woman died.”

However, Muñoz noted that overhydration is less common in the general population and typically more worrisome for athletes.

“[It’s happened to some athletes and] it’s scary. It happens quickly and it’s not always easily detectable. So, a lot of times, unfortunately, they keep drinking water thinking that they collapsed due to dehydration,” she said.

It’s also a risk for recreational exercisers, like marathon or triathlon participants.

“[These people] might not actually be working out as intensely as they might suspect, and they haven’t really done a lot of homework into an individualized hydration plan, so they just assume, like, the more water the better,” Muñoz told us. “They’re actually not sweating that much, you know, or they’re not losing as much salt as they think, so they start chugging water and that’s a lot of times when this happens, unfortunately.”

So how much should we be drinking to reach a hydration sweet spot?

Muñoz said that most people need between 2 and 4 liters of water a day depending on body size, activity level, and other personal factors, like how much someone sweats, but checking in with your doctor or a medical professional about your specific needs is always a good idea.

She also noted that it’s possible to achieve proper hydration by drinking fluids other than plain water — including coffee, tea, sports drinks, juice and seltzer — and through the foods we eat.

One good way to tell if you’re properly hydrated is easy and free: Take a look at the color of your urine.

“I’m not saying that that’s a perfect marker, but it’s a very easily accessible one and it actually gives us a lot of good information,” Muñoz said. “We’re normally looking for, like, a light yellow color — like lemonade or a straw kind of color.”

Despite what you might think, completely clear urine is not necessarily a good thing.

“That’s one of those things that I still have a lot of people tell me,” she said. “People who are well educated in biology will tell me, like, ‘My urine was clear today, so that’s good, right?’ I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ You know, there is such a thing as drinking too much water.”

For lots more hydration tips and tricks, listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts .

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Need some help with something you’ve been doing wrong? Email us at AmIDoingItWrong@HuffPost.com , and we might investigate the topic in an upcoming episode.