If you’re not beginning your day with a cup of warm lemon water, then scoot closer—I’m about to change your life. It’s one of my favorite parts of my morning routine, and it offers numerous health benefits!
So, I planned to write this post almost a full year ago. That’s why the pictures are so… picturesque. They were taken while I was living on Oahu (I miss that WATER 😍). To everyone reading this from colder places, I hope these help you visualize warmer days. San Diego is 70 and sunny right now, so I’m not complaining, although I do miss Hawaii all the time.
Speaking of which—I want to pause real fast and say thank you so much to everyone who read my last blog post about my divorce. I received so many messages from you guys, all my friends IRL and online, and I honestly feel so grateful to have your support. It was really healing for me to share what I went through and what I learned along the way, so again—
Thank you.
Living in Hawaii really did teach me the art of slowing down, of living in the moment. Aiming for a sense of PEACE has helped me a lot as I’ve gone through all these difficult transitions. When I was on Oahu, I used to take my mug of lemon water with me to the front porch each morning and sit on a chair to watch the sunrise while baby chicks hopped around my feet (there are wild chickens everywhere in Hawaii). I try to imagine I’m back in that paradise every time I take a sip of lemon water. It’s the ultimate self-care ritual, especially considering all the health benefits of drinking warm lemon water in the morning.
For the holidays, I traveled back to my hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit my mom, and I was so touched that she’d bought a bag of lemons just so that I could continue my morning lemon water ritual. It was the most loving gesture, and I really am that serious about it!
How to prepare your warm lemon water:
One of the first things I do when I wake up is put some water on the stove to heat up. I make my lemon water just slightly warm by mixing cold/room temp water with the hot water. You don’t want it too hot, just slightly warm. Then slice a lemon in half and squeeze it into the water! I use a whole half a lemon, but go with the amount that tastes good to you. The point is to enjoy it. And while my view isn’t quite as magical now that I’m off the island, I’ll still take a moment with my mug and sit on my balcony with my dogs to breathe and slowly sip the water.
I want to note that ideally, I do all this without checking my phone for the first 30 minutes that I’m awake. I’m still working on committing to this practice, but I do always feel more grounded when I ignore my phone for a while when I wake up.
So why do I drink lemon water? Well, it does taste good, so that’s a nice start.
But let’s get into all the juicy health benefits of drinking warm lemon water first thing in the morning:
Rehydration.
It’s important to drink a glass of water, with lemon or not, when you first wake up in the morning to make sure your body is properly hydrated after its 8 (ish)-hour long drought. The fact that the water is lukewarm is important because that means your body doesn’t have to do as much work to heat up or cool down the water as it digests, it’s already more body-temp. So even if you run out of lemons, be sure to drink some warm water first thing in the morning, regardless!
Boosts Immune System.
This could not be more relevant right now, as I am just getting over a mild cold. I say mild, because honestly I’ve never had one as light and manageable as this one before! Is the Vitamin C in lemon to credit? Well, it certainly helps. Obviously there’s no magic cure to keeping yourself safe from the bug that is currently spreading through San Diego, but Vitamin C is always a good idea.
I should mention that Vitamin C is incredible for helping with skin damage. I’m big on this (if you follow me on Instagram, you know), as I’d like to keep my skin sunspot/wrinkle/melanoma free for, um, ever. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant, which (science lesson) means that it binds to free radicals floating in your body (the nasty buggers that cause tissue damage) and neutralize them by tossing them one of their extra electrons. I know I’m getting nerdy on you here, but it’s because this shit is REAL. I want you to start to connect the dots between what you put into your body and what happens as a result!
Aids Digestion
The health of your gut is incredibly important because it affects the rest of your body and your mind—poor digestion can actually worsen depression and other mental health issues! And, trust, lemon makes everything move along smoothly (if you know what I mean), keeping your digestive tract happy. Lemon contains pectin, a prebiotic—which is essentially food for the good bacteria in your gut. We want to keep the good bacteria in our guts happy! Think of it as like a pet you need to make sure to feed—or is that too weird?
Lemon also contains lots of citric acid, which helps aid digestion as well as increase urine output (a good thing) and decrease kidney stones (always a good thing).
Neutral pH
Because of that citric acid, lemon has a natural acidic pH of about 2, but once digested it turns alkaline in our body, meaning its pH levels rise to a 7. Ingesting an alkaline food is believed to increase the pH of the body, providing numerous potential health benefits. Although the jury is still out on these claims, it can’t hurt, right?
A few final things to note…
The first thing is that lemons can damage your tooth enamel if consumed frequently over time, so the easiest solution is to drink your lemon water through a straw. HOWEVER, please do not use plastic! They end up right into the ocean, where they kill whales by getting lodged into their stomachs so they can’t eat. Yeah. Buy yourself some stainless steel reusable straws and sip, sip away.
Also, make sure to drink the water first thing when you wake up, on an empty stomach. This lets the lemon water do its thing and prep your stomach and body for the day before you add food into the mix.