Henry Williams Allingham died two months back. At 113 years, he was the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving English service men from the First World War. One of the secret to his longevity, he once said, "Never to worry, eat nutritious food in sparing quantity and drink plenty of water."

I my last article, I promised to share with you some simple but very powerful tips to improve your Good Health.  We know that nutrition is one of the four important components to stay healthy. Other three are physical exercise, good sleep and meditation.

Nutrition is a vast topic in itself. Let's look at one of the most simple, and pure form of nutritious food – WATER.

The first simple step you need to inculcate in your daily habit is to drink water, drink water in right quantity and finally drink water at the right time. We are all trained to respond to hunger pangs, but rarely to thirst. We sometime mistake thirst pang to hunger pang.

Water is the most essential component of our body, and constitutes 70%. You can live for five weeks without food, but cannot survive even five days without water! Water plays an important role in every function and attributes of our body. It plays a pivotal role in skin beauty, digestion, cleansing of toxins, improving immunity, blood flow, assimilation of nutrients, balancing electrolytes, maintaining skin moisture/tone and many more.

What I am saying in the above paragraph is nothing new. I am sure many of you have read this number of times or suggested by your physicians/elders. Unfortunately, compliance to this simple, cost effective remedy is less than 10% worldwide. Heart burn, gastric problems are very common in today's world, with our changed lifestyle and food style. And we are programmed to cure these natural problems with medicines, which while give us temporary relief, it adds further to our toxin repository in body.

All of us drink water.  Typically, just before we start our meal, during the meal or immediately after completion of meal. We also love drinking chilled water, because we think it cools the body, and stomach. Consumption of cold drink happens frequently to quench the thirst for water. What is wrong in this? Let's look at this scientifically. When you are hungry and ready to eat sumptuous meal, your stomach is also getting ready by filling itself with gastric juices for effective digestion. By drinking water just before and during the meal, you wash away these important gastric juices, which not only help in proper digestion, but also protect your stomach inner linings from oily-spicy food. If you drink water immediately after meal, you dilute the gastric juices, and make their task less effective, causing indigestion.

For a Good Health, let us take this small step. Change your pattern of drinking water. Drink thirty minutes before the meal, no water during meal, and drink forty five minutes after the meal. Drink at least 1.5-2.0L per day, preferably good portion of this in the first half. Start your day with 2-3 glasses of warm water. This will regulate bowel motion, help in complete cleansing of colon, eliminate heart burns, and improve digestion.

Please follow this simple advice. Slowly, you will startEMPOWERINGyourself, to take charge of yourhealth forever.