Thirsty

Sensory integration

﻿Our bodies are put together in an amazing way, and one of the things that's really interesting is how we know when we are thirsty and when we are hungry. In today's lesson, we are going to learn about thirst and how your brain tells your body when you need a drink. We, as therapists, have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. Each lesson will have ideas and activities that can be carried out at home or in school. This information is be used alongside any specific strategies or resources which have been given by your child's school or therapist. If you have any questions or would like help tailoring this to your child's needs, then please contact your local therapy service. Being thirsty is something that we feel usually at the back of our throat or our mouth becomes really dry, however, our thirst signal is nowhere near our mouth, but it's actually a very small part in our brains that controls hunger and thirst. And it's this little bit in your brain that recognises when there's not enough fluid in your body, and then it sends a signal from your brain to the rest of your body to say that you need a drink, and one of those signals goes to your throat. First of all, let's have a look at our amazing body, much of our body is made out of water. Our brain and our heart are composed of about 70% water, and our lungs are about 80% made of water. Our skin contains around 65% of water, and even our muscles and our kidneys have 80% water in them. And what about our bones? Did you know that about a third of your bones consists of water? Isn't that amazing? Well, our thirsty signal, is really, really important that we act on it and that we recognise it. And some of us may struggle to know whether we are thirsty or whether we are hungry, but when we are thirsty and we don't have extra fluid, it may be that we start to have a headache, we may start to feel a little bit grumpy, and we tend to feel really sweaty and irritated. So what we need to do is we need to take a drink. So we're going to do exactly that, but I'm going to ask you to pause the video here and have a drink of cold water, because I want you to see if you can feel how that drink goes all the way from your mouth down to your throat and down all the way to your tummy. Can you feel it? Pause the video now to have a drink and then press play to finish the lesson with me. Now here's an interesting colour chart that talks about being hydrated and dehydrated. Hydrated means that we've got enough fluid in our body to be safe and to be healthy, whereas dehydrated means that we need a lot more fluids. So next time you go to the toilet, you can check the colour of your urine and the lighter the colour, the more hydrated you are. And the darker the colour of your urine, the more you know you need to have a little bit more fluid to drink. So this is a really handy way to know when, if you don't recognise the signals in your mouth, or in your body, that you are thirsty, is when you go to the loo, you can see the colour of your urine will determine and will tell you as well whether you need to have a drink or whether you're okay and you're hydrated. Well done on learning more about thirst today, and I hope that you have a really lovely day.

Thirsty

Thirsty

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