The Ideal Temperature of Drinking Water

“This may be an unpopular thing to say, but it is important that whatever you consume is not too far away from the body temperature.”

—Sadhguru

A steaming cup of tea on a winter day or an ice-cold glass of water in the summer may sound refreshing, but do these hot and cold treats actually have a positive or negative impact on the body? Sadhguru discusses the ideal temperatures for water and water-containing foods to be consumed, as well as the best heating methods.

Q: You have shared how treatment of water, including its transport, influences its behavior in the body. How does this apply when microwaving water or water-containing foods? In general, what is the best way to heat water?

Sadhguru: What I have noticed is, in the United States, everyone drinks water with three-fourths of the glass filled with ice cubes! Usually, water is always served with ice in the United States. But Indians – I mean Indians as in India – always order water without ice when they go to a restaurant. There are a lot of jokes about this, and there is even a blog that takes its name from this.

Drinking Degrees

In the yogic culture, if you are on the path of inner transformation, you want to transform your system to another dimension of possibility. If that is so, then you only drink water which is within four degrees centigrade of your body’s normal temperature, i.e. between 32 and 40 degrees centigrade. This is the best way to consume water.

If you are a student – if you only want to absorb knowledge and are not looking for transformation – then you must drink within eight degrees centigrade of the body’s temperature. So the water temperature should be between 28 and 44 degrees centigrade.

If you are a householder who is not interested in any transformation or learning, you just want to manage your children and wife or husband, then you can drink water that is within twelve degrees centigrade of the body temperature. Water that is at a temperature beyond this is not considered conducive for anyone.
This may be an unpopular thing to say, but it is important that whatever you consume is not too far away from the body temperature. Consuming water or any substance which is very far from the body temperature will disturb the way the water within the system behaves. I know the ice-cream lovers and ice-cream companies might not like it, but I am just telling you the ideal conditions. If you want to live in the ideal range and be conscious of it, then wherever possible, staying within that temperature range is a good idea.

The Best Way to Heat Water

The other part of your question was about how to heat water. The best way would be to heat with the sun’s own energies because that is the fundamental form. It is very easy to set up an element which is heated by a small solar panel somewhere above your house. Solar heaters are available these days. If that is not possible, wood fire would be the next option. If that is not possible, then come the petroleum products. It is not the best way, but it is better than using your microwave.

A microwave does not heat the water evenly. It just heats individual molecules of water all over the place. If you heat something with a microwave, then you should at least keep it outside for 15 to 20 minutes, so that the water in whatever food item you have heated up has time to readjust itself to its normal pattern.

Another aspect is that if the surface of the container you use to microwave is very smooth – generally, glass or porcelain containers can be very smooth – the water can get superheated. That is, it can cross hundred degrees centigrade and still not become steam because air bubbles cannot form in it. When the surface is too smooth, air bubbles cannot form there. Because of that, you may have superheated water, which can be dangerous.

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