By Jake Sepulveda

The average human being needs 2-3 liters of water everyday to remain healthy, hydrated, and ready to go. If you’re in a physically demanding situation like a Zombie outbreak, or you spend the day in extreme temperatures, you’ll need more than just the standard 2-3 liters a day to stay hydrated.

Access to potable water is one of the primary concerns when attempting to survive a Zombie outbreak or other major disaster. If you can’t find water, or it isn’t safe to drink when you do find it, you can quickly succumb to dehydration and even death.

Primary Causes of Water-loss and Dehydration: Water-loss and dehydration occur when there isn’t enough water consumed to replace what is lost throughout the day. Your body literally drys out. The following bodily and situational conditions can lead to a rapid loss of fluid and cause dehydration.

• Diarrhea and vomiting
• Fever and other intense illness
• High heat exposure / Heat exhaustion / Extreme Cold
• Over-working / General exhaustion
• Lack of access to potable water
• Impaired ability to drink
• Severe injuries and Illnesses.

Symptoms of Dehydration: The symptoms of dehydration are serious and can be met with dire consequences if steps are not taken to reverse the effects as soon as possible. If you notice the occurrence of any of the following symptoms, you’re probably over-due for a drink of water. In addition to the below mentioned symptoms, concentrated and deeply yellow colored urine is an indicator that you need more water in your system.

• Increased desire to drink
• Dry mouth and Swollen tongue
• Confusion and Dizziness
• Weakness, Exhaustion, and Fainting
• Inability to sweat and decreased urine output
• Heart palpitations
• Death

How to Treat Dehydration: Finding potable water isn’t always the easiest thing to do during a major disaster or survival situation, but it is possible… most of the time.

• Slowly sip water in small amounts.
• Sucking on ice chips or Popsicles.
• Slowly sip drinks high in electrolytes, like Pedialyte and some sports drinks.
• When dehydration is caused by heat exposure or elevated body temperature, attempt to cool the body down as best you can.
• Spray or mist luke-warm water on exposed skin surfaces to help cool by evaporation.

In Conclusion: It’s incredibly important to stay hydrated at all times, if you really plan on making it through the day. A human being can only go 3 days without water, and it’s going to be rough after the first. But don’t chug down too much water and over do it. Walking around with a sloshing gut isn’t the most comfortable thing to run away from Zombies with or having to carry it out of the wild… and besides, stopping to pee every five minutes wont help improve your chance of survival in the long-run.