Hydration. Hydration. Hydration. This is the key to healthy skin.

Water is used by your body to help flush out toxins and waste products and is an important element of clearing up your skin from acne and blemishes. Water also hydrates and plumps up your skin causing wrinkles and pores to minimize on the surface. It increases blood flow and helps to maintain the balance of your body’s fluids. The functions of these bodily fluids include helping with digestion, absorption, blood circulation, transportation of nutrients, creation of saliva and maintenance of body temperature. After all, your body is composed of about 60% water. You need to replenish that water daily to help your body do its job.

Water may also fend off breakouts by decreasing the concentration of oil on your skin. “It is critical to have a stable balance of water to oil on the surface of skin, If the skin is too heavily covered in oil relative to water, this can lead to clogged pores with acne breakouts and blemishes,” says Dr. Julius Few, a clinical professor at the University of Chicago.

H2O also helps to control your calories and energize your muscles. Substituting water over high calorie beverages such as soda, minimizes your caloric intake and helps speed up digestion. Water also distributes throughout your muscles during exercise and helps restore electrolytes.

You should be drinking at minimum, eight glasses of water a day, which is equivalent to a half gallon. If you exercise regularly, you should drink about one gallon a day, to replace water lost from sweat during exercise.

Water is essential to having healthy skin and a healthy metabolism. You only have one body, so do everything you can to keep it in good shape.