Karen

Most people know that it’s important to drink enough water every day. But when you’re busy at work, it can be easy to forget to stay hydrated. This can become even trickier when you work outdoors or on the tools.

Dehydration can lead to fatigue, headaches, heat stress, and other problems (even death). When working under the sun, in the heat, or while working in a physically demanding role, you’ll naturally sweat more than you would otherwise.

So, you need to keep on top of staying hydrated otherwise your productivity and performance can drop off.

How To Stay Hydrated At Work

Drinking enough fluids sounds simple, and it is, but there’s more to it than getting your ‘eight glasses of water a day’. Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to your water intake.

When should you drink fluids?

In short, all day long. Though there are some things to keep in mind throughout the day for best results.

Pre-Hydrate

Many people wake in the morning to a quick breakfast and coffee before heading to work, this is especially true for those who have early starts like many in construction or other physical professions.

But, you should take some time to hydrate before work to start your day on the right note.

Drinking a glass or two of water at home before leaving is one easy way to do this, as is ensuring you have a water bottle for your commute.

Otherwise, you run the risk of starting your day dehydrated and playing catch-up the whole day, depending on your access to water or workload, this may be a losing battle.

Hydrate on the Job

Be sure to drink plenty of water to keep hydrated throughout the work day. Make sure you’re drinking water all day at work, with your main goal being to never get thirsty in the first place.

How much water do you need anyway?

When working in the heat or sun, it is best to aim for about 250ml of fluids every 15-20 minutes, or just shy of a litre an hour.

This may sound more frequent than necessary, but drinking smaller amounts more regularly is better for your health and productivity than infrequently consuming larger amounts. For instance, it is ill advised to have more than 1.4 litres in a one hour period, no matter how thirsty you may feel. If you do so, the level of salt and other nutrients and minerals in your blood can dip too low, putting you at risk of fatigue or worse.

Hydrate After Work

It can take several hours to catch up and replenish your fluids when you’re dehydrated, and jobs that require intense physical labour will leave your body requiring additional fluids as your rest in order to repair and maintain your muscles.

This is especially important if you regularly consume sugary drinks or alcohol. These drinks may help satisfy your thirst, but they only dehydrate you further and leave you at risk of starting the next day dehydrated. Falling into a cycle like this is known as chronic dehydration, which puts you at greater risk of several medical conditions, including kidney stones, fatigue, and difficulty focussing on the job.

What Fluids Should You Drink?

Not all drinks are made equal, in fact some will leave you worse off than you started.

Water

Water makes up 55-60% of your body, and around 70-80% of important organs like your heart, brain, and lungs.

So, it’s no wonder you don’t feel or do your best when you don’t get enough.

Hydration Supplements

When you work and sweat, your body uses up important nutrients such as electrolytes, vitamins, and amino-acids.

Hydration supplements help you to replenish these nutrients and others that allow your body to take up water more efficiently and to help maintain your energy levels throughout the day.

Some of the most important nutrients in these hydration supplements can be:

• Electrolytes like Sodium, Potassium, and Magnesium.
• Vitamins B and C
• L-Glutamine
• Branch Chain Amino Acids (BCAAs)
• and others

Such supplements can come in powders, concentrates, or ready-to-go as a premix or frozen treat.

What Fluids Should You Avoid?

Some drinks will leave you thirstier than others, or even actively dehydrate you and should be avoided or carefully consumed.

Alcohol

Alcoholic beverages are one such fluid. The strain that alcohol puts on your organs requires a substantial amount of water to repair, plus water is needed to filter the alcohol out of your blood. As a result, consuming alcohol is one of the worst things you can do if trying to stay hydrated.

Not to mention that if you consume alcohol within 24-36 hours of working in the heat, you put yourself at great risk of heat related illnesses.

Energy Drinks

It’s a common sight, cans of energy drinks throughout a worksite or office. Seen as an innocent ‘pick-me-up’, these drinks often contain far more caffiene than coffee, soft drink, or tea.

When you have too much caffeine in a day (which can be as little as 2 or more energy drinks), you’re putting extra strain on your heart. This strain, when coupled with dehydration, intense activity, or heat, isn’t good for your health or wellbeing.

Plus, most energy drinks have as much if not more sugar than soft drink, introducing plenty of empty calories to your system that further increase your body’s usage of its water.

How To Tell If You’re Dehydrated?

There are several indicators that you could be dehydrated, any one of which is a bad sign. Again, be sure to focus on hydration before you’re dehydrated and work to avoid all of the following.

Urine Colour

One of the easiest indicators of how hydrated (or dehydrated) you are is the colour of your urine. If your urine is darker than a very pale or transparent yellow, you’re already dehydrated. Should your urine take on a standard yellow hue, or progress to orange or brownish, it is critical that you focus on rehydrating yourself. This will likely take the remainder of the day, if not 2-3 days to accomplish.

You Feel Thirsty

It can be easy to ignore a dry mouth, especially if you smoke or work around dust and dirt. Though this isn’t wise.

By the time you realise you’re thirsty, you’re already behind on your water uptake.

Other Signs

The following are also signs that you’re dehydrated, and vary in severity.

• You aren’t sweating as much as you’d expect
• Your skin feels hot and dry
• You have a headache
• You feel dizzy
• You become nauseas
• You have little to no appetite
• Breathing becomes difficult
• You’re tired, weak, or fatigued
• You begin vomiting
• Your muscles begin cramping or hurting
• You’re unable to think as clearly as you should

More Ways To Stay Hydrated At Work

In addition to all of the above advice, here are a few more things you can do to keep on top of your hydration.

Keep Extra Fluids With You

Whether it’s a water bottle, a hydration backpack, or something else, you should always have fluids on you to ensure you’re able to regularly take more in throughout the day.

Dress Appropriately

Ensuring that you’re wearing the right clothing and accessories, like long-sleeved breathable shirts, wide brimmed hats, and other head coverings or cooling scarves, will set you up for success and reduce the impact of heat and sun on your thirst.

Take Breaks When You Can

Giving your body an opportunity to rest will lessen the effect of heat and effort on your body. This also gives you ample opportunity to refill your water bottle or back-pack.

Shop Our Hydration Range

Here at DD Group we take pride in providing our partners and clients with everything they need to keep their teams safe.

This includes products that help you stay hydrated while you’re working.

If you’re looking for hydration supplements, water storage, or clothing designed to protect you from heat stress, you’ll want to check out our THORZT and our Hydration Range here.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how DD Group can better enable you and your team to stay safe and keep hydrated at work, you can call one of our Industry Specialists today at: 1300 003 384.

Regardless of the industry you work in, your hands are your most useful tool. You use them for just about everything, and as a result they constantly come into contact with a wide range of objects and materials within your workplace.

Some of these objects and materials introduce potential hazards to hands and arms of those interacting with them.

Imagine for a moment that you suffered a hand injury that negatively impacted your grip strength, dexterity, or ability to use any number of the tools and equipment you need to do your job.

That’s a grim thought, isn’t it?

Not to mention that such an injury would do more than impact your ability to deliver at work. It would impact nearly every element of your day-to-day life.

Sadly, hand injuries are the second most common form of workplace injury, not that far behind back injuries.

That’s why it’s critical to consider hand and arm protection and ensure that you have the appropriate personal protective equipment.

What are common hand injuries?

Depending on the specifics of your role and where you work, you’ll be exposed to different hazards. Some of the most common are as follows:

Machinery – Working with machinery and moving parts could see your hands and fingers caught within, resulting in them being caught or crushed. Such an incident would no doubt result in bruising, if not a fracture, a broken bone, or outright amputation.

Tools and Materials – When working with tools and materials like metal, glass, stone, cabling, and more you’re exposing yourself to several common hand injuries. The resulting abrasions, cuts, punctures, and even the vibration or impact from tools and equipment can damage your hands.

Chemicals – Chemical hazards are varied, as are their effects on the body. If you handle chemicals, and are not wearing gloves (or the wrong type of glove) you run the risk of chemical burns or even your body absorbing biological and chemical hazards.

Our hand protection range helps to protect your staff from these injuries and more. Though, protecting your staff isn’t enough, they need to be prepared to deal with injuries too. Browse our medical supplies range and ensure your team is covered.

What types of hand protection are there?

Every discussion surrounding hand protection and safety revolves around gloves.

That much is simple.

It’s selecting the right glove for the job that makes things more complicated.

Safety gloves are available in a wide variety of materials and for a variety of purposes.

Chemical Resistant Gloves

Chemical resistant gloves are designed to mitigate the risks posed by harmful substances, such as corrosive materials and chemical or biological hazards. When selecting such gloves, it’s important to understand that every material offers a different level of protection based on the specific chemicals you’ll be interacting with. Chemical resistance is not the same thing as chemical-proof, and in many cases these gloves are only safe for limited use before needing to be replaced.

Cut Resistant Gloves

If you work with sharps, blades, and metal or glass edges, then cut resistant gloves might be a good fit for you.

Needle Resistant Gloves

Naturally, these gloves are specially designed to enable the wearer to pickup and work with needles without putting themselves at risk of punctures. When working with used needles, such a puncture can pose a serious health risk, and the added safety of purposefully needle resistant gloves becomes worthwhile.

Leather Gloves

Leather gloves can be a good all purpose glove choice. These gloves offer some protection from cuts, abrasions, temperature, all while allowing the wearer a fair degree of dexterity and comfort.

Mechanics Gloves

Mechanics may use several kinds of gloves depending on what tasks they are undertaking. Some mechanics gloves will leave one or more fingers exposed so that the mechanic can have a greater degree of dexterity and sensitivity for working with and finding small parts. It’s also not uncommon for some of these gloves to have a magnetic component for holding onto nuts, bolts, and bits or attachments they may be using.

Welding Gloves

Welding Gloves are designed to be incredibly resistant to heat, flames, and electric shocks while also protecting the wearer from ultraviolet and infrared radiation. These gloves can be quite thick, due to their often being multiple layers. So, based on the type of welding the wearer performs, the appropriate thickness and material may vary.

Disposable Gloves

Disposable gloves are best for one time use. They are typically very thin and provide the wearer with a high degree of sensitivity and dexterity when compared to other gloves. Although, this thinness makes them far more prone to cuts and punctures, as well as a lower degree of chemical resistance when compared to gloves designed for those purposes.

Synthetic Dipped Gloves

These kinds of gloves are often made of some kind of breathable knitted fabric, but has the fingers and palm dipped in a synthetic material that assists with grip, provides some level of temperature protection, and protects from small cuts and abrasions. Synthetic dipped gloves are widespread and versatile, finding use in essentially every industry.

What types of hand protection do I need?

The best place to start when selecting your gloves is to carefully consider your work activities to determine the degree of dexterity required and take that into account when selecting your gloves.

Next, consider the risks and hazards your hands are at risk of. Whether that be cuts, burns, or anything else.

Do some research, or speak to one of our experts, about what those risks entail so you can identify the level of protection you’ll need where appropriate.

Taking the above into account, you should be better equipped to identifying which PPE you need.

Buy Hand Protection, Safety Gloves, and Work Gloves

If you’re looking to make a purchase for yourself or your team, you can shop our hand protection range. Otherwise you can view our complete product range when you visit our online store.

If you have any questions, you can feel free to contact us by completing our contact us form here, or call 1300 003 384 to speak to one of our Industry Specialists.