By Jimmy Khuc, staff writer
The 7 day challenge I chose for myself was to drink at least a gallon of water per day for a week. Throughout the last four years, I’ve been battling acne scars and hyperpigmentation, dark spots on my face. I heard that drinking lots of water can help clear out scars and even hyperpigmentation, so I decided to test it out on myself by drinking a gallon of water a day. I’ve never really struggled with drinking the healthy amount of water a day but my acne scars, on the other hand, have never truly healed so I hope to see some improvement on my skin if any.
At first I never really thought drinking a gallon of water a day was difficult as I normally stay up for around sixteen hours a day and that is a lot of time to drink a gallon of water. The only problem or inconvenience I thought I would have is having to use the bathroom a few more times than normal a day.
The first couple days of the challenge were more inconvenient than difficult as I was drinking half a gallon of water by noon as I got quite bored in class. I used that boredom to drink tons of water as I would constantly fill up my water bottle in order to remind myself to drink it. Though I expected to use the bathroom a bit more, I ended up using the bathroom up to around 12 times a day, and I believe I used the bathroom on average up to 7-8 times before noon. I nearly had to use the bathroom almost every hour or even half an hour. I also felt quite full in the morning due to the amount of water I was drinking so I started to skip lunch and chose to eat my breakfast after school around 2-3 o’clock.
The second day of the challenge was the worst as I didn’t have a great night of sleep because I had to use the bathroom twice in the middle of the night. In addition to my poor sleep, I used the bathroom at least 3 times every class, which made me miss out on some important details of a book I started to read in my English class. During one point of the day, I remember using the bathroom 4 times in one hour because I decided to also drink some boba which was a mistake.
As the week progressed, I began seeing the benefits of drinking water as I started to feel more awake and alert during the morning, I stopped drinking any other liquid besides water, and my face began to sort of clear from random acne bumps I used to receive. My bladder also began to adjust to the amount of water I was consuming, as the last two days of the challenge, I only had to use the bathroom 6 times a day, and didn’t even have to use it at night.
After drinking a gallon of water every day for a week, I mentally started to feel better and more awake during my classes in the morning, my acne began to clear up a bit, and I felt less hungry throughout the day. Though I didn’t see as many benefits on my face as I hoped, I still hope to consume close to a gallon of water a day because I believe that there is a chance my acne can improve in the long run and drinking water helped me feel more alert during the morning.
