Electrolytes: how adding them to your water can sharpen your focus (as well as help with hangovers)

“I travel with a pink Himalayan salt grinder,” says Liz Earle, beauty entrepreneur and founder of Liz Earle Wellbeing. This surprising suitcase essential allows Earle to add a sprinkle of salt to her morning glass of water, before she drinks anything else. This pinch of the electrolyte mineral sodium helps improve her “brain focus”, she says.

It’s the same for supermodel and Get The Gloss columnist Elle Macpherson. She tells us that she starts her day with a salt water flush, a mix of “filtered water, lime, with a little Celtic sea salt”. She puts a glass on her bedside the night before so it’s the first thing that passes her lips. “It has so many wellness benefits, including trace minerals and clearing fluid retention while helping establish an optimal PH level in the body,” she says.

Basically, water can be made more hydrating, and more virtuous, by adding electrolytes. Simple sodium (salt) is one, but a blend of electrolytes is best. “Electrolytes are essential minerals the body requires to function on a cellular level,” says pharmacist Jaspreet Randhawa. “Some of the commonly known ones besides sodium are potassium, magnesium and calcium. They have a huge part to play in the regulation of chemical reactions in the body and the movement of fluid in and out of cells, plus the contraction and relaxation of each muscle in the body, including the heart.”

Spotting an impending trend for dedicated electrolyte supplements, beauty entrepreneur siblings Mona and Huda Kattan invested in Humantra Electrolytes (scroll down for our review) which, with their ever-growing choice of flavours, seem to be everywhere. In their wake, biohacking enthusiasts and entrepreneurs such as Macpherson, alongside a whole host of health and supplement brands, have launched their own.

So how can you spot a good electrolyte supplement and – with brands targeting specific needs with specific blends – find one that’s right for you? We have all the answers.

What are electrolyte supplements for?

Electrolyte supplements used to be something you’d only deploy when you were ill or depleted – a Dioralyte sachet to quickly rehydrate after a stomach bug or hangover (a self-inflicted illness of sorts), or a Lucozade or energy gel gulped down by an athlete doing an endurance sport (electrolytes are easily lost with sweat – no wonder they taste salty!).

But now people are using them daily – be it a homespun sprinkle of salt or a carefully calibrated supplement or drink – to optimise their health. Rather than tackling a specific problem, the new way to take electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride and calcium are the most prevalent) is to boost cellular hydration – ie to ensure that every cell in your body is sufficiently hydrated. This will help your body and brain work to its best ability, leading to gains in concentration, focus, energy and much more.

When cellular hydration is less than optimal – when you’re dehydrated, in other words – water is drawn out of cells into other locations such as blood vessels. This leaves cells sad, shrivelled and unable to function properly. You know that sluggish feeling when you’re sitting at your desk and haven’t touched your water bottle all morning? Those brain cells need a drink.

“Electrolytes help the body produce and use energy,” says nutritional therapist Pippa Campbell, who often recommends them in her clinic, particularly to people who are chronically stressed. “Proper hydration in brain cells is important or it will leave us foggy-headed and unable to focus.”

Campbell saw the benefits herself when she began taking the electrolyte supplement Body Bio E-Lyte (scroll down for our review) which contains sodium, potassium and magnesium, to help with sciatica-related muscle spasms in her leg. She soon clocked that her energy levels were boosted too. (Liz Earle is another Body Bio fan.)

I want to pimp my water with salt – what kind should I use?

Not all salts are created equal. Sea salt or salt from other water sources – such as Himalayan pink salt – is best for an electrolyte boost because it contains not just sodium but typically other minerals, such as magnesium, potassium and calcium. Normal table salt, which tends to come from rocks, doesn’t have those.

Can electrolytes help you hydrate more quickly than water?

Why is simple tap water not enough? “It’s not just about how much water we drink, but how much of that water reaches our cells and how or body uses it,” says Campbell. “A lot of our cells run on electricity, so we want electrolytes dissolved in water so that our cells can carry an electrical charge. Water on its own doesn’t conduct electricity. It’s only when you add electrolytes to water that it can hold a charge.”

It means you cannot alternatively sprinkle them over food: “The whole point of electrolytes is to provide your body with the electrically charged elements that help convey the water into the cells instead of just keeping it outside. So taking them with food instead of water wouldn’t work unless you’re drinking a load of water at the same time,” says functional medicine and nutrition specialist Sarah Carolides.

So yes, electrolytes can help you hydrate faster by helping balance the fluid levels in your body. If you are dehydrated, both fluid and electrolytes have been lost from your body and need replenishing. But if you drink too much water to rehydrate, you may flush even more electrolytes out of your system.

Is it OK to take electrolytes every day?

Many health experts do. “I put a sprinkle of electrolytes in every glass of water I have,” says Campbell. Like Macpherson, she places a glass of pimped-up water by her bedside at night and drinks it before getting out of bed in the morning.

That said, don’t feel it’s a must. “Most of us get enough electrolytes from our diets, so it’s not necessary to supplement unless you’re ill or planning a big workout where you’ll sweat a lot,” says Dr Gemma Newman, author of Get Well, Stay Well.

There is, in fact, such a thing as taking too many electrolytes: “if you overconsume these drinks, there is a danger of ingesting too much salt, which can raise your blood pressure,” says Newman.

It’s one reason why Carolides, who has developed a range of electrolyte blends for Zooki, where she’s a consultant, likes to err on the side of caution when it comes to selecting and taking electrolytes.

“It’s a frustratingly inexact area of nutrition,” she says. “We have no idea what diet anyone is eating and how much they may be losing through sweat and other daily processes.” The most important thing, she says, is to keep the sodium level reasonably low unless you’re exercising a lot (and therefore losing salt through sweat).

“I really don’t like the brands that use 1000 mg of sodium for everyday use and say you can have more than one a day,” she says. 300mg or less is a better daily amount, carefully balanced with potassium, magnesium and chloride; look for a minimum 200mg, 100mg and 500mg respectively.”

Tips for matching your electrolyte intake to your needs

• Think half a litre of water

Your chosen powder supplement will suggest how much water to mix it with but Carolides suggest making it at least 500ml of water, if not more. “If you’re not a serious athlete then diluting one of the gentler blends is a great way of just making sure your water is working harder for you,” she says.

• Recover with extra sodium

On occasions that you exercise hard, says Carolides, a ‘sweat’ blend is a great way to speed up the recovery process. By which she means one of the more high-sodium blends, such as Zooki’s Hydration+Exercise and Recover, £12.99 which, she says, “like any good exercise blend will have that sweaty, salty taste.”

• Beware if you eat a lot of convenience foods

If your diet consists mainly of UPFs (ultra-processed foods), choose your electrolytes wisely. Those food are packed with salt so, warns Carolides, you “will already have extremely high sodium levels.” Levels of potassium and other minerals will be low, however so find a blend high in those and low in sodium.

• Look for chloride if you have a hangover

Electrolytes are very helpful for off-setting the dehydration that’s part and parcel of a hangover, but you want to again be wary of too much sodium. “In our Liver Health electrolyte blend, I put the maximum amount of chloride to mitigate the effects of the sodium,’ says Carolides.

13 electrolyte supplements to try

There’s an electrolyte supplement for every eventuality – here are our top picks