Each person has experienced thirst many times. This feeling appears when our body needs water. It refers to physiological sensations and is one of the most important. The meaning of the word “thirst”, the phenomenon itself, its features and causes will be discussed in this article.
Description
Studying the meaning of thirst experienced by man, it is necessary to consider the causes of its occurrence. The body of a person and another living creature constantly loses water through its skin, the system of excretion, and as a result of metabolic processes. This happens especially strongly in conditions of extreme heat or in a dry environment, as well as during sports, during work or other muscle strain. Water rapidly leaves our body with increased brain activity caused by mental stress.
This loss of water needs to be reimbursed. Thirst is a signal given by the brain that the body immediately needs water. This can be compared with the feeling of hunger, which occurs when it is necessary to restore the reserves of protein, fats, carbohydrates and minerals.
According to the German professor, scientist and doctor Herman Notnagel, these feelings stand out in a special, so-called nutritional group of the body's internal sensations. It should be said that the feeling of shortness of breath also refers to it, which indicates that a living creature needs more oxygen.
Symptoms
When the body has lost a lot of water, this leads to the appearance of heat, as well as dry mouth and thirst. These are its main symptoms, which cause a person to replenish water supplies. Symptoms include dry lips and tongue. With the presence of a long feeling of thirst, the lips begin to crack, the mucous membrane dries up, and the saliva in the mouth becomes sticky and thick. With the movements of the tongue, it begins to stick to the sky.
With prolonged thirst, unpleasant sensations of heat are added to the above symptoms, breathing and pulse become more frequent, and then an excited and febrile state appears. There is general anxiety, delirium, and the skin becomes hot and dry, there is pain in the eye area.
Thirst is a feeling that you should pay special attention to, since dehydration can lead to very serious consequences. With prolonged dehydration, which lasts more than two days, the result will be a painful death. So, for example, the human body can not do without water for more than three days, while without food you can live for several weeks.
How to fight?
In order to cope with thirst, first of all, you need to drink water. However, this will only help if it is caused locally, for example, after inhaling hot air. However, if thirst is caused by common causes, such as loss of water directly by the body itself (with excessive physical exertion, prolonged lack of water in the body), more serious actions are required.
With general dehydration, it is necessary to immediately replenish the body's water reserves. To do this, a large amount of fluid is injected directly into the stomach itself, into the rectum or intravenously, directly into the blood itself. In such cases, it is required to fill up the lack of water as soon as possible, otherwise it can lead to death.
Other values
There are also other meanings of this term. So, for example, in a figurative sense, this word speaks of the desire for something. The thirst for revenge, the thirst for life, the thirst for power, etc. In other words, this is the strongest desire of a person to possess, for example, power or to desire revenge strongly.
"Thirst" is also the name of feature films that have been released at various times. In 1949, director Ingmar Bergman shot a film called Thirst, which was very popular. In 1959, the director E. Tashkov made a feature film of the same name dedicated to the Great Patriotic War.