As an inveterate coffee drinker by day and a wine drinker by evening, I spend most of my life in a “lightly mummified”. Add to that our salty and spicy Indian food, and I am about as hydrated as a Bedouin crossing the Sahara.

Of course, I am aware of the wisdom of drinking eight glasses of water during the day. Knowledge, however, has always had only a passing acquaintance with my actual behavior.

That said, I believe I have finally solved my problem. And you can too.

First, if you don’t know how to swim, excellent. You’re already halfway there. If you do know how to swim, I recommend unlearning it first.

Then, and this part is important, sign up for swimming lessons with a relentlessly persistent instructor.

The results have been astonishing. I am now ingesting water at an unprecedented rate. Not all of it through my mouth, mind you, but hydration is hydration.

Frustratingly enough, there is one unexpected side effect.

Instead of floating gracefully, I seem to be using all that extra water as ballast in a submarine. I think I am one periscope and a sonar device short of being able to swim underwater.

On the bright side, I am stepping out of the pool more like a grape and less like a raisin!