When should you take electrolytes? 5 key moments in the day
by L'équipe AUA Hydrate
Many people think an electrolyte supplement is reserved for endurance athletes. That's too narrow a view. In modern life, several everyday moments create an increased need for minerals — well beyond the sweat of a workout.
Here are the 5 moments when your body benefits most, and why.
1. On waking (7 AM)
Why: overnight you go 8 to 10 hours without drinking. You breathe, you sweat (sometimes 500 ml of water evaporated), you eliminate. On waking, your body is in mild but very real cellular dehydration.
Drinking a plain glass of water makes up the volume, but not the electrolyte balance. One AUA stick in 250 ml of cold or lukewarm water restores that balance and prepares your cells for the day.
What you feel: a cleaner start, without the coffee spike that collapses two hours later.
2. Mid-afternoon (1–3 PM) — the “slump”
Why: the afternoon dip combines several factors: blood sugar falling after lunch, mild cumulative dehydration, and cortisol coming down as it physiologically does.
The classic reflex: coffee and a biscuit. Immediate effect, but an even sharper drop 90 minutes later.
The alternative: a stick of electrolytes plus minerals, vitamin B12 (cellular energy) and chromium (blood sugar regulation). Not an artificial jolt, but physiological support that lasts.
3. After exercise (sauna, hiking, an intense session)
Why: effort makes you sweat. Sweat contains water and electrolytes: mainly sodium, potassium, magnesium and chloride. Drinking only water after exercise further “dilutes” the minerals you have left — a phenomenon known as dilutional hyponatraemia.
The result: night cramps, poorer muscle recovery, shallower sleep.
An AUA stick after a session — especially one lasting more than 45 minutes — restores what you lost and speeds up recovery.
4. The long night (a night out, travel, a short night)
Why: whether after a few glasses of wine, a long-haul flight or a shortened night, your body goes through accelerated dehydration:
- Alcohol is a diuretic: it makes you eliminate more water than you take in
- The pressurised air on a plane is extremely dry (humidity around 10%)
- Lack of sleep disrupts your hormonal cycles and increases oxidative stress
An AUA stick before bed (or during a flight) considerably limits the following day's “bill”.
5. Heat waves or heavy sweating
Why: beyond sport, certain situations raise your needs: summer heatwaves, sauna or steam room, physical work outdoors, intense emotional stress (which also makes you sweat), a mild fever or flu-like states.
In all these cases, the loss of fluids AND electrolytes is fast. Making up for it with water alone prolongs the feeling of fatigue.
How many a day?
1 to 2 sticks a day is enough in the vast majority of cases. If you combine several of the situations above (waking + exercise + a night out, say), you can go up to 3 sticks — the maximum dose our formula recommends.
Avoid taking one in the 2–3 hours before bed, except in specific cases (after a night out), so that night-time diuresis doesn't disturb your sleep.
And if you're perfectly hydrated?
If you eat a varied diet, drink 1.5 L of good water a day, sleep well and don't do intense physical activity, you probably don't need systematic supplementation. A supplement is not a product for everyone — it is a tool for those who are out of balance, and there are contexts (the 5 above) where that imbalance arises naturally in everyone.
Worth discovering: our 3 flavours.
