
Imagine you're exercising outside on a hot day. You're drenched in sweat, and the feeling of thirst begins to overwhelm you. You take out your water bottle and swallow your first big gulp — and your body immediately fills with relief and elation.
"There's a hedonic reaction to it," Patricia Di Lorenzo, a professor emeritus of psychology at Binghamton University in New York, told Live Science. "When you're really thirsty and you drink water, it just tastes so good."