Is today one of the days you actually need one? Not most days, for most people, but today, specifically.
Most of the time, the answer is no. For most healthy adults eating normally, water and an ordinary diet already cover what an electrolyte drink adds. But most of the time isn't never. There's a small number of real situations where reaching for one makes sense, and recognising them is more useful than a blanket rule in either direction.
You've Been Sweating Heavily, For a While
If you've been exercising hard for something like an hour or more, especially somewhere hot, this is one of the clearer cases. The sodium and fluid lost through sustained heavy sweating is real, and an ordinary meal afterward doesn't always replace it as quickly as the situation calls for. This is squarely sports-hydration territory: sports-medicine guidance on exercise and fluid replacement is built around exactly this scenario, not a general workday.
You're Unwell and Losing Fluid Quickly
Vomiting or diarrhoea, particularly if it's gone on for more than a few hours, is the other clear case. This is specifically what oral rehydration salts exist for, and NHS guidance on the subject is precise and worth following directly rather than approximated with whatever happens to be in a cupboard.
You Have a Relevant Medical Condition or Medication
Certain conditions and medications change how the body handles fluid and sodium. Kidney conditions, heart conditions, and blood-pressure medication are the most common examples. If any of that applies, the right answer comes from a clinician who knows the specifics, not from a drink label, and not from an article like this one.
What Doesn't Make the List
An ordinary working day doesn't, even a genuinely hard one. Screens, meetings, a stalled inbox, and the pull toward a third coffee are real, but they're not the same as sustained heavy sweating, illness, or a medical circumstance. Feeling tired by 3pm at a desk isn't on this list. Stretching the list to include it is exactly the category-blurring that got the "hydration" conversation into the state it's in.
Where 0800Labs Sits
None of the three situations above describe the occasion 0800Labs is built for, and our own formula reflects that: no electrolytes. We're not trying to be useful for a hot long run or a stomach bug. We're trying to be right for the pauses inside a working day, which is a different list entirely.
Why 0800Labs Is Interested
Being honest about when something else is genuinely the right answer is part of the same argument as everything else we've written about hydration: the category sells itself as the answer to everything, and it isn't. Knowing what it's actually for is more useful than either extreme.
There's no product to buy yet. The Labs is how we'll tell you when there is.