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Healing Waters
by author Giselle Roeder

Water is an easy way to rejuvenate our winter-weary spirits. Try hydrotherapy in your own bathroom to redirect blood flow, improve circulation, reduce stress, relax, and sleep better.

Cold Water Treatments

Invigorating and refreshing, cold-water treatments are easy and inexpensive ways to invigorate and rejuvenate. For best results never do cold-water treatments on a cold body. Cold on cold will make you shiver, whereas cold on warm will exercise blood vessels by diluting and tightening them, slightly changing your blood pressure.

To invigorate yourself during meetings or tiring shopping sprees go to the rest room and let cold water run over your wrists for several minutes. Or fill the sink with cold water and immerse both arms to just above the elbows. A 20- to 30-second arm bath is better than a cup of coffee - without the caffeine.

Tired legs or swollen ankles? Sit on the edge of your bathtub and run cold water first over the right, then over the left leg. Or fill the bathtub three-quarters full of cold water and walk in it like a stork for 20 to 30 seconds, lifting one leg and then the other. The exchange of air and water will “massage” your legs. This most effectively relieves hot flashes, hot, restless, sore, or swollen legs, and promotes better sleep.

Alternate Hot and Cold Treatments

Touch of flu? Cold feet? Can’t fall asleep? The alternate footbath is for you. Warm water draws the blood to diluted blood vessels and then cold water pushes it back up into the body. The exchange massages the legs while at the same time stimulating the immune system and helping the nerves relax. Fill two containers that reach up to the knees, one with warm water and the other with cold. Sit with feet in the warm container for five minutes; then place them in the cold container for 20 seconds. Change twice, finishing with feet in the cold container. During this treatment it is imperative to stay warm, since the blood is redirected to your feet and back to the body twice. Dress warmly from the shoulders down to the knees.

Headaches? Use a double sink to do a hot and cold bath for your arms. Immerse arms to above the elbows for five minutes in warm water, then for 20 seconds in cold. Repeat. The warm water will relieve tension in the neck and head by widening the blood vessels. The cold water reverses the process by drawing blood to the lower arms, helping to normalize the pressure that causes headaches.

A daily shower will also help you feel rejuvenated, especially when you finish with cold water. It will be easier to accept if you exhale while directing the cold water first at your feet and then up over the rest of your body.

A regular cold facial rinse keeps your skin young looking. One of the most regularly used treatments of hydrotherapy, it keeps the fine blood vessels and blood flow to the head active, providing the needed oxygen to improve eyesight and keep memory alive.

Hot Increasing or Decreasing Bath

A 20-minute bath at 39°C (102°F) with a herbal additive, such as rosemary for circulation, balm mint for sleep, eucalyptus for cold and flu, chamomile or lavender for dry itchy skin, is pure luxury and relaxation. Brush yourself under water with a bath brush or loofah to enhance the effect and absorption of the aromatic molecules. Finish with a quick cool shower. If you feel a cold or flu coming on, increase perspiration by continuing to add hot water to the bath and do not finish with cool water. Well-covered bed rest is then mandatory to normalize blood pressure and keep perspiring. Rinse after one hour’s rest and have a cool water rub down to end perspiration.

For the decreasing bath, start with water at 39°C (102°F). After eight to 10 minutes, add cold water, pushing it around you until it feels almost cold. Get out of the bath, dry, and rest in bed for half an hour. You will feel refreshed and ready to tackle the town.

Water therapy will add quality and maybe years to your life.

For more ideas on turning your bathroom into a personal spa, see Healing with Water, (alive Natural Health Guides 11, 2000). Giselle Roeder, a trained hydro-sauna therapist, has written for alive since 1975.

Source: alive #257, March 2004

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