Water Therapy

In my last apartment I had a sauna off the bathroom. I know that sounds decadent. I was living in the basement of a man's house that was converted into an apartment with a private entrance. He had built the sauna for himself before the basement was a rental. Renting the apartment to me, he lost the use of it, but that was his choice.

I'm not one for saunas sitting in a small enclosed space sweating to death. I feel like I'm suffocating and with my constant desire for clean, fresh air, the heated air was often intolerable. I much prefer a hot jacuzzi out in the fresh air so at least my lungs would stay cool. I didn't use the sauna for several years and only after I was diagnosed with MCS was it suggested as a treatment type. I found after a bad chemical exposure I could sit in that sauna for thirty minutes and many symptoms would either go away or never show. If the air got too intolerable, I would crack the door open and breathe the fresh air through the opening.

After thirty minutes of sweating, it's optimal to jump into cold water. That's how the Swedish do it. They build their little bake houses right next to a lake or river.  I would jump into a cold shower, not more than five feet away. Brrrrrr...It's definitely a shock to the system, but like swimming in cold water, very invigorating.

The premise is the sauna opens all your pores, sweats out all the toxins and the cold water closes them quick and tightly squeezing any remaining toxins out so they can't get soaked back up by your skin.

You can do this in your shower! Same technique only without the need of a sauna. Shower in the hottest water tolerable for 15-20 minutes. I love being warm and toasty with a shower massaging my skin. Then turn the hot water off completely and stay under freezing cold water for as long as possible. Be sure to turn around so your whole body is exposed. I guarantee you will gasp aloud! Some people cool the water gradually, but I've never been able to do it. It's cold turkey for me or not at all.  It's like an internal massage, forcing your blood to the surface, and retracting it back to your vital organs which energizes and invigorates them. Alternate hot and cold a few times. Your whole body will tingle.

I read it is really good for healing, too. Exposing injured body parts to hot then cold then hot water expedites healing. Hydrotherapy is used by cancer patients and those suffering with depression. Cold water in particular is thought to activate the nervous system and lower brain temperature so this is especially beneficial for depression and it works very similar to electric shock therapy or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), another treatment used for depression. As a treatment for depression, it is suggested to slowly cool the water as extreme cold can actually negatively affect the brain and worsen a depressed person's mood.

At the conclusion of any water therapy, like massage, drink lots of clean, fresh, filtered water to keep hydrated and to clean toxic residue out your system.