Shower Power

Drinking sufficient water is crucial to health, but water also plays an important role in external sanitation and personal hygiene. Water seems to have special powers in stress management and body rejuvenation. Perhaps that’s because like light from the sun, there’s absolutely no life without water.

Water affects the skin and muscles. It calms the lungs, heart, stomach and endocrine system by stimulating nerve reflexes on the spinal cord.

Water therapy has been with us for centuries. The ancient Greeks took therapeutic baths. During the Roman Empire bath houses were health and healing staples for Caesar, the Senate and Generals of the Roman army. Water was and still remains an important ingredient in the traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic and Native American healing systems.

Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy, involves the use of water for pain-relief and treating illness. The term hydrotherapy itself is synonymous with the term water cure as it was originally marketed by practitioners and promoters in the 1800s.

A number of techniques are available under the general heading of hydrotherapy. I lived in Europe including England, Germany, Switzerland, France and Holland for five years and personally experienced many forms of hydrotherapy.

They include such proven techniques as therapeutic baths and showers, neutral baths, sitz baths, contrast sitz baths, foot baths, cold mitten friction rub, steam inhalation, hot compresses, cold compresses, alternating hot and cold compresses, heating compresses, body wrap, wet sheet pack and salt glow.

This eclectic band of profound natural water treatments are based on the therapies first espoused by Father Sebastian Kneipp, a German priest who healed himself of tuberculosis by bathing in the waters of the Danube river.

Dr. Paavo Airola, a Finnish Naturopath who immigrated to Canada after World War II, and who also mentored my husband Dr. Cory Holly, extolled the virtues of cold baths and showers in several books that he wrote, including the best seller classic How To Get Well.

Cold water treatments have a special tonic-like magic that exert a rejuvenating and natural healing effect on the entire system.

Here’s a short list of benefits from Dr. Airola’s book.

• Stimulation of the glandular system
• Stimulates circulation, increases muscle tone and nerve force
• Improves digestion and speeds up metabolism
• Increases immune system and builds resistance to illness
• Increases blood count
• Brain and central nervous system stimulation
• Has an electro-magnetic effect on the body, stimulating the flow of life energies (ki, chi, pranayama etc...)
• Increases oxygen uptake to the tissues

The nerve cells carry impulses felt at the skin deeper into the body, where they are instrumental in stimulating the immune system, modify the production of stress hormones, invigorate the circulation and digestion, and encourage blood flow and lessen pain sensitivity.

Generally, heat quiets and soothes the body, slowing down the activity of internal organs. Cold, in contrast, stimulates and invigorates, increasing internal activity.

If you’re experiencing tense muscles and anxiety caused by stress, a hot shower or bath is in order. If you’re feeling tired or “strung-out”, consider a warm shower or bath followed by a short, invigorating cold shower to help stimulate your body and mind.

Circulation produces cures. Life in is the blood. Hot and cold water therapy improve total body circulation, as hot water stimulates blood flow to the surface of the body, whereas cold water drives the blood to the core of the body, thus bringing FRESH nutrient rich blood to the organs and glands, and muscle and bones.

In other words, oxygen and micronutrients IN and toxins and pathogens OUT.

• Have your morning shower as per usual, washing hair, shaving legs, wet brush massage.
• While doing this, slowly increase the temperature of the water to the hottest temperature you can tolerate. This should be approximately 2 minutes in duration.
• Now turn on the cold water and immerse your face, underarms and back to the point of gasping for air. Remember to ALWAYS end with COLD Water.
• Turn off the water, dry off with towel and “air bathe” for 5-10 minutes if possible.

Nothing gets you more pumped up and energized than a slap in the face with a cold shower. You’ll feel rejuvenated and ready to take on the world.

This technique is literally a Shower of Power, and lets it face ladies, it’s the women of the world who always did, do and always will have the REAL POWER!

Photo by Brodie Vissers from Burst

Every Day's a HollyDay!...TKH