One of the best things about the cold season is the opportunity it offers to get out of it! Most recently this was the case for me in a village in the Mexican highlands. That's right, Mexico is not all about tropical beaches. Up in the mountains Winter lows can approach freezing temperatures! So instead of shivering in your sweaters and jackets, sitting in a jacuzzi offers a great way to beat the cold. What's even better, is having a cold swimming pool next to the hot tub, to cool down afterwards. This is when I like to gush on about the amazing benefits to our bodies of hot-cold baths. But why is this, really?
Getting Rid of all the Gank
No matter if we're talking about the Scandinavian sauna, the Middle-eastern steam bath hammam, or the Mexican sweat-lodge temazcal, one of the most basic benefits of each style was to thoroughly clean the body. And I'm not even talking about the dirt of the road smeared on the outside - that you better wash off properly even before you get in the bath, as it's famously expected at a Japanese onsen. No, I mean cleaning out all the dirt you carry around INSIDE your skin.
Since our skins are like sponges on the microscopic level, you can expect the pores to get filled will all kinds of stuff on a regular basis. The sweat we exude, mixed with the dust and dirt in the air around us is already a nasty combination. Now imagine what happens when the microorganisms that live in our skin start eating that stuff... mixing it all with their own excretions. Yummie! Simply rinsing your skin will only get so much of it out.
But imagine what happens when you use the heat to get your pores to expand. All that gank inside will become loose, especially if diluted with water. It doesn't matter if you sit in it, like in a hot tub, or expose yourself to in in form of steam, or simply pump it out from within you in form of sweating. The best way, however, to get all of it out at once, is to squeeze it out by simply jumping in the cold water. The pores contract, and the loosened and diluted gank is pushed out instantly.
Many More Beneficial Side Effects
So changing from hot to cold water is bound to give you nice and beautiful skin. Nice, but that's merely the start of a long list of benefits of what's also known as contrast bath hydrotherapy. The same switch between expansion and contraction applies to your whole body. The circulatory system may be most noteworthy here, where your blood vessels dilate in the heat, lowering your blood pressure, and pull together in the cold, raising it accordingly. As a result the heart needs to beat stronger, or slow down, depending on the temperature. While you may guess how this may not be ideal for people with heart problems, regular hot-cold changes are certainly great at preventing them before they happen.
Let's talk about the muscles next, which react in a similar way to the temperatures by relaxing and contracting. Is that like a workout? Or more like a massage? Kinda like both, but a bit different. Anyway, it's an effective way to relieve muscular pain and inflammation from injuries, and prevent soreness after physical activity.
Activating Your Brainpower
After these physical benefits, I want to mention the effects of the contrast bath on the brain and the mind. I have noticed that after a sauna, or just some time in the jacuzzi, I tend to sleep like a baby. As it turns out, I'm not the only one: Since our body relaxes from the hot water, we tend to fall asleep more easily and have a more restful night. Oh, and talking about relaxing, imagine what happens to stress! Since that has been identified as a major health hazard, you can guess how reducing it will directly benefit the rest of your body. But even if we don't go to sleep, our nerve cells will get better at doing their job, promoting learning and memory. At the same time, the increased endorphin level puts you in a better mood, so you won't just be more relaxed, and better at thinking, but also happier.
Taking these effects on the mind a step further, we reach the realm of extreme temperature applications, such as the ceremonial use of sweat-lodges. What started out as a simple way to cleanse the body eventually evolved into ways for warriors to prepare for a battle, for pregnant women to prepare for giving birth, or for shamans for receiving visions. While I personally don't recommend taking things to the extreme, and I don't enjoy bringing myself to the brink of passing out, there are people who know how to use extreme heat for all these ceremonial purposes.
The All-Convincing Beauty Factor
The list just goes on and on... So instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of how the hot-cold change of hydrotherapy strengthens the immune system or how it is beneficial for joints and ligaments, let me get back to the aforementioned subject of youth and beauty. We all know, at some point our nicely toned teenage bodies will gradually lose their elasticity, turning us into wrinkly old geezers. While there really is no cure for aging, what can be done is slowing it down. And exposing ourselves regularly to high and low temperatures is one way to keep our skin engaged, so it will take longer before it starts getting lazy. As for our hair, the same practice of contrast baths is said to make it smoother and more silky, by reestablishing the natural balance of oils in it.
Do Try This At Home
So while not everyone may have a sauna at home (except for our friends in Finland maybe), and you may not be entirely comfortable with sitting in the darkness of a temazcal, it's really not that hard to enjoy the benefits of hydrotherapy. A simple shower will do. Take a normal shower in comfortably hot water, and when you're done, turn of the hot water and maybe add some more of the cold. Wait until the water has cooled down entirely, and let your body feel it. Don't wait until you are completely cold, just until you're past the initial shock. That's all. Did you like it? Do you want to do it again? If you did it correctly, I bet you will! Otherwise try to increase the heat, and / or your time in it.