Your eating habits are not corrected till you are conscious of the value of water for your health. This is no longer a mere drink but a complete therapy called hydrotherapy. Almost all activities in the human body require water. Still this is the most overlooked component of our eating habits. If judiciously used, water can do miracles to your body. You have to stop thinking water as a mere thirst quenching agent.
Father Kneipp says of water, “Water dissolves, removes, and strengthens”.
Benefits of hydrotherapy:
The benefits of water include
- Water dissolves the germs of diseased matter contained in the blood and It restores the purified blood to its proper state of circulation.
- It withdraws the diseased matter from the system.
- It braces the weakened constitution and renders it fit for renewed exertion.
- Drinking water from time to time neutralizes the toxicity of the body during fasting.
Water used in correct way, internally and externally, helps maintain good health. But it must be fresh, pure and free from contamination and decaying matter.
Remedial properties of water:
The therapeutic effect of water is many and in disease or sickness it is used as therapeutic agent.
- Water as tonic: In health cold water tones up the body but in sickness luke warm water gives a sense of relief. It refreshes the body by increasing strength and tone.
- Water as stimulant: Water stimulates the body. All laziness, weakness, and minor aches and pains disappear after bath. Water must not be too cold or too hot. Pleasure while bathing is the criteria of the temperature of water to be used.
- Water as sedative: It tranquilizes the irritated nerves without any side effect. Sedation of minor aches and pains is done with hot or cold water since time immemorial and it is a natural practice.
- Water as antispasmodic: Contractions of muscles are painful and these muscles can be quitened or calmed by hot water applications. Hot water foot bath, hot fulltub bath, local steam bath can help relieve the painful muscles.
- Water as analgesic: Stomach pain, knee joints pain, pain of the bladder or uterus can be lessened by warm hip bath. Knee joint pains can be relieved by local steam bath, followed by cold and hot pack on them. The coldness or the heat of water never weaken the nerves, nor it is habit forming but refreshing.
- Water as diuretic: It increases the excretion of urine. Burning sensation in urinary tract is diminished by freely drinking water.
- Water as eliminative: Purification and cleanliness of the body not only externally but internally is done by water. Urine, sweat, breath purify the system from inside. Enema also helps remove the fecal matter from the colon. In chronic conditions where the colon is full of dry and stuck fecal matter, colon hydrotherapy is also done. But It should be done carefully.
- Water as expectorant: It clears the air passage and it facilitates the removal of the secretion of the bronchopulmonary mucus membrane. In bronchitis when phlegm block the air passage, it can be removed by inhaling steam or by drinking hot water with honey. Hot fulltub bath and full steam bath also help in melting the expectoration from the chest.