The story of water cure has occurred a long time ago in every country and language.

Starts from the ancient Egypt or the Babylonia period, even the glamorous Cleopatra was also fond of bathing with a mineral spring or milk as well as the bathing favored country, known as Greek. Moreover, there was a Greek physician, Galen who used bathing and sauna for his treatment.

The bathing was passed on to the Roman age. However, the most popular and blasting out period was in the 15th century - the Constantinople time, which is known as the Turkish bath. This way of bathing emphasized on immersing oneself in extremely hot water followed by massage and immersing in cold water in the last step.

However, hydrotherapy was not that earnestly until the middle of 18th century. A German priest, Sebastian Kneipp, was infected with a tuberculosis which was a severely disease on that time. He strived to find the way to cure himself.

At first, he bathed himself in a cool stream nearby his house. He did this everyday even in the cold day until people started to gossip about his crazed and presumed that he was going to die soon. But day after day, the priest was still alive and became stronger and stronger. At last he decided to practice this means for other patients. After that, he tried to develop his hydrotherapy techniques in various ways, such as, alternating hot and cold water for bathing, etc.

Heat application and bathing in cold water methods support the health nourishment and treatment. For medical science, the appropriate explanation would be the method of a quick and relaxed in order to stimulate nerves system. That is when the body is in a high temperature state, the body will respond by inflating the blood vessel around the skin. Causing sweat, faster heart beats, more blood pumping to the end of body. If we use only heat and when we finish it, the body will respond by loosening up the active muscles and the heart will beat slower. These reactions will be back to normal faster than the vessels which taking more time to contract.

The result from applying thermal is that blood will spread to every part of the body. If you stay in the heat for too long, the body will lose more sweats and the amount of blood sending to the brain will decrease. Then you will feel drowsy and if the heat is too hot, you could be faint.

In contrast, in a cold temperature state, the body will respond by contracting the outer vessels. The skin is slightly pale and the blood will flow back from the end of body and return to the core in order to maintain the heat within the body. The muscles will shake and contract to produce the heat for the body. Therefore, after taking a bath with cold water, you will feel fresher and more active.

Thus, the right way of using the heat, such as, sauna is not how long can you stay and stand the heat like Thai people do. You might choose the Finland style. According to the Finland way, they build a pine wood room like a small house near the lake in winter. Some parts of the lake will become ice. It takes 3-5 minutes for sauna at the temperature around 80 degrees and in 40% of humidity.

When it is warm enough, they will go out from the sauna room and jump into the freezing lake and stay in the water for 1-2 minutes. Then they will return to the sauna room and keep doing this for 3-4 times.

By doing this, it gradually helps stimulating the blood circulation coming in and out from the heart. At the same time, it will transfer oxygen and food to nourish tissues while circulating wastes back from other organs. Thus, we feel fresh and comfortable after doing this.

For Thai sauna, we use herbs as well. We focus on the herbs that contain various different properties. Most are the 5 pollens which are the main herbs. You may add other more special quality herbs, such as, an andrographis which helps the respiration system, a soap pod, a tamarind leaf, a kaffir lime for skin nourishment, an Acanthaceae leaf for skin disease cures, Goat's foot creeper for sweat excretion beriberi cure, etc.

However, I have some techniques that can help the hydrotherapy to be more effective in each purpose. For example, if you want to have a good sleep, you should finish with hot water after alternating with cold water because you will feel more relaxed.

But if you want a loosen muscle massage. It is unnecessary to sauna and douse in the cold water. You should do only the sauna because after the sauna, the muscle will be contracted and will be more loosen if you massage at the moment.

This is just a few stories about hydrotherapy. I will tell you more on the next article about the mineral treatment, soaking in the sea and daub with mud.