Dousing with water. Dousing with cold water: the benefits and harms

Pouring cold water- to relieve tension, improve sleep, improve and rejuvenate the body

She fills life energy everything living has great power and at the same time conceals in itself an infinity of mysteries that have not yet been revealed by man - we are talking about water.

Every year humanity understands more and more the value of this natural resource in need of protection and respect for themselves. Many people are unaware of the many health benefits that water can provide. Its main advantages lie in the ability to heal the body due to its healing properties. Today we will touch on only one side of them, let's talk about the benefits that cold water can bring to our health.

How cold water affects a person

cheerfulness, activity, good mood- This is especially true now, in a hot season. You need to drink more, and simple still water, but besides this, it is useful to learn how to use water as a healing balm for the body, so that it is easier to endure the heat, become more resilient and healthier.

People who go to the pool must have noticed that swimming gives the body strength, despite the fact that a person spends a lot of energy when swimming. If to physical activity add cold water, then its effect is enhanced. We can take a lot from water.

Get rid of tired legs

Let's start simple. When you come home in the evening, you feel severe fatigue, leg pain. The best way to tame it is to pour cold water on your feet. In addition to relieving fatigue, it will help you fall asleep sound sleep. And to take off pain, after dousing, lie down for 10 minutes or more with your legs up.

Pouring cold water

It is better to start wellness procedures with cold water from rubbing. To do this, you need a regular terry towel and water at room temperature. By lowering its temperature by a few degrees every day, after 3-4 weeks you can proceed to dousing.

Of course, a lot depends on the state of the body. Someone can pour cold water on the first day, and it will only benefit, while another person needs whole month to master this technique recovery. Everything is very individual. It is much easier for people who like coolness and do not tolerate heat well than those who constantly freeze and strive to be warm.

Pouring technology cold water

There are rules that must be followed during cooling water procedures:

1. consult your doctor, especially if you have serious problems with health;
2. for the first time, rinse with cold water for no more than 10 seconds, increasing the duration of dousing day by day;
3. start pouring from lower parts body, gradually rising higher (you can not pour water sharply, it should wash the body gradually);
4. need to start with warm water, gradually, day by day, lowering her temperature;
5. After dousing, the skin must be rubbed well with a towel.

Benefits of cold water douche

A person stops getting sick, maintains good spirits, he is constantly in a good mood and well-being.
Watching the water, we calm down, get rid of the nervous and mental stress. The faster the water flow, the stronger positive impact cold water.

In addition to the fact that water washes away dirt from the body, it also relieves it of bad energy- both his own and someone else's. The power of cold water is in the ability to align the energy shell of living beings, closing breakdowns in the aura. Thanks to this, the body heals.

Jets of cold water miraculously wash off energy dirt, filling the body with strength. Doctors and traditional healers been using it for a long time healing property water in your practice. It is very important that the water goes into the ground when pouring. This is necessary so that the energy does not pass from the head to the legs, which can provoke diseases of the vessels, legs and joints.

If there is no time to do douche, after walking or visiting public places Simply rinsing your face with cold water is helpful.

Healing and dousing with cold water is an opportunity given by nature for every person to be healthier, happier and more cheerful.

Hardening with cold water increases immunity, performance and reduces the likelihood of diseases. Let's see how true these statements are.

According to supporters of hardening the body, the benefits of dousing in the morning are undeniable. An example is the lifestyle of Porfiry Ivanov, who wore shorts all year round, did not wear shoes and practiced cold shower in the cold Porfiry Korneevich did not address official medicine, but unwittingly became a participant in "experiments" on the effects of cold on the body, conducted by the Nazi and Soviet authorities.

In the course of such studies and as a result of observations of people who practice cold water dousing, factors have been identified that indicate the benefits of such hardening.

Strengthening immunity

Such hardening is stress for the body. Therefore, the reaction to ice shower there is an increased production of lymphocytes and monocytes, health guards that prevent the penetration of infection.

People who harden the body are less likely to colds. Risk of infection pathogenic microorganisms is present, but there are no conditions suitable for reproduction.

Improved heat transfer

If cold water dousing is practiced, the benefit is the reflex constriction of the capillaries. The blood flow decreases, which leads to a decrease in the temperature of the skin. As a result, the body saves heat.

Simultaneously with a decrease in the intensity of the surface blood flow, the blood supply to the internal organs increases. Gradually, the capillaries expand again and the body is filled with pleasant warmth.

Strengthening of vascular tissue

The benefits of dousing in the morning are expressed in a kind of stimulation of the heart muscle and blood vessels. Such training causes the vessels to contract and expand, which increases the elasticity of tissues and becomes a prevention of cardiovascular pathologies.

Increasing efficiency

If you practice dousing with water, the benefits are immediate. Mood improves, cheerfulness appears, drowsiness disappears. This is due to the stimulation of the areas of the brain responsible for the production of norepinephrine.

Decreased adrenal function

The dangers of cold douches are increased production adrenal glucocorticoids. This is the body's natural response to stress. The amount of hormones increases, which helps to release heat. Systematic hypothermia leads to a decrease in the functionality of paired organs and to further dystrophy.

Vascular diseases

The release of norepinephrine and glucocorticoids increases the risk of thrombosis. Then the circulatory network of the vessels of the legs suffers. A person unprepared for hardening, with hasty actions, provokes the fragility of blood vessels, clogging the lumen with blood clots.

Heart failure

The harm of cold douches is a change in temperature. A sharp cooling of the surface of the body leads to an acceleration of blood flow. If the heart muscle cannot cope with the growing load, contractions are likely to stop. A person gets a myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, or a stroke. It is not for nothing that doctors say that even when swimming, one should be immersed in cold water gradually - skin receptors need time to get used to.

Destruction of immunity

Systematically performed illiterate douches are harmful to the immune defense. If the ice shower lasts 1-2 minutes, the body is under stress, the immune system is suppressed, which leads to the destruction of the vascular tissue.

Destruction occurs gradually. Backlash appears months later.

Pouring children is fraught with consequences. immune protection child's body not fully formed and babies easily get sick after hypothermia.

Contraindications to dousing with cold water - diseases of the heart and blood vessels:

• tachycardia,
• heart failure.

Even healthy person be sure to follow the rules so as not to destroy, but to strengthen health.

Rules for pouring cold water

Performing hardening by pouring, beginners should not rush under an ice shower. And don't tip the bucket over your head - dousing requires gradual practice. It is impossible to accustom the body to hypothermia, but you can reduce the negative reaction.

First, consult with a cardiologist. With contraindications, ice pouring is prohibited. Therefore, identify factors that prevent hardening.

Proper pouring on initial stage involves daily wiping with a cool wet towel and foot baths with gradual decline water temperature. When the discomfort received during the procedures decreases, it is allowed to proceed to dousing.

Cold water has a complex effect on the body and causes changes in the internal organs of a person. Dousing gives a charge of vivacity and strength, helps to soar above the problems and worries of everyday life, feel lightness, joy and believe in oneself.

There are many opinions and arguments for and against such procedures, but it should be said that, subject to all the rules, it is extremely difficult to harm the body by dousing.

Healing effects of douche

1. Rejuvenation. Cold water is unique remedy. Dousing stimulates the synthesis of its own collagen, which means that the skin is tightened, becomes elastic and young.
2. Stress. The cold effect on the body is a stress factor that has an activating and training effect on internal systems. The activating effect occurs with a short-term effect on the body, and the training effect occurs with a systematic repetition of stress with an increase in its duration and a change in its parameters depending on individual features patient.
3. vascular response. With short-term contact with cold, a spasm of blood vessels occurs, then their expansion. Due to this, the muscle layer is trained vascular walls and improves blood supply to organs and tissues. Among other things, a spasm with subsequent relaxation of the vessels contributes to the patient's feeling of cheerfulness, a surge of strength and lightness. The person feels strong and rested.
4. The composition of the blood. It is reliably known that after dousing with cold water, cellular and humoral immunities, biochemical and clinical indicators blood composition.
5. Cold dousing keeps the nervous system in good shape. By acting on skin receptors, it gives a powerful signal to the brain, due to which a self-diagnosis process is launched, similar to the result of cryotherapy.
6. In addition to these changes, such a sharp cold effect as dousing causes an increase in breathing, due to which there is an increase in the amplitude respiratory movements and pulmonary ventilation and, consequently, the tissues are saturated with oxygen. And prolonged exposure to cold stimulates the production of endogenous heat, which enhances the excretion of carbon dioxide.
7. Body renewal. After taking cold procedures, a person feels a surge of vivacity and an improvement in mood. In addition, dousing promotes the renewal of body cells, stimulates the processes of repair and regeneration. This happens due to the increase cell potential and stimulates cell renewal response.

In addition to all of the above, it should be noted that dousing with cold water has a beneficial effect on other organs and systems: cardiovascular, urinary and musculoskeletal. Such a procedure causes positive changes in them and normalization of functions.

Proper pouring

Of course, you need to remember the rules proper conduct sessions and put them into practice.

1. Never pour over your head - this will lead to hypothermia and illness. You can pour over only from the neck.
2. The water temperature should drop by 0.5°C daily, but no more. Minimum temperature water can be at least +15°C.
3. Pouring is not a shower, the procedure is carried out by dousing yourself - or another person - from a container (basin, bucket, watering can), and not under uniform jets.

Contraindications

In addition to the need to follow the rules of the procedure, you need to remember about existing contraindications to this method:

• exacerbation of diseases;
• acute inflammatory conditions;
• skin diseases;
• coronary heart disease (vasospasm can cause the development of myocardial infarction), heart failure and any form of tachycardia;
• increased intraocular pressure;
• hypertensive crisis or severe hypotension registered before the douche procedure.

Techniques

Kneipp douche system

The famous physiotherapist of the 17th century, Sebastian Kneipp, developed a whole system of hydrotherapy, studying it on himself. The scientist and clergyman wrote more than one work on issues. His system is still relevant and effective.

Now consider private methods of dousing with cold water.

General douche

Before the procedure, three buckets are prepared, the water temperature in which is 30 ° C, 29 ° C and 28 ° C. The patient stands on a pre-warmed surface (bathroom, wooden grate, doused with hot water). The one who conducts the treatment session pours the person from shoulder level in such a way that the liquid evenly covers both the front and back surfaces of the body. Moreover, the height of the fall of water on the shoulders should be as low as possible, in order to avoid overvoltage. nervous system excess water pressure. The procedure is carried out first with warmer and then colder water. Session time - 1-2 minutes. After the end of the procedure, the patient is wrapped in a sheet and rubbed lightly.

During the course, the water temperature must be gradually reduced to 15 - 18 ° C.

Such a douche hardens and strengthens the body, helps with irritability and depression.

Pouring over the upper body

The patient leans over so that the back is in horizontal position. The procedure is carried out in several stages: first of all, the surface of the skin is moistened from the watering can, which will be subject to the main effect, from right hand, then on the back and to the left arm. The next watering can is poured onto the area from cervicothoracic spine - to the waist, and ends with pouring one of the hands. The procedure must be repeated 3-4 times, and it is necessary to monitor the uniformity of the water jet so that the body is poured evenly.

This treatment is suitable for chronic diseases respiratory system(but without aggravation) and for raising general tone organism.

Pouring on the lower body

After a warm foot bath from a watering can without a divider, first the shins are poured, then the thighs, and then the lower back.

This type of douche is suitable for the elderly, patients with intestinal pathology, prostatitis, impotence and vascular diseases lower limbs.

Pouring back

The surface of the skin is washed with the first watering can from the heels to the neck, the next containers are poured from the neck to the coccyx evenly over the entire back.

This method of hydrotherapy is suitable for spinal damage, sleep disorders and instability of the nervous system.

Pouring hands

One watering can is poured over each arm from the wrist to the shoulder. This method helps with joint pathologies and a tendency to frequent colds.

Pouring feet

First, the whole legs are poured over, then the thighs. This type of dousing helps with vascular lesions, including atherosclerosis.

Pouring head

During the procedure, water should pour over the head around the ears. It helps with headaches, dizziness and memory impairment.

Dousing is a physiotherapeutic procedure, which can only be run after visiting a doctor to assess the possible risks associated with the behavior of the procedure, as well as indications and contraindications for this species hydrotherapy.

You may be thinking, "who would douse cold water in the morning"?

It is true that very few people wake up in the morning and start the day with such torture.

But jumping into cold water is essentially a kind of therapy known as hydrotherapy. The main premise of this cold water treatment is that we regularly expose our body to stress.

But, nevertheless, the benefits of dousing with cold water are obvious. Health improves in several ways.

Unfortunately, all these benefits are only visible when you adapt to the regimen. Once a year, an icy explosion of water will not do you any good.

History of cold water dousing

In ancient times, the benefits of dousing with cold water were not even discussed! Even when civilization learned how to heat water, the Greeks still continued to use cold water for health benefits.

Then in the 1820s, a German farmer began to claim that hydrotherapy had cured all injured animals with broken bones.

Hydrotherapy quickly spread, and by the end of the 19th century, many spas had opened! However, their popularity declined sharply in the 20th century when many medicines for the treatment of diseases.

Nonetheless, modern research and many health and beauty experts tout the effectiveness of cold water therapy.

Benefits of dousing with cold water - 13 benefits:

• For hair and skin

Experts say that rinsing with cold water has its benefits for hair. outer layer the hair is smoothed and they look smoother and shinier. Cold water reduces moisture loss and prevents breakage, which vitality for healthy hair.

• Attention and tension

How can you imagine hitting ice water at 7 o'clock in the morning? The water will wake you up pretty quickly!

Increased mental and physical alertness in response to the shock of cold water. Your breathing rate increases, oxygen consumption and blood flow increase.

All these physiological processes keep your mind sharp and your body tense.

How to improve energy levels without resorting to arctic temperatures?

• stop stress

With our lives becoming more stressful, we need to do something to reduce our stress levels before it takes its toll on our mind and body.

Chronic stress leads to headaches, fatigue, digestive problems, sleep problems, anxiety, loss of motivation, and more.

A cold stimulus increases stress tolerance and even reduces the possibility of disease. This happens by lowering the level uric acid in the body during and after exposure to cold water, along with increased blood levels of the important antioxidant glutathione.

Both of these processes serve to reduce general level stress, and more effectively deal with future environmental stress.

• Good circulation

The respiratory rate increases, oxygen consumption increases, which leads to an increase in blood flow. Daily cold showers serve to improve poor circulation and all the symptoms that come with it like numbness, cognitive decline, fatigue, weakened immune system and cold extremities.

Another benefit is increased circulation, which helps to reduce cellulite, namely the dimples on the skin that resembles cottage cheese or orange peel! Poor circulation seriously accelerates the formation of cellulite.

• Reducing depression

The benefit of pouring cold water is also to improve mood. The main source of the brain - norepinephrine - is activated - Chemical substance, which plays a role in easing depression.

Cold receptors in the skin send great amount electrical impulses to the brain, resulting in an antidepressant effect.

• muscles

Athletes know that a cold shower after intense training accelerates recovery by reducing swelling and flushing out lactic acid, which causes muscle and body fatigue.

A 2009 analysis of 17 studies found that athletes who rested and immersed in cold water after resistance training experienced significant relief from muscle soreness 1 to 4 days after training. Low temperatures easily reduce swelling.

• For weight

Surprisingly, dousing with cold water - easy way lose weight.

There are two types of body fat - brown fat, which is activated to keep the body warm; and white fat, which leads to obesity.

Brown fat is activated by exposure to cold temperatures, such as cold showers. This results in increased energy and calories are burned to keep the body warm.

It is estimated that extreme low temperatures activate brown fat up to 15 times, which means a weight loss of up to 4 kg in one year in cold shower fans.

• Strength of will

If you're struggling to stick healthy regimen food, curriculum, workout, or anything else that requires a bit of willpower, do you need willpower to meet these goals?

Psychologists now believe that willpower is like a muscle—the harder we train it, the better it gets in the long run.

Dousing with cold water is one of the ways to strengthen willpower! This fortitude and discipline will soon seep into other areas of your life, and you will achieve all the goals you set.

• Strengthening immunity

Believe it or not, cold water helps prevent colds and flu, not the other way around as others think.

Daily cold showers have been found to increase whites blood cells compared to people who take hot showers. The researchers suggest that as the body attempts to warm itself during and after a cold shower, the metabolic rate activates immune system, which leads to the release more white blood cells.

Accidental cold water dousing causes oxidative stress, but when done regularly, an adaptive response occurs. This means that the body is better able to deal with oxidative stress when it becomes accustomed to exposure to cold water.

• Increase testosterone production

Cold showers can increase testosterone production in men.

The release of testosterone has importance for increase muscle mass. Cold water also helps boost male libido and overall strength and energy.

• Improving Male Fertility

Cold showers can increase fertility rates. Several experiments conducted in the 1950s and 60s showed that hot baths promote temporary infertility! Those who take the 30 minute hot bath every other day for three consecutive weeks, reduce the birth rate for the next six months.

A 2007 San Francisco study found that men who stopped taking their weekly 30 minute baths soon showed up to 491% more sperm along with improved sperm motility.

• Help the environment

As a rule, 20% of the time from each shower we lose waiting for the water to heat up. Given that an average shower is just over eight minutes long, that's pretty big loss. Every minute wasted equates to 8 liters of water!

But the level of waste can be even higher: 30% of the total shower water and 41% of the energy used to heat the water.

A cold shower cuts down on this waste: you don't have to wait for water to run down the drain as long as you wait for a certain temperature.

• Savings on electricity bills

Hot water showers are the main source of energy consumption. Water heating accounts for almost 17% of the total home use electricity.

There are many folk methods prevention of diseases, improvement of the body and achievement of longevity. Pouring as a means of hardening appeared a long time ago and is popular in modern world. But for the effectiveness of the result, you need to understand how to douse yourself with cold water in the morning. Field Marshal Suvorov, who, being sickly and weak as a child, was able to improve his health and harden, thanks to this, which he himself wrote about.

Pros and cons of dousing

In the official and folk medicine, in nutrition there is a simple rule, which is that any remedy can be beneficial and harmful, depending on the amount, method of its application. Pure water is undoubtedly useful and necessary, but its excessive use can be detrimental to health. To understand whether it is useful to pour cold water in the morning, you need individual approach taking into account the characteristics of the age, lifestyle, health status of a particular person.

Practice shows that hardening, in particular pouring, carries health effect relieves stress, strengthens the heart vascular system and positively affects the human immune system. This procedure carries a positive emotional charge, improves well-being and mood for a long period of time.

When in contact with cold water, the vessels of the surface of the body narrow, automatically there is an influx of blood to internal organs, oxygen saturation and stress experienced activate their work. Immediately after dousing, blood rushes to the vessels of the body, this is evidenced by a noticeable redness. skin, feelings of warmth and lightness come in the body. Specifically, the benefits of pouring cold water in the morning are as follows:

• strengthening the cardiovascular, immune and endocrine systems organism;
• prevention of colds;
• rejuvenating effect;
• acceleration of metabolic processes in the body and the removal of toxins;
• positive emotions and improved well-being and mood.

This procedure releases adrenal hormones that suppress the immune system. Be that as it may, a lot depends on the correctness of the dousing, taking into account all the necessary parameters (age, state of health and the presence of diseases, gradual hardening, and others).

In general, there are such harmful effects procedures like:

• the occurrence of colds;
• complications in the work of the cardiovascular system;
• functional disorders in the work of the adrenal glands and internal organs;
• weakening of the immune system.

It must be remembered that a lot depends on the gradual preparation of the body for this procedure.

We carry out hardening correctly

There are several well-established rules that will make it possible to get maximum effect from pouring cold water in the morning. First of all, they are gradual. Starting to fill up with dousing with cold water, you can cause significant harm to your health and body.

It is advisable to use water at room temperature at the initial stage and gradually reduce it, accustoming the body and yourself to hardening. According to one of the methods, the water temperature is reduced by about 5 degrees in 10 days.

It is highly undesirable to take a sharply cold shower, negative effect it happens more treatment and prophylactic possible hypothermia.

You should water yourself with cold water from a bucket, and so that the water covers the whole body, at the first dousing, you can use half a bucket of water, gradually increasing the volume.

It is not recommended to wipe yourself with a towel for a long time after the procedure and immediately take a hot shower. Useful after holding the complex exercise. It is important to take into account age, in old age water below 15 degrees is not recommended, children should be taught to low temperatures very carefully and step by step.

Naturally, at the first procedure there will be timidity, and even fear, which must be overcome, this will facilitate the procedure in the future.

Effective A complex approach when dousing is combined with in a healthy way life, physical education and sports, proper nutrition.

cosmetic effect

Washing with ice in the morning is very useful. It tones the skin, cleanses the pores and enhances metabolic processes, prevents the appearance of wrinkles, makes the face smooth and causes a blush.

In the manufacture of ice cubes, it is strictly not recommended to use tap water, better mineral, even better pure water with decoctions medicinal herbs. It is recommended to wipe the entire surface of the face with ice in the morning and in the evening, for 3-5 minutes each, the movements of the ice should be soft and smooth, the amplitude of movements from top to bottom. You should not linger on the frontal part of the face.

To enhance the effectiveness of such procedures, pre-prepared ice cubes from medicinal infusions or decoctions. For example, chamomile, mint, calendula and other plants help not only tone, but also heal the skin of the face, cleanse it, narrow the porosity of the skin, and give it a beautiful healthy shade. The recipe is simple:

1. A decoction of 2 tbsp. l. herbs or mixtures of herbs pour 1 cup boiling water or bring to a boil.
2. Strain, pour chilled into ice molds.
3. The composition is ready.

You can add berries instead of herbs or juicy fruits. Every morning we wipe the face with a cube and already in the second week of use an amazing result will be noticeable.

Joint hardening of the skin of the face and body is the main component of success on the path to recovery and longevity.