For thousands of years, warmth has been used in a variety of ways to enhance the sense of well-being and to treat a great number of ailments, chronic ailments in particular, of the musculoskeletal system. Hot sand baths were already known to Egyptian civilisation at its zenith. In ancient Greece and Rome, classic warmth treatments as practised in thermal spas were an integral part of prevention and treatment of ailments. And from native Americans we know of one of the most ancient techniques for overheating the whole body: the sweat hut, which is a sort of predecessor of the modern sauna.
Texts from ancient Egypt and the Middle Ages also witness to attempts to treat tumours using warmth. There is then hardly a question of the positive effects of warmth on general health. It is generally recognised that warmth in a suitable dosage has the effects of easing pain and relaxing muscles and of stimulating blood circulation and metabolism and even results in mental relaxation.
In many cases warmth only reduces the symptoms of an illness without actually eliminating the cause. But, especially in cases of chronic health problems with age, poorer blood circulation and reduced blood supply to tissue as well as slower metabolism and a higher concentration of “toxins” can in fact be the cause of ailments. Here warmth treatments can alleviate the cause under certain circumstances. A guaranteed cure should by no means be inferred from this effect. With the return to traditional approaches, in which body and mind are seen more as a whole, even in a medical context, various forms of warmth treatment are coming more into the focus of research. It has been recognised relatively recently that the various warmth treatments each has differing effects on the human body. Depending on how, how long and where warmth is applied, the body is stimulated to respond in a variety of ways to regulate body temperature. The influence varies, be it on blood circulation and supply to tissues, on metabolism or the organs of the body, resulting in ‘detoxification’, on the immune system or also the vegetative nervous system as well as of course on the psyche. The latter is receiving an increasing amount of attention, as especially in industrialised nations certain illnesses such as back pain (i.e. pain in the lower back) are aggravated by psychological factors.
- Sunrise - the beginning of a warm day.
