The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook_ A Home Manual - James Green [135]
The goal in proposing a health enhancing quick-cold (plunge) bath is the tonic influence produced by a sudden, powerful impression on the nervous system, followed by due reaction. A tonic is an agent which, systematically applied, gives tone to the tissue, aiding in the restoration and maintenance of the functions of nutrition and assimilation and increases the body’s vital resistance. The tonic effect of cold water is constant and regular whenever water is applied at a temperature below that of the body.
Cold water is a physiological tonic that awakens quintessential nervous activity without putting a burden on any vital organs and without hampering the activity of any bodily function. The tissue activity set up in the heat-producing tissues of the muscles (as the result of exposure of the skin to a cold medium for a short time) is participated in by every cell and tissue in the entire body.
In my opinion, the glow of exhilaration, and the invigoration and buoyancy of body and mind which accompany the reaction from a quick immersion in cold water, along with good food that you relish eating, pursuing enjoyable exercise and periods of repose, drinking lots of pure water, establishing and maintaining adequate intestinal flora, focusing on happy thoughts, and playing in the sunlight are the most valuable means of arousing to activity any and all flagging energies of the body. These are the most simple, inexpensive, and reliable means for individuals to prune chronic and acute disease off their limb of the family tree.
The cold plunge produces a reliable tonic effect by lifting the body’s whole vital economy to a higher level and increasing vital resistance to all the causes of the pathological processes.
By quickly touching the body’s whole skin surface with waters having temperatures of 90° F. or below (the more below the better, short of bouncing on ice), the skin, with its vast network of sensory, motor, sympathetic, vasomotor, and thermic nerves, arouses every nerve center, every sympathetic ganglion, every sensory and motor filament in the entire body to heightened life and activity. Every blood vessel and cell in the entire body is awakened and quickened with vital impulse. The reaction produced by tonic application fills the skin with blood, and if it is repeated daily the blood is finally fixed in the skin, rendering the skin vibrantly wholesome by permanently increasing its vascular activity, relieving internal congestion. Tissue building is accelerated, more blood is in circulation, more oxygen is absorbed, more CO2 and urea are eliminated, and all the vital functions are quickened, thus causing the stream of life to flow at a more rapid rate.
The reaction produced by tonic application fills the skin with blood, and if it is repeated daily the blood is finally fixed in the skin, rendering the skin vibrantly wholesome.
When there is any serious infirmity of the heart, lungs, or kidneys, or illness of any organ essential to life, the temperature of a bath should not be lower than 75° F. (a cool bath). If local applications of cold water cause any chilliness at all they should be discontinued.
Early morning baths or plunges in the sea, lake, or river, in a tub, or a naked roll in the snow are immensely invigorating; and in the summer months cold baths before bedtime are of great service by rendering sleep more sound and refreshing.
Any individual who has been wearied by laborious effort in a heated atmosphere will find her or his muscular strength immediately reinforced by a cold spray, shower, or bath. When fatigued, a quick application of cold water to the face and head has a delightfully refreshing effect. The relief, brightened expression, and increased vigor which follows this simple bathing of the head, face, and neck with cold are the results of the reflex stimulation of the nerve centers of the