God created Earth. Then he created air, water and sun and Adam and Eve to procreate and to live happily ever after. Then he got worried about the health and longevity of his best creation. He found a solution for it by giving water all the health preserving and health including ingredients. He devised everything to make it possible for man to live in good health on earth with water and sun. Water has been always plentiful. Man has used it to his advantage, to quench his thirst, to irrigate his fields and to keep himself clean. Above all he has used water for health and to get rid of diseases through different water states like hot, cold and ice.
Difference people use water in Mumbai who take a hot water bath all the year around. Though Mumbai’s moderate temperature never falls much as to invite a hot water bath. These people pretend that hot water protects them against rheumatism, bronchitis and asthma and suggest that they feel more fresh after each hot water bath. There are people in Delhi who keep on changing the temperature of their bath water according to the season, a hot bath in winter and a cold shower in summer.
To know about the effect of theses baths, on the body will add up to our attitude and approach to them. They can help to cure diseases, harden the bodies so that we are less susceptible to cold and coughs. A cold breeze will then not be able to put us out of gear. A sudden rain soaking us deep to our skin will not be an invitation to a cold or fever.
Now with a 5 – star culture blooming in the capital cities, health clubs have mushroomed. These clubs have sauna bath, steam bath, whirlpools, gymnasium swimming pool and an open place to take sunbath and enjoy the breeze, and instructions about yoga, relaxation and diet. The spa has come to signify in Europe a sign of hope. There are more spas now the world over more people visit them. Usually located in scenic places, they are spread over a vast area of land away form the city noise and polluted air.
There is a cheerful atmosphere where you may relax in privacy. You can walk in shaded groves and jog in jogger’s tracks. You can sun bathe take hydrotherapy, meditate, diet, do yoga, exercise your body, and do breathing exercises, wash the body from its dirt. Here all the flood gates for elimination of toxic wastes in the body are opened up. The skin perspires to eliminate more in a sauna and a steam bath. You breathe in more oxygen during a pranayama and eliminate more carbon dioxide.
Your bowel moves better after exercise and a right diet. The kidney will flush out more waste from the body after intake of more salad and fruits. You will sleep better. The nervous system will have more rest. You must start learning to use your body like a sitar or any other string instrument. Tighten the strings when you want to play. Tension is needed when you want to gear up the mind and body to action, but do not let this tension prevail all the time. Learn to loosen the body stings when not in use.
Education in the art of relaxation is the most important part of spa therapy by way of hydro treatment, meditation, pranayama, yoga or more recent feed back techniques when you actually watch in a machine and know how relaxed you are. This will help to be acquainted better with the personal relaxation needs and techniques.
It will be improper to condemn these methods outright without testing and heeling the experience of thousands of patients who have already benefited from them. These have survived over thousands of years whereas may others have come and gone. We must remember that many of the patients who come for spa therapy are chronic. They come as a last resort for relief from pain. A lot of positive development has been going on in balano therapy (spa therapy) in India. The day is not far off when it will be conclusively demonstrated the reason why balano therapy is effective.