Hydrotherapy

The Modern Industry

There is an entire industry dedicated to using water as a healing process.   The industry offers books,  Hydrogen Water (I  know about the Hindenburg), misters/inhalers, and of course retreats!  Just searching Google for “water healing” will result in about 297,000,000 results (Google will tell you how quickly it gave you those results as well).

The current number one book about water healing is called “The Healing Power of Water” by Dr. Masaru Emoto.  He was a scientist, a researcher and an entrepreneur (according to the book of Wikipedia).  Emoto became a Doctor of Alternative Medicine at the Open International University for Alternative Medicine in India a correspondence school which it is alleged requires no coursework (that’s my kind of school).  The book will transform your view of the world and help you find the “hidden message” in water.

Then there is a place in the city of Birmingham called “Healing Waters”… It offers a colon cleansing service, if you’re into that thing.

So, here we have an industry that sells  water therapy that makes millions on selling gadgets, books and all of the usual hubbub.  Which really starts to look a lot like pyramid schemes.

Historical Background

Western Civilization History

Water therapy goes back to the ancients of Egypt, Roman and Greeks.  Let’s take a moment and think about the living situation of those time periods.

The Egyptians had the rich and the poor, the rich had better health and had slaves to draw them bathes.  The rest bathed in the Nile with the crocodiles and likely raw sewage.  So, I can see how a bath might be helpful when you’re sick because you need to get the nastiness off of your skin.

The Romans created aqueducts,  sewers and had bath houses.  This lead to a healthier population and a lot of the Roman bathing was carried over into the years that passed for England and some of the other conquered lands.  Germany still offers some public bath houses, but they lack the Victorian modest that seems to be ingrained into most of western civilization.

For the most part, through history you find people offering different variants on bathing as forms of “therapy”, but you have to ask yourself… was it just cleanliness making people better?

Early American History

Hot Springs National Park in Branson, Missouri.  This parcel of land was reserved in 1832 for a park and a row of public bath houses were built.  Patients were sent to the hot springs to receive treatments from their ailments from the natural “healing powers”  of the natural mineral hot spring that fed the bath houses.

You can still visit these springs and minerals and visit a well preserved 19th century bath house called the Fordyce Bath House.   You can even have your own hot spring experience in a bath house, or play in the spring itself.  Your choice.

Then there’s the “Little White House” in  Warm Springs, Georgia.  This is where Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent his time int he warm springs with hopes of finding relief and healing for his polio.

The small town still welcomes visitors and is home to the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation that was founded by Roosevelt to help others suffering with Polio.  The Facility how works to help heal other ailments by the power of the hot springs mineral water.

Hydrotherapy for Depression and Anxiety

An article was published by Peter Bongiorno on Psychology Today in June 2014.

In the Article, he discusses how hydrotherapy works and how it can effect different types of illnesses.  He concludes that hydrotherapy many benefits, but warns that extreme cold stress my actually impair your brain and cognitive function.  So, check with your physician before you join the polar bear club!

A Cold Splash-Hydrotherapy for Depression and Anxiety

My Turn

Now, that I have shared the things bumping around in my head when it comes to hydrotherapy, it’s time to get to why I am writing this post.

Music

Music, sweet music.

You touch my soul in ways  I cannot express in words.

People may not understand what I am going through, but music you know me.

Your lyrics remind me, feel me, heal me and soothe me.

Music, sweet music… touch my soul.

The song that has set it’s talons into me today is called “Saltwater” and the artist is Geowulf.  It is a modern alternative piece that Corona Beer has taken to putting into their commercials.  Which leads to the meme of Indigo Montoya from Princess Bride:

The lyrics are simple…

Saltwater in the afternoon
So scared of seeing you
Saltwater at the end of spring
So tired of hiding me

Come to the ocean
Even when you’re broken

Sunrise when you call my name
Oh I thought you had something to say
When the tide wash me in
You and I no longer a thing
Unrepentantly I’ve waited for you

Come to the ocean
Even when you’re broken
Come to the water
Let it wash you over

Come to the ocean
Even when you’re broken
Come to the water
Now that we are older

Geowulf:Satlwater Lyrics by LyricWiki

Saltwater Therpay

The song calls you to the water, the ocean, the waves… and to let it wash you over.

This song is the siren’s song for me.  I am what I call a “water baby”, because I have and will always love being in the water.  My mom recounts how I learned how to walk at my grandmother’s beach house and she purchased me new shoes for my walking.  Then… she took me to the beach where I promptly walked into the ocean. It would seem that I learned to walk so I could get into the water.

The song is telling me to carry all of my hurt and pain to the ocean.

Come to the Ocean

Even when you’re broken

Come to the water

Let it wash you over

That the ocean will wash me over and help me to heal.