Foot baths: why are they needed and how to make them?

In the East, the legs are called the "second heart", which is due to the large number of biologically active points on them. By stimulating them, you can act on certain organs, improve well-being, activate the body's defenses. One of the simple and affordable ways to do this is with foot baths.

Foot baths are a pleasant healing procedure that involves immersing the feet in a solution based on water, usually with the addition of a decoction of medicinal plants, essential oils, salts, etc.

As a rule, bath recipes involve the use of components such as herbal infusions, salt or soda. Often, these ingredients are "found" within the same bath.

Also, the procedure will require a basin, 1.5-2 liters of water and about half an hour of free time. That is how long the procedure lasts. After holding it, it is recommended to rest a bit in a horizontal position, so you should add another 15-30 minutes. You can do baths just before bedtime.

Instead of a conventional basin, you can use a hydromassage bath, which will significantly increase the effectiveness of the procedure. It is a heat-resistant plastic container with a bubble bottom. These "pimples", as well as attached massagers massage and relax your legs. Such units can have the function of a jacuzzi, pumice nozzles, pedicure brushes and various washcloths.

As a rule, in most models there is a special compartment where grass broth or essential oils are poured. The temperature in the device is maintained at the same level, so there is no need to add hot water. Numerous modes allow you to choose the best, and control is carried out through the buttons on the device or through the remote control.

The use of home foot baths, as well as their beneficial effect on the body as a whole, is due to a number of factors.

• First of all, we can talk about the positive effects of water, which relaxes and relieves fatigue.
• Hot and warm foot baths allow you to activate blood circulation, which is important for the proper functioning of all organs and systems. In addition, good blood circulation is one of the components of a healthy and beautiful skin.
• Depending on the composition of the bath, you can pointly affect one or another organ, provide a more directed effect on the body. There are a large number of points on the feet, each of which is associated with a specific body. The impact on these points in the process of foot baths allows us to talk about a general positive effect on the body, its strengthening, and increased defenses.

• A foot bath can both alleviate the condition after a hard day, and help in a number of diseases. In the first case, it is useful to resort to girls and women wearing high-heeled shoes, as well as those who spend most of the day on their feet. Foot baths are used for joint diseases, colds, headaches and muscle pains, problems with the nervous system. In most cases, they are not an independent treatment, but in combination with other procedures and taking medications significantly speed up recovery.

With an increase in temperature, as well as in acute periods of illness, baths should be discarded. Various formations, including oncological ones, should become a contraindication to the procedure.

When choosing a herbal or other bath should carefully study its composition. The presence in it of components for which you are allergic or individually intolerant should be the reason for refusing the procedure. The same applies to people suffering from inflammatory processes in the legs, the presence of non-healing wounds. Exposure to water will make the healing process longer, and the components of the bath will cause irritation on already inflamed skin.

The procedure is not recommended in the presence of cardiovascular diseases, spider veins, as well as during pregnancy. With caution, it should be carried out with varicose veins and thrombosis. This is due to the fact that under the influence of hot water, blood flow increases, which creates an additional load on the vessels and heart muscle, and can also provoke a uterine contraction.

Too hot baths provoke an increase in pressureTherefore, hypertensive patients should carefully monitor their condition and stop the procedure at the first symptoms of poor health. Hot procedures for diabetes, tuberculosis, thrombophlebitis are prohibited. Partial or complete loss of sensitivity of the feet is also the reason for the undesirability of holding foot baths - there is a high risk of getting a burn.

All ingredients (unless otherwise indicated in the recipe) are prepared and added to the water immediately before the procedure, after which it is necessary to immediately lower the feet into the bath. It is important to adhere to the ratios of the components indicated in the recipe, otherwise you can get skin irritation and even a burn with a significant concentration of one of them.

The amount of water should be such that it completely covers the feet and reaches the ankles. Its temperature is best regulated based on your own preferences.It should be slightly above room temperature, significantly warm your legs, but not cause discomfort. As the fluid cools, hot water can be added to the basin. It is better if the components that are used in the bath are also dissolved in the latter.

The duration of the bath should be at least 15-20 minutes, with a shorter duration, the therapeutic effect will be invisible. Therapeutic procedures are usually carried out in a course of 10-15 sessions 3 times a week. After this, the number of sessions can be reduced to one preventive per week.

Before the procedure, you should wash your feet with soap, then rinse your feet with clean water, you can do this alternately cool and warm enough. After the session, you should thoroughly wipe your feet with a towel, grease them with a suitable cream and put on cotton socks.

The pedicure bath should be carried out immediately before the pedicure. It allows you to soften the skin, make the process more clean and painless. If corns and corns are removed after the bath, and any procedures are performed that involve damage to the integrity of the skin, thorough disinfection is necessary. The skin should be disinfected before and after manipulations, it is important to treat hands and tools with an antiseptic.

Foot baths are part of most relaxing and caring treatments offered by expensive spas. However, to prepare a healthy foot bath is not difficult at home, especially since the ingredients for this will require the most affordable and inexpensive.

Consider the most popular of them, as well as the effect that they provide.

• Soda. Soda has a softening and antiseptic effect, which allows it to be used in trays for foot fatigue, as well as for problems such as corns, corns, cracks in the feet. In addition, she copes with the problem of unpleasant odor and sweating feet. It goes well with herbal infusions.
• Salt. It is rich in minerals and trace elements that are vital for the body. It has an analgesic, moisturizing and antimicrobial, healing (but should not be used in violation of the integrity of the skin) effect. It is better to use sea salt, which is not difficult to find in a pharmacy or a specialized department of a cosmetics store.

It is recommended to purchase salt without additives, so you can supplement it yourself with suitable herbs, essential oils, etc. If you purchased sea salt with additives, you should carefully select the components of the bath to it, taking care of their compatibility with each other. Salt is combined with soda, iodine, herbs and essential oils, bath foam.

• Herbs. Herbal foot baths have a pronounced therapeutic effect, which depends on the selected raw materials. So, for example, lavender soothes, relieves swelling and fatigue, needles - tones, helps with colds. With sweating legs, horsetail, oak bark, and rosemary flowers have proven themselves well. Mint and nettle improve blood circulation, and also save from cracks on the heels, and chamomile and linden (you can add honey to them) are the best remedy for tired legs.
• Essential oils. Essential oils, depending on their type, provide a regenerative, antiseptic and analgesic effect. In addition, they relieve fatigue, improve blood circulation, and help restore softness and smoothness to the skin.

It is important to select the appropriate oil. So, orange oil is indicated for insomnia, in addition, it increases the elasticity of the skin. Eucalyptus oil will relieve fatigue, as well as pain in joint diseases.

Peppermint oil has a similar effect, which will relieve fatigue and give a good healthy sleep.Bergamot, cypress and tea tree oils will allow you to cope with sweating.

Anesthetizing and regenerating effects are possessed by chamomile and arnica oils.

• Turpentine. It has a pronounced healing effect, a cold action. It is recommended for diseases of the joints, and baths based on it even allow you to restore mobility to the joints. You can complement the effect of the bath by rubbing turpentine.

As a rule, the fungus is "picked up" if personal hygiene rules are not observed in public places (in a bathhouse, on the beach, in the pool). It is easily transmitted between family members. The disease manifests itself as itching and swelling of the skin in the nail area, its cracking, yellowing of the nails.

One of the ways to get rid of this trouble, as well as a remedy, soothing itching with a fungus, is a bath.

• A bath based on 2 liters of water demonstrates high efficiency, in which 1 tablespoon of salt (preferably sea salt) and soda are mixed. You can add a little liquid soap.
• A bathtub based on tar and ordinary soap, taken in equal proportions for 2 liters of water, is also famous. There is added a tablespoon of soda.

• You can prepare herbal infusion by mixing 1 teaspoon of celandine, calendula, lilac and oak bark. The mixture should be poured with a liter of boiling water and infused for 2-3 hours. Then dilute the composition with a small amount of boiling water so that its temperature reaches 38 ° C.

Duration of sessions using these solutions is 30 minutes. Baths should be done daily for 10 days, each time after that carefully wiping the legs, and then lubricating them with healing cream and putting on socks. When treating fungal diseases, it is important to use a clean towel every time (it should be individual for each family member), change socks as often as possible, treat the inner surface of the shoe with special disinfectants. This will not only get rid of the fungus faster, but also avoid its relapse.

It should be understood that sweating feet may be associated with a certain disease or be a sign of wearing the wrong shoes. In the first case, it is necessary to find and eliminate the cause.

In any case, these recipes will quickly get rid of sweating and unpleasant odors at home.

• One of the simplest, but at the same time effective ways to cope with sweating is to brew 40 g of chamomile flowers with hot water (about 1 liter), insist for an hour. After this, drain the infusion into a basin through a sieve, pour in the required amount of water.
• Another recipe for herbs involves the use of chamomile, wormwood and pine needles taken at 30 g each. They should be poured with a liter of water, insisted for about an hour and, strain, pour into a basin. There you should add a tablespoon of salt and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
• Another recipe from the “simple and effective” series is baths with apple cider vinegar. For 2 liters of water, add 5-6 tablespoons of vinegar.

The duration of the sessions is 20-30 minutes. You need to do them in a course - every other day for a month or until a persistent positive result appears.

• Baths with potassium permanganate will also allow you to quickly cope with sweating feet. In a glass of water, 2 g of potassium permanganate should be dissolved and left for a day. After that, pour the contents of the glass into the basin, add the required amount of water. Before use, make sure that the potassium permanganate crystals are completely dissolved. Otherwise, you may get a burn. The procedure takes 10 minutes.

Most people who spend the whole day or most of it standing up are familiar with the feeling of tired legs. They literally “buzz” and swell.

If swelling is not a symptom of the disease, but just a consequence of fatigue, you can do baths on an herbal basis.

• Pour 40 g of linden flowers with a liter of boiling water and let it brew for half an hour. After filtering, the broth should be drained into the basin, putting there 1 tablespoon of sea salt.
• Instead of linden, you can use chamomile flowers. You can add to such a composition not salt, but a tablespoon of honey.
• Effectively removes fatigue is also a composition based on mint and nettle, taken in 1 tablespoon. Herbs are poured with 500 ml of water and infused for 7-10 minutes. Then it is poured into a basin and diluted with a small amount of warm water.
• A bath of dry peels of orange and lemon will be fragrant and tonic. Each ingredient should be taken in 1 cup, pour a liter of hot water and boil a little (5 minutes). After that, you just need to drain the solution into the basin and add a little water.

The recommended duration of the bath is 20-30 minutes, after the session you should lie down a bit, raising your legs to a small height.

Female legs are usually more affected by dryness. This, in turn, causes coarsening and then cracking of the skin. To make the skin softer, and special baths help moisturize and accelerate healing.

After them, it is recommended to rub the skin with a pumice stone, wipe it dry and lubricate with a moisturizer.

• To improve the condition of "problem" legs will allow the composition based on St. John's wort and vinegar. To prepare it, 30 mg of grass should be poured into 500 ml of water and heated in a water bath for 10 minutes. Then insist another quarter of an hour and drain into a basin, where 2 tablespoons of vinegar are also added.
• You can also prepare a bath of potato broth. It is necessary to boil 200-300 g of potato peel in 2 liters of water, and then drain the resulting broth into a basin. Use after it has cooled slightly.
• You can do it easier and use ready-made potato starch. Corn is also suitable. The bottom line is that a tablespoon of starch should be poured with a liter of hot water, mix the composition and lower your legs into it. In this state, you need to stay 15-20 minutes, after which clean water is gradually introduced, having stood for another 10-15 minutes.

The duration of the procedures for coarse, cracked skin is 30 minutes, they should be repeated daily until the condition improves.

• For highly keratinized skin, recipes with the addition of essential oil are recommended. On a liter of water you need to make a tablespoon of soda and 5-6 drops of tea tree or rose essential oil. Instead of soda, you can add sea salt (a tablespoon per liter of water), composing it with citrus essential oil (lemon, orange, grapefruit).
• If rough skin has caused the formation of corns and corns, a treatment course of procedures based on sea salt and ammonia should be carried out. For 1.5 liters of water, you need to add 2 tablespoons of each of these components and mix the mixture thoroughly. The duration of the session is 15 minutes. After the procedure, the skin will become soft, it will be possible to remove corns and corns and disinfect the legs.

• There is another recipe with ammonia in the composition. To do this, the latter is mixed with soda and soap. Each component is taken in 1 teaspoon per 2 liters of water. The duration of the procedure is half an hour, after which you should also remove corns and corns and rub your feet with an antiseptic composition.
• Another effective and powerful foot bath, which should be done no more than 5 minutes. For the first time, it is better to reduce the exposure time to 2-3 minutes. To prepare the solution, 4 tablespoons of peroxide should be dissolved in 1.5 liters of hot water. The latter should buy a pharmacy, 3%. After the bath, the skin softens and is processed with a file or pumice. You can do it no more than 2 times in 10 days.

As with sweating feet, numbness can be caused by diseases (with heart problems, diabetes mellitus) or external factors (sedentary work, wearing tight shoes). The solution to the problem in the first case is the treatment of the underlying disease or its careful control. If numbness is a short-term disturbance of blood circulation, not caused by a disease, then The following procedures will help to cope with it and prevent further occurrence.

• Contrast baths allow to improve blood circulation. This will require 2 basins: one - with hot (as much as you can tolerate) water, the second - with ice. Alternately, in each of them you need to immerse your legs for 1 minute.

• Another recipe demonstrates its effectiveness - 1 tablespoon of sea salt, 10 g of camphor alcohol and 50 g of 10% ammonia should be dissolved in a liter of water. Stir the composition well and immerse legs in it for 10 minutes. During the session, you should slightly rub your legs. The procedure is mandatory for the night.
• You can prepare a bath based on dry mustard and sea salt, taken in 1 tablespoon, as well as ½ tablespoon of baking soda. The specified amount of ingredients is dissolved in 2 l of hot water and mixed thoroughly. The duration of the session is 30-35 minutes.

Most joint diseases are caused by salt deposition. Baths are not a means of treatment, but act as an additional procedure, carried out in combination with the main treatment.

• As a rule, such recipes suggest the presence of iodine in the composition. For example, a bath based on chamomile and iodine flowers. 100 g of chamomile should be poured with a liter of water, insist and, strain, drain into a basin. Add 1 teaspoon of iodine there. The procedure can be carried out 3 times a week for a month or in case of pain, swelling.
• You can also prepare a bath of 4 tablespoons of salt, which is dissolved in 2 liters of water. After that, 20 drops of alcohol iodine are added to the composition. The procedure should be performed before bedtime for half an hour. Then it is recommended to lubricate the problem areas with camphor oil and put on cotton socks on the feet.

This bath should be carried out if the patient's body temperature is not higher than 37.5-38 ° C. It has a slight diaphoretic, and therefore antipyretic effect.

You can increase the effectiveness by inhalation and drinking herbal teas or warm fruit drinks.

• To prepare the bath, take a tablespoon of salt and dissolve it in a liter of warm water. Add here 2-3 drops of essential oil of needles (fir, spruce, pine). The duration of the procedure is half an hour, while it is recommended to add hot water to the basin as it cools down in the tank. You can do such baths every day during the illness.
• Another easy way to cope with a cold, as well as drive away cough and nasal congestion, is to make a mustard foot bath. For this recipe, only dry mustard powder is suitable, which is taken in the amount of 1 tablespoon per 1 liter of water. The duration of the session is from 10 to 30 minutes, during which you should also add water. An important point - mustard warms up by itself, so the water temperature for such baths may be lower than for other formulations.

All of these recipes are suitable not only for ordinary baths, but also for hydromassage. It is good if in the latter it is possible to create vortex flows of water that enhance the therapeutic effect of these compounds.

• The foot bath should only be prepared with fresh ingredients that have not expired. People rarely use some of them, so they don’t even think about their expiration date. For example, open soda can be used throughout the year.
• When using salt, it should first be dissolved in hot water, and only then added to warm or cold. If you add salt directly to the basin with warm water, it will not be able to completely dissolve, which means that the procedure will bring less benefit than it could.

• Essential oils are highly concentrated and have a strong aroma. In this regard, before adding them to the bath, it is recommended to conduct a simple test. 1-2 drops of oil should be dripped onto a blank sheet of paper and inhale the aroma, after waiting 5-10 seconds. If after 15-20 minutes after this you do not feel deterioration, and the smell does not seem to you annoying or unpleasant, you can proceed directly to the procedure.
• Strengthen the action of the foot bath with essential oils can apply the latter to the skin. However, due to the high concentration, they should first be mixed with the base oil (olive, peach, grape). On a tablespoon of base oil, 2-3 drops of essential are enough. The resulting mixture must be mixed with a wooden stick, after which it can be applied to the skin.
• Essential oils can be mixed with each other, but only being confident in their compatibility. Harmoniously combined oils of chamomile, peppermint and lavender, this mixture relieves fatigue, tones. The main sound will belong to mint, the smell of which will be joined by a delicate fragrance of lavender. The aroma of chamomile will hardly be felt.

• You can also combine lavender, lemon and rosemary, while the smell will be a little sharper, invigorating. A harmonious tandem is obtained with a combination of ylang-ylang oil and orange (moisturizes, nourishes), as well as a trio of essential oils of lavender, sandalwood and tea tree (from sweating feet).
• If fresh herbs are used, then they must first be crushed and poured with cold water, let it brew, and then put in a water bath. Dry herbs can immediately be poured with hot liquid.
• It can not be used for boiling boiling water. Water temperature should be no more than 95 ° C. If it is supposed to heat the herbal infusion, then you need to do this on moderate heat, avoiding the drilling of liquids.
• It is not recommended to lower your legs immediately into hot water (exception - contrasting baths). It is better to first pour the liquid with a temperature of 38-39 ° C, lower your legs into it and allow and get used to the temperature for 5-7 minutes. Then you can add hot water, increasing its temperature to 42-45 ° C. In this case, you need to rely only on your own health.

• The optimal duration of relaxing and cosmetic procedures is no more than 20 minutes, treatment can last up to half an hour. An increase in the session time does not affect its benefit in any way, moreover, in this case, the load on the cardiovascular system increases.
• Foot baths are an aid in the treatment of colds in children. However, this method can be applied only if the child is older than 5-6 years. In this case, the amount of ingredients is better to halve and abandon the use of essential oils. They are quite concentrated, it is better to replace them with a similar herbal decoction.
• Strengthen the effect of the bath allows massage. It should be performed directly in the water, after 5 minutes, after you have immersed your feet in it. Rubbing and massage should begin with the fingers, gradually moving higher and higher. Under the influence of hot water, the ligaments become supple, and the sensations become dull, so it is not recommended to rub or stretch the tissues too actively.

The article made many recipes that will allow you to properly care for your feet. More detailed information on why this should be done can be obtained in the next video.