Years ago I felt the urge to work properly in the fresh air. An opportunity arose to plant trees in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in September, and I accepted. A quick glance at the map told me that this peninsula is located in the cool strait between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan on the border with Canada.

Planting trees is a hoe-wielding, sweaty backbone and dirty work of the first order. Every evening we returned to camp tired, hungry and extremely dirty. I always go to bed tired, sometimes even hungry, but dirty...?

My tent was a normal igloo tent, with no shower or bath. Our camp was in a corner of our growing area, so there were no sanitary facilities. But I was dirty and couldn't go to bed like that. Someone told me about an old quarry nearby where a small lake had formed.

It should become a big bathtub for me. The lake was cold, very cold. I poked around with a stick to make sure this bathtub had a bottom and found a suitable spot with sufficient water depth. Now all I needed was enough courage to get in and stay in it long enough to get clean. I have to say that getting into that "bathtub" every night wasn't easy. But the desire for cleanliness won out.

I threw my work clothes next to the prepared, clean, dry clothes and jumped into the cold water. Never before had I washed myself so quickly as there. I'm sure no bath lasted more than five minutes. But after every bath, a miracle seemed to happen. I climbed out, dried off quickly, and put on my clean clothes.

And then it started!

And then it started: this blissful glow all over my body. Like a warm wind I blew through the forest to my tent. During the weeks of my cold baths I had no sore muscles, no pain and not a single cold; I was also perfectly balanced. Cold warms the heart!

Application Areas

There are various simple and effective cold and hot water applications that are very helpful in treating various diseases. This includes the short cold bath. It is easy to carry out and works e.g. E.g.: common cold (prevention and treatment), flu, bronchitis, fever, rash, constipation and obesity; with too heavy and too frequent menstruation, as well as with some chronic diseases, e.g. B. lupus, psoriasis, muscle disorders, poor circulation, indigestion and incontinence.

How do you do it?

The application technique for the short cold bath is extremely simple. You fill an ordinary bathtub with cold water. The temperature varies between 4 and 21°C depending on the climate and the season.
Some people find it more comfortable to take the bath at a slightly higher temperature the first time, perhaps between 27 and 31°C. Each subsequent bath can then be 1-2° colder, until the water temperature reaches around 10°C. Some find it easier to start each bath at 27 degrees F and then quickly lower the temperature while rubbing skin with a natural sponge, brush, rough washcloth, or fingernails. This is because friction increases the ability to endure cold.

The length of the bath partly depends on the water temperature: the colder the water, the shorter the bath time. At least 30 seconds maximum 3 minutes is recommended.

The duration of the treatment is important in this treatment, as a minute in cold water can seem like a long time. Kitchen alarm clock or stopwatch correct your own feelings. The maximum length of treatment depends mainly on how long you can endure it and less on other factors. Controlling the length of time also helps increase the treatment time from time to time so that there is an increase. Otherwise it can happen that each bath takes less time. So the timer helps to stay honest.

Finish the treatment by rubbing yourself dry with a rough towel, putting on a bathrobe and going straight to bed to let the treatment "work" for about 30 minutes.

What happens in the body?

After the effective time, there is increased blood circulation in the skin and faster blood circulation in the internal organs. At the beginning of the bath, there was a momentary accumulation of blood in the internal organs. But now that the bath is over, there is an increase in blood flow.

This can be compared to a river that is dammed up in order to tear down the dam afterwards. The water breaks loose, taking with it debris etc. that had been accumulating upstream for some time.

Another benefit of the short cold bath is the strengthening of the immune system. The fact that the body is only briefly exposed to the cold temperature increases the activity of the immune system. Working or sitting in the cold for a long time naturally has the opposite effect. The short cold bath makes complement factors, opsonins, interferons and other blood and tissue immune weapons more ready to fight germs. The number of white blood cells in the blood is also increased so that the body can better destroy the germs.

The metabolism is also increased by the short cold bath, so that toxic metabolic products are "burned" together with the food. Digestion is initially slowed down, but accelerated after about an hour. For this reason, the bath should not be taken immediately before or after a meal.

Attention: Do not use the cold bath if you have acutely high blood pressure, if your body is cold or if you are tired!

Shock or collapse is treated very well by soaking your arms and legs in cold water; but not the torso! The short cold bath is the best treatment for many skin diseases because the blood circulation in the skin is increased enormously.

However, if you have an overactive thyroid, you should avoid the cold because the thyroid could be stimulated by the cold; however, for hypothyroidism, the cold bath is the treatment of choice.

First published in German in: Our solid foundation, 3-2001

Aus: Our Firm Foundation, October 1999