Hydrotherapy is one of my favourite treatment methods. It is a great way to stimulate the vital force. The vital force is another way to describe your inner healing force. Not only that, hydrotherapy is quite accessible and affordable for most folks. Plus, it’s non invasive and won’t interfere with any of your medications. Let’s dive in to how to do to it and the benefits.
Dew walking: couldn’t be simpler. You take off your socks and shoes, and walk outside in the morning where there is dew. I like to take 2-3 minutes out there and walk around slowly, starting my day with reflection and contemplation: like a walking meditation. My advice to you is to start in the sunny areas of your yard. It will be quite cold on your feet! Then move in to the shaded areas. If you need to work your way up to a couple of minutes that is fine. Start with 20-30 seconds of walking – take a break sit on the deck with a tea and let your feet warm up before going out again!
Why it’s helpful:
Physiologically : It helps to stimulate circulation. This can be great to help people who need to heal wounds, who have neuralgia of the feet or lower limbs, varicose veins, plantar fasciitis, pain syndromes, and many other conditions. How does walking on wet grass stimulate circulation? The blood vessels in your feet meet the cool grass, and vasoconstrict (get narrower). As you walk, you stimulate blood pumping through the area. As your feet warm up, your blood vessels vasodilate (get wider) acting like a pump up back to your heart, effectively increasing circulation. It helps with wound healing and neuralgia by allowing new fresh blood to give nutrition to the area – effectively boosting the healing.
Energetically : Grounding is so important and something we as a society don’t do a lot. Grounding is the act of connecting with the earth on the ground viscerally. The closer you are to the ground, the better. Being out in nature decreases our sympathetic nervous system – the fight or flight system which causes body stress. Dew walking is an easy and quick way to decrease some of that stress and set a nice intention for the day.
Start your day early tomorrow with some cool feet and gain stress reduction, and some happy toes! Let me know your experience in the comments below!
In health,
Dr. Larissa Wheeler, ND
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