What is thermoregulation of the human body and how does it work?
Previously, people were regularly exposed to severe temperature changes, from winter to summer, without air conditioning, central heating and windproof clothing. As a result, the body has developed an ideal system for maintaining internal temperature at a strictly defined level. If it is very hot, the blood vessels dilate, giving off heat to the skin, the sweat glands release moisture, cooling the skin - the excess heat is compensated, the person is healthy. If it became cold, the vessels narrowed to prevent hypothermia, the blood began to circulate much more intensely, warming the body, the body launched the mechanism of breaking down fat cells, producing a lot of heat - the person warmed up and felt great.
But we did everything to protect ourselves from such temperature changes, as a result, the mechanism developed over millennia became unnecessary, gradually weakening more and more. For most, the vessels and capillaries have partially lost their elasticity, the sweat glands work worse than they should, the delicate mechanism is upset and can no longer ensure a constant internal temperature. People have lost the ability to adapt to temperature changes, and now a draft can put them in bed for a week, and in the summer cardiologists work tirelessly due to the huge number of patients.
To protect yourself from this, you need to force the body to learn the previous methods of temperature control. This is what hardening is for.
Hardening in the steam room.
The bathhouse is an excellent hygienic, healing and hardening agent. Under the influence of the bath procedure, the body’s performance and its emotional tone increase, and recovery processes are accelerated after intense and prolonged physical work. As a result of regular visits to the bathhouse, the body's resistance to colds and infectious diseases increases.
Staying in the steam room of the bath causes dilation of blood vessels and increases blood circulation in all tissues of the body. Under the influence of high temperature, sweat is intensely released, which helps remove harmful metabolic products from the body. Bath procedures are not recommended for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases or hypertension.
Sun hardening.
Solar infrared rays have a pronounced thermal effect on the body. They contribute to the formation of additional heat in the body. As a result, the activity of the sweat glands increases and the evaporation of moisture from the surface of the skin increases: subcutaneous vessels expand and skin hyperemia occurs, blood flow increases, and this improves blood circulation in all tissues of the body. UV irradiation has a great biological effect: it promotes the formation of vitamin D in the body, which has a pronounced antirachitic effect; accelerates metabolic processes. UV rays help improve blood composition and have a bactericidal effect, thereby increasing the body's resistance to colds and infectious diseases; they have a tonic effect on almost all body functions.
Different people's skin has different degrees of sensitivity to solar radiation. This is due to the thickness of the stratum corneum, the degree of blood supply to the skin and its ability to pigment.
Sunbathing.
Sunbathing for the purpose of hardening should be taken very carefully, otherwise instead of benefit it will cause harm (burns, heat and sunstroke). It is best to sunbathe in the morning, when the air is especially clean and it is not too hot, and also in the late afternoon, when the sun is setting. Their duration should not exceed 5 minutes (then add 3-5 minutes, gradually increasing to an hour). You can't sleep while sunbathing! The head should be covered with a Panama hat and the eyes with dark glasses.
In conclusion, I would like to note that hardening is an important means of preventing the adverse effects of weather and climatic conditions on the body. The systematic use of hardening procedures increases the overall level of human health.
What is body hardening
This process is understood as a sharp and alternating increase and decrease in body temperature in order to again teach it to work to maintain internal constancy. The easiest way is a contrast shower. But if you want to do this as efficiently as possible, the best option is to use a sauna. We have already talked a lot about its benefits for the body, but for hardening it is simply irreplaceable. The steam room is able to warm up the body in a few minutes and raise the temperature of the internal organs to 39 degrees, and then also quickly cool it down in the pool, shower, font or simply by dousing it. But in order for the body to receive only benefits from this procedure, everything must be done according to the rules, thoroughly and slowly.
Cooling down after the steam room
The cooling period after the steam room includes all functional changes in the body associated with this process. It is very important to choose the optimal cooling mode for yourself, that is, the cooling medium, temperature contrast and cooling methods that would ensure the preservation of thermal balance with minimal stress on the physiological systems of the body and return them to their original state. It should be noted that most of the complications accompanied by negative reactions of the so-called cold nature when using baths are associated precisely with errors in the duration and speed of cooling.
When choosing a cooling medium, you should keep in mind not only the functional state of the body, but also its constitutional characteristics. For example, obese people cool down much more slowly than people of asthenic physique. In obese people, the amount of additional heat received by the body is much greater than in thin people.
During the cooling period, replenishment of lost fluid and mineral salts plays an important role. Their deficiency can negatively affect the general condition of the body, the appearance of a feeling of lethargy, weakness, heaviness in the head, pain in the calf muscles when walking, when swimming in the pool.
The loss of water in the body when taking heat-air baths in a steam room can reach a significant value: on average about 1.5-2 per three to four
multiple visits to the steam room. If these losses are not compensated by ingesting an adequate amount of fluid, then a deficiency may occur in the body. And the body reacts very painfully to fluid deficiency. Deficiency is considered weak if it is 1-1.5% of body weight, moderate - 1.5-2% and severe, that is, dangerous for the body, if it exceeds 3%. It is known that 1 kg of sweat accounts for about 1.4% of a 70 kg body weight.
Dehydration (dehydration) of the body with significant sweating causes sharp changes in the composition of minerals due to a decrease in the content of sodium chloride, the concentration of which in the body at the beginning of bath procedures is about 5 g/, and at the end it decreases to 1 g/.
Scientists have found that stable adaptation of the human body to microclimatic conditions with high air temperatures in a steam room is observed only after 10-15 visits to the bathhouse with a break of 5-7 days, that is, after 3-4 months with weekly visits to the bathhouse and, of course, the steam room. This circumstance should be taken into account by both the steamer and doctors if they prescribe bath procedures as a therapeutic measure.
For cooling in a bathhouse, it is advisable to have a room equipped with appropriate items and objects. First of all, this room must have a pool with an area of at least 6 m2 and a depth of 130 cm. The pool is located next to the steam room, water enters the pool through the bottom, which has holes in it. They go down the steps into the pool, holding on to the railing. The water temperature in the pool does not exceed 10°C, it must meet the requirements for swimming pools, that is
be recycled. The water is constantly chlorinated.
The cooling area should be equipped with benches.
From the cooling zone they usually go to the relaxation room, the equipment of which consists of couches and chairs in an amount corresponding to the number of visitors to the bathhouse. In the rest room you can compensate for the body's loss of fluid. Usually they drink mineral water, fruit and berry juices, kvass, vegetable juices and other drinks that do not contain alcohol.
So, the second phase of visiting the bathhouse is cooling, which should be proceeded to after sufficient heating in the steam room and the appearance of an irresistible desire to cool down. The cooling zone (the best) is, of course, fresh air. This can be stated on the basis of the centuries-old experience of Russians. Previously, in Russian baths it was accepted from the steam room directly into the air, into a river, a pond or into the snow. Now, of course, in urban conditions it is difficult to find a decent pile of snow, but as for fresh air, it is still achievable.
When going out into the fresh air, you should first take several deep breaths in and out, as forced breathing can cause convulsions due to respiratory alkalosis. The cooling phase is very important for the body. Its duration is individual and depends mainly on the state of health. Cooling is most often carried out at a temperature of 18-20°C. After a short cooling, you can sit in the shower or in a pool of cold water. If cooling occurs in the air, then in the summer it is good to walk slowly on the grass, and in winter the brave can walk on the snow. ;
During long-term cooling in a rest room, it is recommended to immerse your feet up to the upper third of your shins in water at a temperature of 35-39°C. Under no circumstances should you use cold water, as this can cause vascular spasms in the leg muscles and reflex changes throughout the body. In general, cooling with water should be approached with caution and health status taken into account. The cold water temperature should not be lower than +8-15°C.
The best way to cool with water in a public bath is to shower or pour water from a hose, without strong pressure, as this can cause undesirable reactions of blood vessels, including collapse. You can, of course, pour yourself from a bucket or from some other container.
An effective way to cool the body is a swimming pool (barrel, bathtub). But it is not recommended for cores to use this cooling method, since this places a large load on the cardiovascular system. Before diving into the pool, you should take a shower to remove sweat from your body. It is not recommended to use soap, since after a steam bath the skin receives a natural acidic reaction, that is, a protective antimicrobial shell. It should be remembered (especially for hypertensive heart patients) that when immersed in cold water, blood pressure quickly increases. It is recommended to immerse yourself in cold water up to your neck, and keep your head above the surface of the water. You cannot jump into the pool, especially upside down, but you should carefully and slowly dive up to your neck. If the pool is large enough, it is good to move around and swim in it.
Only completely healthy people can cool off in the snow and in ice holes in rivers and lakes.
It is recommended to continue cooling until the desire to warm up appears. You can’t cool down until you feel cold, much less chills. Cooling is best completed by taking a shower and drying the entire body before visiting the steam room again. If your feet become cold during the cooling period, then before the steam room you need to warm them in a basin filled with warm water (up to 40°C).
Staying in the steam room and cooling is usually repeated 2-3 times, but amateurs do this up to 5 times.
After thoroughly washing your feet, especially your feet and between your toes, you should wipe them dry (with a separate towel for your feet) and for prevention, it’s a good idea to lubricate the soles and spaces between your toes with a special cream or ointment with antifungal components. And if there are no such preparations, then at least wipe the indicated parts of the feet with a cotton swab dipped in cologne (vodka is possible) or 6% vinegar.
All bath accessories (slippers, foot towels, washcloths, mittens, etc.) should be placed in a separate bag after the bath and treated at home with washing powder or at least a solution of baking soda and laundry soap.
Remember, it is very easy to “pick up” a fungus, and many people fail to get rid of it, sometimes for several years!
Tips for those visiting the bathhouse for the first time:
• stay in the steam room for a short time and on lower shelves;
• listen to how you feel: if you feel pleasure while in the steam room, then everything is fine with you. At the first feeling of discomfort, unpleasant sensations in your
combat parts of the body should leave the steam room;
• in the cooling phase, under no circumstances allow hypothermia; at the first signs of hypothermia, especially in the legs, you need to take a warm foot bath or warm up in the steam room on the bottom shelf;
• follow the unshakable bath rule: the cold procedure should be short;
• it is recommended to finish bath procedures with a shower and foot bath, which leads to a reflex flow of blood to the skin, accompanied by a pleasant feeling of lightness;
• the duration of rest before leaving the bath is determined individually, but is at least half an hour. During this time, the body will rest, all systems and organs will begin to function normally. If you behave correctly in the bathhouse, you should feel fresh and invigorated. The appearance of a feeling of fatigue, headache, bad mood, pain in some organs and parts of the body indicates an incorrect regime of staying in the bathhouse, mainly in the steam room;
• and the last, in our opinion, the most important advice: you should not turn the bathhouse into a convenient place for taking various types of alcoholic drinks and eating foods that are difficult to digest. To replenish fluid loss during rest, you can drink various mineral waters, vegetable and other juices, preferably natural, without added sugar or other additives. It should be learned and taken for granted: alcoholic drinks are contraindicated during and after the bath procedure.
Alcohol can cause complications in the functioning of the heart and blood vessels, which already work at maximum load in the bathhouse. It is not uncommon to hear
teas, when after drinking alcohol, drinkers immediately fell on the spot, in the bathhouse, with a heart attack or stroke. After the bath, it is not even recommended to drink strong tea or coffee, which also put quite a strong load on the already quite loaded heart and blood vessels.
Immediately after a bath, you should not overload yourself with high-calorie foods and various delicacies. .
Updated: 2019-07-09 21:24:53
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How to harden yourself correctly - tips for hardening the body
Even those who have never been to a sauna or steam bath have seen in films how steamed steamers run out into the streets, jump into an ice hole or a snowdrift and begin splashing there with joyful screams. It looks beautiful, but only very strong, healthy and seasoned people can afford such entertainment. If you haven’t exercised before, it’s better to start with a simple wipe-down with a towel soaked in cold water. After 5-6 visits, you can take a lukewarm shower after the steam room, gradually lowering the water temperature. This must be repeated for another 4-5 visits. Once you can tolerate a cold shower, you can try dousing with a tipping bucket and repeat it a couple of times. And only 12-15 times you can dive into the pool. And you will be able to swim in an ice hole or snowdrifts only after a year and a half of regular hardening procedures.
Now about what is happening at this moment with the body. When steaming in a Finnish sauna, he tries with all his might to cool down, dilating blood vessels and capillaries and releasing sweat profusely. By the way, the body will not be able to do this effectively right away either. When you dry yourself with a cold towel or splash in the pool, the opposite reaction occurs: the blood vessels contract, blood begins to circulate much faster, the body understands that it needs to warm up quickly and does everything it can to do this.
If this is repeated constantly, then the regulatory mechanisms begin to work at full strength, the vessels become more elastic, respond more easily to temperature changes, immunity improves, and now weather conditions will no longer be such a big problem. You just need to repeat this regularly, for example, every week. Missing one visit by a third will destroy your achievements, two - by half, three or four - and you can start all over again. Therefore, if you want to achieve a real result, then you need to do this regularly, without forcing things and gradually increasing the temperature difference.
Precautions when hardening - hardening rules
But no matter how useful hardening is, it may not be suitable for everyone. Such a temperature difference is a real stress for the body and only a healthy person can expose themselves to it. If you have chronic diseases, especially the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, then you need to approach the procedure very carefully; it is best to consult with your doctor in advance and develop a plan. During periods of exacerbation of chronic and any other diseases, it is also better to do without such a load.
For everyone else, it will bring not only benefits to the body, but also a good mood for a long time. This can also become the best indicator of the correctness of hardening: if after the sauna you feel lightness, a surge of strength and emotional uplift, then everything is fine.
