LifeSurance.info – The benefits of soaking your feet in ice water are not only refreshing your feet and body. This activity can be beneficial for people who experience certain complaints, such as swollen and painful feet. Even so, you still need to know a few things before soaking your feet in ice water, okay?
During hot weather, one of the things that is often sought is coolness. For this reason, many people cool themselves in various ways, one of which is by soaking.
Not only by taking a bath, soaking your feet in cold water or ice water can also give a fresh sensation and make your body no longer hot. Let’s see what are the benefits of soaking your feet in ice water.
Various Benefits of Soaking Feet in Ice Water
Soaking feet in ice water can provide many benefits for the body. In addition to providing a cool and fresh sensation to the feet, here are some interesting benefits of soaking feet in ice water:
1. Cleaning your feet
You can clean your feet using warm, regular, or cold water. However, cleaning your feet with cold water can certainly provide a fresh sensation.
To clean your feet, rinse them with cold water, and then rub them with soap. After the remaining soap is rinsed off, soak your feet in cold water, then dry your feet thoroughly.
2. Supports injury recovery
Soaking your feet in ice water can speed up injury recovery. You can take advantage of this by soaking the injured part of your foot in warm water and ice water alternately.
Soaking your feet in warm water serves to increase blood flow so that the injured part of the body can recover faster. Meanwhile, ice water can relieve swelling and pain caused by injury. Therefore, this combination of hot and cold temperatures is suitable for recovering from injuries.
3. Relieves symptoms of sprains
Sprains can cause pain and swelling. This is because the sprained area can become inflamed. Well, you can relieve the symptoms of this condition by soaking your feet in ice water. The cold temperature of the ice water can relieve inflammation in the sprained foot. That way, the pain and swelling due to sprains will subside.
4. Restore focus
Soaking your feet in warm water can make your body more relaxed so that you can sleep better afterward. Well, what about warm water? The effects felt can be the opposite, you know.
Soaking your feet in ice water can help fight drowsiness. So, this can be an effective way to overcome drowsiness that attacks while doing activities. The bonus is, that stress can also be reduced.
5. Improve your mood
Not only does it make you feel fresh again, soaking your feet in ice water can also improve your mood. Several studies have shown that exposure to cold temperatures can increase dopamine levels. This is the “happy hormone” whose presence can make you feel happy.
6. Relieve symptoms of gout
One of the benefits of soaking your feet in ice water can be felt by gout sufferers. When it relapses, gout will often make your feet and toes feel sore, swollen, and red.
Well, one of the benefits of soaking your feet in ice water is that it relieves the symptoms of gout. As mentioned earlier, ice water can reduce inflammation that causes pain in the feet of sufferers of this condition. In addition, when gout recurs, it is best to avoid foods high in purines, yes.
7. Can be a series of foot spa treatments
You can do a foot spa or foot spa yourself at home as long as you apply the steps and use the right ingredients. Well, one of the stages of preparing for a foot spa is soaking your feet. You can use ice water as a foot soak. After that, you can also clean your feet with salt water.
The benefits of soaking your feet in ice water are indeed quite numerous. However, that doesn’t mean you should always use ice. The thing is, everyone’s tolerance to cold temperatures can be different.
Therefore, limit the time you soak your feet in cold water according to your comfort. It’s best not to do more than 15 minutes. If you soak your feet in cold water for too long, your feet can be at risk of cramping.
Instead, you can use plain cold water or even normal-temperature water. You can still get the benefits of soaking your feet in ice water even if you don’t always use very cold water.
In addition, it is important to remember that Indonesia is a country with humid air and climate. Therefore, you are not advised to soak your feet too often because this can risk making your feet more susceptible to fungus. Moreover, if your feet are not dried thoroughly after soaking.
