Timeless Water Therapy

The medicinal and therapeutic benefits of using water to heal dates back to 2000 B.C., where the Ancient Egyptians practiced bathing rituals in hopes of curing ailments. With Hippocrates and the holistic thinking of the Greek Medicine tradition, the idea of the‘Water Cure’ treatment has become a universal way for people to heal and restore through rituals that are still in use in most modern spa resorts to this day.

The Ancient Thermal Baths at Aire Copenhagen. Inspired by the tradition of baths from ancient Roman, Greek and Ottoman civilizations.

Water as Medicine

Hippocrates, also known as ‘the Father of Medicine’, was the first to document the ‘Water Cure’ as as healing tradition in Greek Medicine, when he prescribed the use of water for the treatment of illnesses. He was the first to theorize the therapeutic properties of various waters, either rain fed or coming bubbling out of the rocks from mineral springs, and the differing curative properties that came from their contents of various minerals, like iron, copper, silver, gold or sulfur.

By the early 1800's, the use of water in therapy to treat illness and disease progressed to thalassotherapy. Thalassotherapy comes from the Greek word for ‘sea’, and refers to a variety of treatments that use seawater and seaweed, each designed to tone, moisturise and revitalise the body and skin, and in many cases to improve circulation.

Thalassotherapy comes in a bewildering array of packages: mud baths, underwater showers, hydro-massage, aromatherapy, and seaweed, mud and algae wraps- all designed to help restore the body to a state of serenity.

‘Flotarium’ Sea Salt Expereince at Aire Ancient Baths. A Water Experience that takes you on a timeless journey of serenity, healing and magic in restored historical buildings in cities such as Copenhagen, Sevilla, New York and Chicago.

Water AS therapy

Most modern applications of Water Therapy are based on the Hydrotherapy practice, which originated in 19th century Europe. Today hydrotherapy is commonly used as a compliment to traditional hands-on physical therapy through techniques and tools that include underwater massage, water jets, mineral baths, cold plunge, and hot tubs.

Different forms of hydrotherapy have different effects, helping the body to relax, tone muscles, cleanse skin, reducing the appearance of cellulite, boosting your immune system or improve sleep quality. And different temperatures impacts the body functions in different ways: Hot water relaxes the muscles and joint tension while cold water reactivates blood circulation, tones the skin, and has a reinvigorating effect.

Water helps the body feel weightless and buoyant while providing a natural resistance to movement, which also makes it a perfect medium for rehabilitation and fitness training. Water exercises can help to tone muscles, increase range of motion, ease pain, improve joint flexibility, relieve muscle spasms, decrease inflammation, facilitate low-impact aerobic exercise to support weight loss, and speed recovery from injuries allowing exercise to begin sooner than on land.

SEMINE was invited to try the high hydration ‘Holistic Ritual’ at Aire Ancient Baths in Copenhagen. An experience designed to holistically pamper and hydrate the skin that includes a full-body exfoliation and a delicate massage while your hair is nourished by a honey hydrating mask that leaves you in a state of pure bliss! Book your own healing experience here. — SEMINE was invited to try the high hydration ‘Holistic Ritual’ at Aire Ancient Baths in Copenhagen. An experience designed to holistically pamper and hydrate the skin that includes a full-body exfoliation and a delicate massage while your hair is nourished by a honey hydrating mask that leaves you in a state of pure bliss! You can book your own healing experience here.

“Keep moving in the Stream of Life. Shed your past like a tear drop. Wash your heart 7 times and let its River flow.
”

— WATER

Water AS Change

The idea of water being linked to the flow of life is linked to many cultural and spiritual traditions. In the Old Testament people soaked in mineral waters for physical healing. The Ancient Greeks used water as a healing agent and Native Americans went to ‘Big Medicine’ mineral springs and sat in sweat lodges as a way of purifying the body and mind. In Sanskrit “Narayan” is the name of God in his infinite all-pervading form and translated as “the one who moves in the infinite waters and is also the water itself.” The Greek philosopher Heraclitus also talked about Water as Change, when he said, you cannot enter the same river twice as an analogy for his belief that everything is constantly changing.

Water is a metaphor of the ebb and flow of our own lives and a powerful ally, when it comes to cleansing and restoration. We can all relate to the daily-life shower as a was to ‘restart’ of ‘wash off’ old stories from the day and give ourselves a new start. Just like the water in a river, our lives are always changing. Even if the water - or our life - looks the same, it is always different. Not only as a medium, but also as a metaphor, Water is our healing element in life rituals of cleansing our body, mind and soul from the the past and stepping into a new and refreshed version of ourselves.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

— Heraclitus

WATER AS CARRIER

When we look at the physics of Water, it also an element of constant change; when cold, it crystalizes and freezes, when hot, it steams, when touched, it ripples. Water makes up between 65% and 78% of the human body (depending on age), comprising over 70% of our brain, heart, skin, muscles, kidneys, lungs, and liver. Even 31% of our dry bones are water. The more water we lose, the more we deteriorate and when we are only 50% water, we die. We are water in human form.

Water’s structure reacts to any irritation. Its molecules are organized in clusters that work as “memory cells,” so to speak. Within each memory cell there are 440,000 information panels that are responsible for the interaction with its environment, making it nature’s single most malleable computer, according to Rustom Roy, a renowned materials scientist and professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University. Whatever water hears, sees, and feels becomes a catalyst for its change as it copies, memorizes, and transports. Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto demonstrated this in his New York Times bestselling book The Hidden Messages in Water. where demonstrates how water exposed to loving, benevolent, and compassionate human intention results in aesthetically pleasing physical molecular formations in the water while water exposed to fearful and discordant human intentions results in disconnected, disfigured, and “unpleasant” physical molecular formations.

Be Water

The beauty of Water Therapy is endless, and maybe the most significant one is its rippling healing effect. When we open up to the therapeutic effects of Water as healing aid and technology, we can harness the power of one of nature’s strongest elements as catalyst for both physical and emotional change and healing. We send the message to our body that we respect it, listen to it and treat it as a piece of sacred nature as well, a vessel that we honour as we treat it with love and respect.

When we understand the sacredness of our bodies and really begin to treat it like a temple, we also expect others and the world to do the same. This is the true power of a ritual. The body remembers the imprints we plant, and when we charge ourselves with love, reverence and the healing touch from the hand of another human being, we send a powerful message to our nervous system of what we should expose ourselves in life: Care, Respect, Bliss and Love.