Why do you soak your feet in summer?
Since ancient times, there have been "soaking feet in spring, rising sun taking off;" Soaking feet in summer can clear away heat and damp; Soak your feet in autumn, moisten your lungs and intestines; Soak your feet in winter, and your abdomen is warm and irritable. In summer, many people like to enjoy the cool and wear shoes barefoot, which makes it easier to make the cuticle of the heel and other parts that often contact with shoes longer and thicker, and the parts where the instep and toes rub against shoes are prone to symptoms such as redness, papules and blisters. In addition, the fat layer of the foot is thin, the heat preservation is poor, and it is farthest from the heart and the blood supply is poor, so the temperature of the sole skin is low and it is easy to catch cold. Once the foot catches cold, it can reflexively cause the capillary contraction of the upper respiratory tract mucosa, so that the resistance is obviously reduced, and the germs in the air will take advantage of it and cause many diseases such as colds. Especially when it rains, barefoot is more likely to catch cold, which will cause stomach pain and waist and leg pain. Soaking feet can improve local blood circulation, warm yang and warm the body, especially suitable for people with lower limb ischemia. Moreover, soaking feet can reduce the pressure on blood vessels in the head and relieve headaches. Soaking feet with hot water in summer also has a good effect of eliminating dampness.
First, how to soak your feet in summer
1, the temperature should not be too high
Too high water temperature is not only bad for patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, but also easy to destroy the sebum membrane on the surface of foot skin, making the stratum corneum dry and even chapped. The appropriate water temperature is 40℃~45℃. You can try it by hand first. For diabetics, to be on the safe side, you can measure it with a thermometer.
Soak your feet too long.
2. Don't take too long
It is best not to soak your feet for more than half an hour at a time, because soaking your feet will speed up the blood circulation and heart rate of the human body, and if it takes too long, it will increase the burden on your heart. It is not advisable to soak your feet for half an hour after a meal, otherwise it will affect digestion and absorption. It is recommended to soak feet after meals 1 hour.
3, scrub exfoliation
When the dead skin of the foot becomes soft after soaking, apply scrub with your fingers and massage in circles to enhance the peeling effect of the dead skin. If you want to scrub better without grinding the skin, you can usually wrap your feet with a hot towel first, and the dead skin will soften in about 5 minutes.
4. Herbs vary from person to person
Putting some Chinese herbal medicines according to your own characteristics can get twice the result with half the effort, but it is best to add them under the guidance of a doctor. People who are afraid of cold and easily get cold hands and feet can soak their feet with Jiang Shui, take about15g of ginger and boil it to cool down. Cinnamon soaking feet can relieve edema caused by nephropathy. Middle-aged and elderly people with poor knee joints are advised to hot compress their knees while soaking their feet, which can dispel wind and cold and relieve rheumatic bone pain.
Second, the taboo of soaking feet in summer
1, the foot soaking time should not be too long, and 15-30 minutes is appropriate. When soaking feet, blood will flow to the lower limbs, and the brain is prone to insufficient blood supply. Patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and the elderly should temporarily stop soaking their feet and have a rest if they feel chest tightness and dizziness. Diabetic patients have poor peripheral sensory ability, so their families should try the water temperature first to prevent burns.
2, it is not appropriate to soak your feet within half an hour after a meal, which will affect the blood supply to the stomach. In the long run, it will make people malnourished. . After eating, most of the blood in the body flows to the digestive tract. If you soak your feet with hot water immediately after eating, the blood that should flow to the digestive system will flow to the lower limbs instead, which will affect digestion and absorption for a long time and lead to nutritional deficiency. Therefore, it is best to soak your feet for half an hour after meals.
3, Chinese medicine foot bath is best to use a wooden basin. The chemical composition in metal pots such as copper pots is unstable, and it is easy to react with tannic acid in traditional Chinese medicine to generate harmful substances such as iron tannic acid, which greatly reduces the curative effect of drugs.
Children should not soak their feet with overheated water for a long time. Because the arch of the foot began to form in childhood, we should pay attention to protection from an early age. If you often wash your feet with hot water, the ligaments on the soles of your feet will become slack, which is not conducive to the formation and maintenance of the arch, and it is easy to form flat feet.
5, women do not use Chinese medicine to soak their feet during menstruation. The problem of women's menstrual period is more complicated. If you can't find the reason, soaking your feet with traditional Chinese medicine can not only relieve it, but also aggravate the symptoms such as dysmenorrhea. Therefore, if women want to treat menstrual health problems such as dysmenorrhea by soaking their feet with traditional Chinese medicine, it is best to consult a doctor and prescribe medicine according to their own situation.