Donne un coup de pied à toi et à l'eau ! Après tout, l'application aquatique la plus célèbre de Sebastian Kneipp est très facile à mettre en œuvre soi-même. On trouve souvent des bassins de pédalage dans les piscines ou les oasis de bien-être. Certains parcs en possèdent également un. Si tu n'as pas de bassin à proximité immédiate, la baignoire à la maison ou le ruisseau du coin constituent une bonne alternative pour la marche aquatique. L'essentiel est que la température de l'eau soit inférieure à 18 degrés Celsius et qu'elle ne dépasse pas le niveau des genoux.
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For healthy people, they [cold foot baths] are intended to refresh and invigorate (...). They draw out tiredness, bring rest and good sleep. ”
If your feet are already tingling, you may be thinking of classic Kneipp water treading pools in wellness oases, spas, swimming pools or modern parks. And of course you're absolutely right! But there are many more ways to indulge in this fine little health ritual: As long as the water is cold enough (i.e. a temperature below 18 degrees) and doesn't reach higher than your knee, the stream around the corner or the shallow shore of the nearest lake will do just as well. And then there's your own four walls. If you have a bathtub in your bathroom, you can use it as a great alternative to the pedal pool and the like to easily implement the popular Kneipp water treatment in private.
When it comes to water treatments, the term "hardening" is often used - which ultimately means strengthening the body's own defenses. But can this also be scientifically proven? A research team from the Clinic for Orthopaedics and Physical Medicine at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg got to the bottom of this question in a study¹ in which the specific effects of Kneipp water treading on the immune system were investigated. Blood samples were taken from test subjects between the ages of 18 and 30 before they completed a four-week series of water treading. This was followed by further blood tests after 1, 3, 6 and 12 months, accompanied by an "infection diary".
The results were surprisingly clear: Compared to the control group, whose members had not carried out the Kneipp treatment, the concentration of T lymphocytes, which are important for immune defense, was significantly higher in the test subjects in the first group. At the same time, there were hardly any infections in the first four weeks; during the following months, infections were also shorter and milder than in the control group. The scientists were thus able to provide "watertight" evidence both in terms of laboratory chemistry and clinically:
