The Healing Ritual of Bathing

At the start of each year I choose a "word of the year" to base my intentions and goals around. This year I've chosen "healer" as my WOTY. I've been enchanted with all things related to self-care and natural healing for the majority of my life. My collection of unread alternative health books has grown so high that I would be nuts to ignore this calling to my soul any longer. So I started this month with an indulgent deep dive into my favorite method of self-care, hydrotherapy.

The Greek philosopher, Socrates, famously declared, "the way to health is to have an aromatic bath and scented massage every day." Now I probably know what you're thinking, "but it's not realistic to splurge on a massage every day!" And I'm here to tell you that bathing is the answer. This overlooked form of self-care can lower stress, improve the quality of sleep, decrease muscular and joint pain, improve breathing, circulation and heart health, elevate mood, burn calories, lower blood sugar and boost immune function.

If that's not enough reasons to send you jumping straight into your tub, you can supercharge it even more by adding handmade herbal infusions to your water for skin beautification/purification/re-texturization/hydration or whatever type of "ation" you need.

A perfect example of that is the Queen of Egypt herself, Cleopatra. She ritualistically bathed in goat's milk and honey for the natural smoothing and softening properties they delivered.  The legend of her beautiful skin has passed on from generation to generation, timelessly spanning from ancient Egypt to today. THAT is the power of bathing. That is Queen energy. That is self-care. That is attainable. So go ahead and treat yourself like royalty with a healing bath. I'll get you started with an easy Matcha Lavender recipe:

Supplies

• Lavender petals or powder
  
• Magnesium chloride flakes
  
• Himalayan salt
• Matcha powder
  
• Sea salt
  
• Mason jar
  

Leave some room at the top of the jar so that once all the ingredients are added, you can mix them together by shaking the jar vigorously.

Add a cup of your herbal salts to the water, grab your favorite beverage to sip on, throw on some inspirational tunes and enjoy your healing bath.

This is just a tip of the iceberg. There are so many powders, salts, milks, florals, clays, oils, etc you can blend to create just the perfect infusion. Let your imagination run wild with the possibilities.