Foot Baths, Chinese Medicine-Style
Below, you’ll find an excerpt for a medicinal foot bath, one of many Chinese medicine remedies from the Insomnia chapter of our book, Chinese Medicine for the Mind.
All that is required is hot water and a basin or tub. For more potent effects, you can use an herbal foot soak--our herbal foot soak contains 24 whole herbs with anti-inflammatory, cold-dispelling, and circulation-promoting benefits. These Chinese medicine herbs include mugwort, Sichuan lovage root, Codonopsis, Chen Pi (aged tangerine peel), and more.
“To get the best benefits from your foot soak, follow these instructions:
-
Shortly before bedtime, fill a basin with hot (104°F to 110°F, or 40°C to 43°C) water to completely cover your ankles. The temperature should be hot but not scalding. Use a thermometer if you have difficulty gauging temperature. Add an herbal sachet to the bath, if you like. Have a towel nearby.
-
Submerge your feet in the water and soak for 15 to 30 minutes. One thermoregulatory analysis found that the optimal duration of a footbath at 107.6°F, or 42°C, was 24 minutes, when sweating just occurs.
-
If the water turns cold, boil some water in a kettle and slowly add it to your footbath until it becomes hot again.
-
With a towel, dry your feet immediately at the end of your footbath. (Cover feet with warm socks after as well!)
-
Hydrate afterward by drinking some warm or room-temperature water.”