Springtime at one of my favorite hot springs.
As I write you, rain is lavishing on my town, flooding cracked, dry earth. We are in the midst of a frightening drought. Our rainy autumn and winter weather has largely disappeared for years. Fat, rolling clouds of moisture and slate-colored days were erased by dazzling, endless months of naked, burning sunlight. While we Californians were the envy of our compatriots, as we sunbathed in January instead of chipping ice off of our porches or even needing to grab an umbrella, we could not savor the bittersweet gift of infinite picnic weather for dozens of months. After a while, it started to feel weird, completely not right.
Now, as we receive this gift of precious water, I notice the dimensions of enjoyment in a winter rain. The sloshing cut of a car through a street puddle is musical to me. The sound of rain on the roof elevates a bedtime cuddle to decadence. My garden’s colors popped with life as the sheets of rain came and came. I noticed how plants are differently happy when they get rain from the sky, as opposed to getting the good stuff from an irrigation hose.
We are so thankful for water today—it’s security, it’s flow, it’s a reminder that life isn’t just a drive to make, spend, make. Life is also about shelter, about huddling together, sometimes life is even about doing less. California’s drought inspired a state-wide mania, if you ask me. When it never rains, an everyday parade seems apropos. But I think many of us Calfornians can testify at this point of drought—that’s completely exhausting. Rain and inclement weather are excuses to not be fabulous, to not be busy, and to feel the meditative, quieting side of life’s flow.
I think about water a lot, and not just because I live in this place that has serious water issues. I also think about water because it is a foundation of my well-being and an essential part of my health practice.
Being conservative about water has not been easy for me in the drought. I am happy to flush the toilet sparingly, I am happy to be nit-picky about washing dishes, but giving up my daily hot baths has been really hard.
Hot water is a foundational medicine for me, and perhaps my first medicine. I was thinking this morning of my first express kettle, the little electric hot water pot that I installed in my room when I was a junior in college in East Lansing, Michigan. My first hot water kettle was crappy and plastic but it was a revelation to me: Hot water made me feel so much better.
I once read an interview with an Ayurvedic doctor, early in my interest of this medicine. It was a long time ago so I can’t find the article, but I remember the doctor’s answer to this question: “If you could give the American people any medicine, what would it be?”
The doctor said, “Hot water.”
That hits home.
Hot water is simple, available, versatile, and cheap. How you use the hot water is up to your situation and your body. Just start thinking of this medicine in these terms: Cold water is not the best way to take your water; iced water is downright terrible for you.
Even in the most wretched summer heat, cold water is not the best choice—iced water is difficult for your body to assimilate, and rather than being cooling, the body has to work to warm the water and regulate your body temperature. It’s even worse in the winter: Taking in cold things, including ice cream, anything frozen, ice cubes, even excessive raw food, can be the choice that turns that little inkling of a cold or virus into a full-blown issue.
ON AGNI
We speak of “agni” frequently in Ayurveda; agni is the Sanskrit word for fire. For most Ayurvedic counseling purposes, we think of agni as the “digestive fire.” Agni turns food into energy, agni keeps pathogens and parasites in check with its forbidding intensity, agni keeps the body warm to the core. When agni, pronounced “ug-knee,” is correct and burning efficiently, digestion is optimal, appetite is good, circulation is flowing, energy is appropriate, the body feels and smells good, and immunity is strong.
As you may know, the digestive system is at the root of everything in Ayurveda, both positive and negative. So as you can imagine, healthy agni is beyond essential; it is the very definition of vitality and stability.
We sabotage our agni all the time, and unknowingly. For instance, skipping meals robs the agni of consistency—think of it like a campfire, if you don’t eat all day, and then eat a big meal at the very end of the day, it’s like throwing a huge load on a smoldering, struggling fire that has been aching for steady kindling since breakfast.
Agni can be too high—think diarrhea and malabsorption, or too low—think nausea and digestive mucous, or variable—think gas and constipation.
There’s an art to agni, and no surprise, it’s the tightrope walk of life. Being warm but not burned. Being determined but not pushy. Being hungry but not hangry. That tightrope walk is the path of self-knowing; if you don’t know yourself, or ask yourself questions about yourself, you are in the dark. How to even know if you are too hot, or too cold, or anything about your physical function, unless you ask, and pursue knowledge. This is a lifelong path.
We can start here: Agni loves warm water. Agni hates iced water.
But in America, we drink a lot of iced water. When we order a beverage in a restaurant, it often comes with ice. Ice is a funny luxury, I suppose it represents a triumph over nature: We will have artificially iced beverages even if we are in a highly heated environment, sheltered from the snow storm outside! But ice is the enemy of agni, even for someone who has very high agni. It is better to cool a high agni with better food choices and herbs and spices than to count on iced water to douse a diarrhea-prone gut. Drinking iced water snuffs out the precious digestive fire completely. Some feel the effects more than others. Ever eaten a bunch of ice cream, even on a pretty hot day, and become constipated the next day? Like, frozen solid, no chance of movement? Ice cream is the likely culprit. It smothered your agni, it froze the fire.
HEALING WATERS
Like most of us, I had no idea whatsoever of the energy of my life imbalances when I was a 20-year-old college student. I was chilled to the bone, I became completely depressed during winter, but I figured, that was normal. Right?! I wouldn’t have known where to start with exploring the idea that maybe being shiveringly cold all of the time was maybe not normal. But amazingly, my body craved warm beverages, and that’s elemental medicine right there: Cold? Apply hot.
Around this time I started drinking herbal tea for the first time. The discovery was profound. For those who grew up with herbalism or even the faintest hippie-ism in their households, that might seem crazy, but for me, these hot herbal beverages were big news. Chamomile was completely exotic and I couldn’t get enough.
I was overweight and sluggish, often bogged down by my desire to change my life and my body, but I was also shattered and unsure of where to look, where to start. I look back with pride for my young instincts; hot water was a great place to start. An easy, foundational place to start.
In retrospect, I know that I was weighted down by ama, which is the byproduct of incomplete digestion. Ama could be called “toxins” but I find that is a divisive word; instead let’s see ama as the lingering matter that clings to our bodies when the digestive system doesn’t have the proper heat or moisture to fully conduct its business.
Think of a casserole pan, caked with leftovers. How are you ever going to get that crap loosened in order to have a clean pan? Hot water. It’s the same principle with the body. Hot water helps loosen unwanted plaque and flush it out. Hot or warm water help to arrest the development of ama before it forms.
Hot tea was my gateway. Steaming mugs helped me with tummy aches, sleeplessness, gripping chills, and period pains. I started slowly, very slowly, adopting better habits and even losing weight. Craving tea got me interested in herbs and my fascination with plant medicine sprouted.
But it didn’t stop there. It took about 10 years of party-woman lifestyling to move beyond hot tea into other realms of hydrotherapy, like the ceremony of a hot bath. When I started my “bathing-as-church” phase, it was time to shed the brittle, tumultuous party life. Hot baths soothed the transition.
I lived in a lot of cruddy punk houses over the years and eschewed daily bathing for a long time, to be honest. Bathrooms were often shared with too many people and privacy was nonexistent; long bathing sessions were out of the question. I also had a poverty-consciousness kind of outlook on self-care—why bother with wasting water? But when my husband and I got married and moved into a studio of our own, with a clawfoot tub and plentiful hot water, I started feeling more drawn to bathing with more regularity.
Epsom salts, candles, incense, good music—over the years my bathing rituals became more adorned with my special touches. A crystal on the rim of the tub. A diaphoretic tea to get sweat going if I felt a cold coming on. Eventually, I migrated toward Ayurveda in part because of rituals like abhyanga, which is the warm oil massage before the bath. I figure I was able to let go of drinking as a nightly activity because of bathing. Drinking wasn’t serving me, it was hurting my body, but I couldn’t have let it go without that nightly bath that still felt like a special communion with myself, an intoxication but in a different and healthy way.
I used the money I saved from not drinking and spent it at hot springs, like Wilbur Hot Springs here in Northern California and Breitenbush in Oregon. I spent hours and days in the hot sulfur waters, over and over, melting away the stuck stuff. The emotions, the past, the fears, the ama. Hours and hours in the aromatic waters, facing myself, being naked, being in the presence of other people using the waters as sacred mirrors. I cried into my elbows, I laughed and looked at the stars. I felt hopeful, and I noticed that hopefulness was not solely a mental outlook, but a feeling of being truly free of the limiting crap. I could feel the limiting crap flow out my pores, dislodge itself from my person, floating away in the flumes.
I can’t always afford or find the time to get away to hot springs. But hot water therapies are always a part of my life. Often, I improvise. I will take baths at home, I will seek out steam rooms in gyms, I will even prepare a steam inhalation if I can feel lung funkiness coming on.
A steam inhalation is easy and great for clearing the sinuses and lungs, promoting deeper breathing, and some say will help ease the pain of TMJ. It’s easy: Fill a deep pot or large bowl with near-boiling water. Add herbs—mullein is great for the lungs and TMJ, chamomile works nicely for colds, there are many options. Then, when the steam of the boiling water feels cool enough, position the face over the steam, cover the head with a towel to make a tent, and breathe in the vapors. Stick it out under the towel for as long as you can.
Wow, there so many ways to turn hot water into medicine! Like, soaking tired feet in warm water and Epsom salts, or soaking feet ravaged by athlete’s foot in the Indian sulfuric salt kala namak. Or soaking a washcloth in hot water and using it as a compress for an area of lymph stagnation. Or using a hot water bottle to warm the belly in cases of constipation or menstrual cramps. And, um, try Googling “yoni steam” and get down with that amazing concept! Women swear by it for a variety of reproductive disturbances.
If that’s all too adventurous for you, bring it all back to the cup of warm, steaming water. Add lemon juice and stimulate the gall bladder and liver first thing in the morning, aiding in elimination and hangovers. Or add a few pinches of high-quality salt like Celtic sea salt to your hot water and get a dose of electrolytes, which aid cell function and hydration.
Have you ever had a big old meal, a bunch of wine, and then a honking piece of birthday cake, followed by a big, foreboding sneeze, spraying frosting everywhere? I’d say that’s a good time to have a nice cup of hot water, maybe toss in some powdered digestive spices like cardamom, cumin, fennel, or ginger. That mucousy sneeze is letting you know that digestion is looking compromised, please help! Keeping fresh, powdered digestive herbs around, like the aromatic seeds of cumin, coriander, and fennel, are amazing aids for eaters and so easy to pop into a cup of hot water. No steeping, cooking, or decocting required.
These days of rain seem to be saying, hey, Californians, looks like we might have some kind of winter after all. And as long as I can have my baths, teas, and hot water bottle, I’m game.
The absence of wetness made my heart grow so fond, evaporating my disdain for rainy days. Water is solace and a great relief. Each time I lower myself into hot water, spontaneous gratitude flows forward, and a comforting notion of It's all okay comes over me. Water is the most essential medicine. Hot water is elevated medicine, gently encouraging the warmth within, amplifying the potency of herbs, making a tub a sanctuary.
The Ayurvedic doctor who recommended hot water as medicine reminds us that our culture is misguided in many customs around food and drink. Additionally, our standard medical system has little to no guidelines for prevention, thus the pathways of disease are not recognized, self-knowing is under-emphasized. Disease is made overcomplicated and hard to understand. Hot water is simple, but so are many imbalances at the core, especially when approaching imbalance before it blossoms into disease.
Hydration and healthy warmth—we all need some, especially in winter. Luxuriate in simple medicine. It prevents disease from becoming you.
Eva Saelens is a professional member of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, with over 1500 hours of training in Ayurveda, massage therapy, and Ayurvedic treatments. She graduated from the California College of Ayurveda in 2013. Subsequently, Eva spent a year interning and studying Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine, whole foods nutrition, aromatherapy, and pancha karma at the dhyana Center in Sebastopol, Calif., and in India.