The Turkish bath, also known as a hamam, is the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath. During the Ottoman Empire, Turkish baths served as places of social gathering and ritual bathing. Today people use the hamam as a pampering form of cleansing and relaxation.
How the hamam works
The Turkish bath is modeled on the Roman system of bathing with a warm room, hot room and cool room. The bather enters the warm room where their body warms up, then enters the hot room, or steam room, which has water basins along the walls and a large heated stone platform in the center. The bather can rest on the stone to increase body temperature and promote sweating, then rinse off at the water basins. One of the main specialties of the Turkish bath is the foam and scrub massage where a masseuse or masseur lathers up the bather with a special cloth sack full of foam and scrubs off dirt and dead skin with a loofah. The bather can then continue to relax in the hot room and enjoy the therapeutic benefits of the steam and heat.
Support detox
A hamam helps us detox a couple of ways. The heat in the hot room increases circulation which speeds up our body’s cleansing processes. In addition, the steam opens pores and induces sweating which releases toxins. The loofah scrubbing improves lymphatic circulation which removes toxins from our body. These processes help release the workload on our kidneys and liver.
Improve immunity
When we have a fever, our body’s immune response is triggered. Illness-fighting immune cells are produced and released into the bloodstream where they can fight bacteria and viruses that have been weakened by the increased temperature. Regularly raising our temperature in a hamam sets off our immune response so we can better fight off illness-causing organisms in our body.
Refresh your complexion
The heat, steam and sweating in a Turkish bath increases circulation throughout the body, including to our skin. The increased blood flow carries oxygen and nutrients to our skin while helping to remove wastes. Scrubbing with a skin brush or loofah removes dead skin cells that can dull our complexion, while washing away the toxin-carrying sweat prevents blemishes, leaving us with fresh, glowing skin.
Take some time out to pamper yourself with this age-old therapy. You’ll not only be improving your well being and health by helping your body detox, fight off illness and rejuvenate, you’ll also end up feeling exceptionally clean and relaxed.
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