No matter what learned minds say, man was, is and, most likely, will be a social being. Rare recluses are perceived by society as something special, out of the ordinary. In our province they say about such people: “Either a saint or a madman.” The most typical example is a bathhouse. Well, what kind of sensible Russian person would take the coveted procedures separately and in solitude. No. We need a solid society and cheerful company. And even if you don’t have a personal bathhouse and don’t have a bathhouse company that has been established for years, don’t despair. A shared sauna guarantees you both, and in abundance.
How it all began
No matter what some, especially patriotically minded citizens, say, Rome really gave a lot to human civilization, and a considerable part of it was really good and useful. The most typical and striking example is public baths.
Pride of the Empire
Heirs to the baths of ancient Greece, Roman baths became the center of social life of the then empire. Agrippa built the first baths and, either out of the kindness of his heart, or, on the contrary, out of exorbitant ambition, bequeathed them for free use to Roman citizens. Roman public baths of that time are a whole complex of engineering and technical structures, which even in today’s technologically advanced times evoke admiration, and, to be modest, considerable respect for Roman technical thought. Let us provide a short list of functional areas of the classical Roman baths:
- Apodyteria is a place for undressing and storing clothes while a citizen takes bath procedures;
- The palaestra is a kind of fitness area, a room for physical exercise, and in some cases for oil therapy sessions. In other cases, if the terma was central and not peripheral, a dedicated separate zone was allocated for such procedures - ailepteria;
- Tepidarium - a moderately warm room;
- Hypocaust is the internal zone of the thermal bath where the body was heated with dry warm air. A mandatory attribute of a hypocaust is a vast but shallow pool;
- The heart of the bath is the caldarium. The hottest room of the Roman baths. It is here that the hot air circulation system was designed and constructed in such a way as to ensure the most active heat exchange;
- Nearby, there is a room with a simple name that caresses the Russian ear - propnigy. Nothing reprehensible, just a steam room;
- Frigidarium - a room with a cool temperature pool.
After reading this section, we can understand two important things. The first thing is that we have greatly improved our level of proficiency in the Latin language, which can be safely reflected in various types of questionnaires. And secondly, the Romans were well aware of the importance of the body’s gradual entry into and exit from the zone of maximum temperatures. Yes, Ancient Rome was great, despite its antiquity, but what about us?
Wooden baths of Rus'
Although public baths in Rus' do not have such engineering sophistication, they can nevertheless boast of long-standing and, most importantly, very strong traditions. We responded to Roman marble, sculptures and mosaics with wood, strong, steamy steam and a waiting room that was cozy, sometimes to the very depths of the soul. The comfort, sterility and general atmosphere of the Russian bathhouse were so impressive that not only were purely hygienic procedures carried out there, they also delivered babies, nursed newborns and the sick, crushed flax, dried linen and sent on their last journey those who had left this mortal world forever.
Russian baths of that time were, first of all, family baths. Arranging a family trip to the bathhouse on a traditional bathing day was considered quite in the order of things. Sharing a bath with children was not considered shameful and was not condemned by the canonical church. At least, neither informational nor practical persecution on the part of the churchmen was undertaken against such a practice, at least at the level of official positions.
Important! At the same time, in Europe, in particular on the British Isles in the Middle Ages, the opposite practice existed: “Britain is an island in the ocean, formerly called Albion. There are salty springs in this land, and there are also hot ones, the water of which is used in hot baths, where people wash separately, according to gender and age.”
Historical practice shows that the laws of that time directly prohibited the joint washing of men and women, and the premises of public baths were strictly divided into men's and women's, or special men's or women's days were introduced. Here is the quote: “Let men go to the bathhouse together on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; women go on Monday and Wednesday. If a man enters the bathhouse or one of the premises of the bathhouse on Women’s Day, then let him pay a fine.”
In the late Middle Ages, the “Rules of the Stoglavy Council” were adopted, which directly prohibited the joint adoption of bathing procedures by men and women, which, also within Rus', were universally ignored by the common people without any special legal or other consequences.
It is important to monitor your health
No less important is the influence of extreme bath conditions on a growing organism. Pediatricians have different views on what age it is acceptable to take babies to the bathhouse. Some believe that it is better to postpone trips with the whole family to the steam room until the child is three years old, while others are sure that there is no need for a child to be in the steam room before the age of seven.
Pediatricians make an exception if the mother regularly visited the steam room while carrying the baby and, in general, she is an experienced bath attendant. Then the baby can be brought to the steam room at the age of three months. Before this period, it is better to refrain from such rest, since during the first 6 weeks newborns adapt to the new conditions of their life. But no matter what age you decide to take your child to a family bathhouse, visit your pediatrician in advance to get advice on this issue.
It is important to take into account the health status of the baby before subjecting his body to high temperature tests.
The nuances of relaxing in a steam room with kids
The main advice when visiting a bathhouse with a family with a baby concerns the emotional state of the mother. Babies are very connected to their mother. Therefore, if you go to the steam room in a cheerful state of mind, then it will be passed on to the baby. In the bathhouse, you should vigilantly monitor the appearance of the fontanelle - the soft, non-ossified part of the infants' skull. If it suddenly starts to swell, immediately take the child out of the steam room!
Positive signs that the baby is comfortable in the steam room are the following:
- rapid sweat release;
- smooth breathing without wheezing;
- calm mood;
- pinkish skin.
Please note that the skin on the entire body should be uniformly pink, and not bluish, pale or purple. Be sure to keep an eye on this indicator in the bathhouse. For tiny children, it is not recommended to stay in the steam room for more than one minute, so parents will also have to limit themselves to this rest time.
During the first few visits to the bathhouse as a family, 2-3 visits with the baby to the steam room will be enough. If you want to rest longer, then the spouses in the family must agree among themselves that someone will stay with the child in the dressing room while the other takes a steam bath. Never leave your baby unattended, even for a couple of minutes.
After each entry into the steam room with your child, you need to pour water over his body. You should not wash it in an ice-cold shower, as young children have not yet developed a strong body heat regulation system. Even warm water will still be colder than the atmosphere in the steam room, so the cooling effect will be achieved in any case.
In general, many pediatricians agree with the statement that bath procedures, to which families introduce children from an early age, have a beneficial effect on their health. Children develop resistance to colds and strengthen their nervous system. With the help of a bath in childhood, you can lay a strong foundation for good health for life. But even for such a lofty goal, you shouldn’t force a child to go to the steam room with his family if he doesn’t like it there. Preschool children and elementary school students can stay in the steam room for no longer than 3 minutes at a time. And during the entire time they are relaxing in the bathhouse with their family, they are recommended to visit the steam room no more than twice.
It is necessary to soar a child with extreme caution.
Forget about the vigorous lashings of the sides and back that adults love to tease themselves with. Children in the bathhouse need to be lightly massaged with a broom, since their skin is much softer and more sensitive than that of their parents. To steam children, it is recommended to use a birch broom, which has a more delicate structure. Before use, it must be thoroughly steamed with boiling water. But an oak broom is not suitable for use on children's skin.
Precautions and contraindications
If your baby cannot boast of good health, then first harden him in the home bath. Bathe it in warm water and rinse it with cooler water. After a few weeks of this home hardening, you can take him and the whole family to the bathhouse.
There are a number of cases in which going to the steam room is strictly prohibited:
- high body temperature;
- flu, sore throat;
- pyelonephritis in the acute phase;
- acute otitis;
- sinusitis;
- furunculosis;
- congenital heart defects;
- pustular skin problems.
The bath helps to cope with colds. But when the child’s temperature has already risen, he cannot be taken to the steam room. If you violate this prohibition, the situation may result in seizures and even cardiac arrest in the baby.
How does a family bath relate to various childhood diseases?
| Diagnoses | What do we have to do |
| For sore throat, flu and other similar diseases, contrasting thermal procedures that normalize blood circulation and reduce temperature are best done at home rather than in a bathhouse. | Place a heated towel soaked in camphor oil on the baby’s legs and arms. And place ice wrapped in a thick layer of fabric on the main vessels. |
| Do not go to the bathhouse with your family to treat otitis, as in the steam room you will only aggravate the course of the disease. | If today you or your child are diagnosed with catarrhal otitis, then tomorrow after visiting the steam room it may develop into a purulent form. If you have pustular skin diseases, you can go to the bathhouse with your family. But then all household members will have to be content with a low temperature in the steam room, since with such diseases it is impossible to overheat. |
| Contraindications regarding congenital heart defects may vary depending on the diagnosis. | In some forms of the disease, children and adults can visit the sauna, but for a very short period. This issue cannot be resolved arbitrarily - only the attending physician will understand for sure whether the steam room will benefit you or your baby or will turn into a disaster. |
| Some pediatricians also do not recommend taking a child to the bathhouse with the whole family if his body is abundantly dotted with moles. | This is a signal that he should not overheat, which means that he can stay in the steam room for a matter of minutes. After water procedures, you should not rub the skin vigorously with a towel so as not to damage the moles. |
After each visit to the steam room, you need to douse yourself with cool water and sea salt. Such douches will speed up the healing process.
Made in Germany
German cars, German wheat beer and the German film industry made Germany famous far beyond its borders. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, an inexperienced domestic tourist went to a German bathhouse with his eyes wide open and his mouth tightly closed, so as not to show inappropriate, in this particular case, dense lack of culture with his emotions. Men and women in a common bathhouse, for a Soviet person brought up on “Pionerskaya Zorka”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and the unusually heartfelt speeches of dear Leonid Ilyich, were a blow, if not to the gut, then to the heart. Unable to withstand the heartache, many of those same inexperienced tourists decided to stay there and live to the fullest, in which some succeeded. Perestroika and the market, however, have given rise to a new type of domestic citizen who looks at a German bathhouse with the same wide-open eyes, but no longer hides his emotions. In fact, the baths of Germany are a product of an open society, a strong family and, by our standards, great wealth.
A word from Experienced! For Germans, a family holiday in a sauna is as commonplace as going to a bakery for beer is for us. Excellent engineering, luxurious finishing, and unique musical accompaniment in a German bathhouse make it a desirable place for family leisure, in which no child or adult will be bored. A lot of establishments consider it their duty to include a small pleasant trifle in the package of services, for example in the form of free branded ice cream with an original recipe, but how unpleasant little things can create a good mood. The abundance of thermal springs of natural origin makes the German Baden also a very, very good place of comfort, thoughtfulness and quality, thus in which the concept of a general sauna is inferior to the concept of a family bath.
Bath paraphernalia: what to take with you to the steam room
A bathhouse is a place where you can not only wash yourself, but also relax and unwind. We spend some time in the bathhouse (it takes me an hour), so it’s important to take the necessary things with you:
- Tea or water. The body loses fluid in the steam room, so you always want to drink in the bathhouse. Let it be just drinking water, but it is much better if it is herbal tea.
- Broom. You can even have several different ones. Very convenient are small in size, light, collected from young fluffy branches into an oblong and round shape.
- A cap on your head , a mitten for hot food so that it doesn’t burn you when you give in to it.
- Aromatic oils or herbal decoction to give the steam more healing and aroma. I always take one essential oil with me and spray it on stones and walls.
- Scrubs, masks. How could we live without them? I don’t have a single bath without a scrub. It works best on a steamed body. Without my favorite cosmetics, I feel bored in the bathhouse). I also apply masks to my hair - they work better in a hot steam room.
What now
The family bathhouse is slowly but surely gaining popularity in our wide open spaces. The modern bath industry sensed the market conditions and demand for quality family vacations in time and is trying to satisfy this demand to the best of its ability, ingenuity and capabilities. Foreign experience in operating establishments of this kind is also a good help here. The trend has become so fashionable and timely that many establishments that had a reputation as a semi-gangster den with blackjack and girls of low social responsibility are in a hurry to correct their image and take the true path, which is the bathhouse for the family. In general, what is good and attractive about a family-type public bathhouse:
- Due to the specifics of the contingent, there are much fewer problems both with hired personnel and directly with visitors.
- As you know, about 60 - 65% of the profit of a bath business is not the main income, but specifically related products and services. Agree that the circulation of non-excise kvass, fruit drinks, and juices in the long term guarantees a more stable profit than beer, vodka, and cigarettes.
- Therapeutic and sports massage are now more in demand and popular than the massages that were widespread in the 90s.
- The orientation of the bathhouse business under the slogan “to the bathhouse with the whole family” guarantees communication exclusively with the relevant control and supervisory authorities, and not with the police and prosecutor’s office. Naturally, the family in this case has nothing in common with the Sicilian mafia formations.
Contraindications for visiting the bathhouse
In order for the sauna to have a positive effect and not cause harm to the body, you need to know about the contraindications to visiting it.
It is prohibited to visit the bathhouse and sauna if you have the following diseases:
- hypertension and other diseases of the cardiovascular system;
- oncological diseases;
- mastopathy;
- tendency to bleeding;
- chronic diseases, especially during exacerbation;
- contagious and acute infectious diseases;
- mental and neurotic diseases in severe forms;
- epilepsy.
In addition to diseases, when visiting a steam room, you should avoid drinking alcoholic beverages.
How to choose the main attribute of a Russian bath - a broom
What is a Russian bathhouse without a broom! This attribute is absent in eastern hammams and baths in other countries. One thing has been proven for a long time - the most accessible and inexpensive massage with 100% results is whipping with a bath broom. All steam lovers have their favorite broom, so I’ll tell you about the most common ones.
Birch
The most common and accessible. Helps well with muscle pain and aching joints. Birch leaves are famous for their antiseptic properties and help with various skin irritations. Also, one of the advantages of a birch broom is its help in the fight against chronic cough.
Oak
Carved, openwork. The steam disperses evenly throughout the body in a wide and hot wave. The main advantage is lowering and stabilizing blood pressure.
Lime
Has a slightly sweet smell. Good in combination with wormwood branches for headaches.
The benefits of brooms can be supplemented with essential oils of cedar, eucalyptus or fir. An orange is very harmonious for the mood. Add to broom water and enjoy.
Bath and hemorrhoids
Hemorrhoids are a disease of people who lead a sedentary lifestyle. Both the elderly and the young suffer from it. Is it possible to go to the bathhouse with hemorrhoids - this is a question that interests people suffering from this disease.
Practitioners claim that high temperature causes blood vessels to dilate, which is harmful for hemorrhoids. Traditional medicine specialists also believe that bath procedures can lead to various complications.
However, fans of the Russian bathhouse, on the contrary, are sure that only the bathhouse and the therapeutic actions carried out in it help get rid of hemorrhoids. Proponents of this point of view suggest:
- Take cold baths after a steam room - a sharp change in temperature improves blood circulation. To enhance the effect, you can add a decoction of kidneyweed to the bath.
- Make masks for hemorrhoids. For masks, medicinal clay is used, which is mixed with yogurt, or a mixture of cottage cheese and sour cream is used.
Bath and colds
Is it possible to go to the sauna if you have a cold? It is believed that a viral disease (ARD or ARVI) can be quickly cured if you use the steam and heat of a bath.
What is the benefit of the high temperature and high humidity of a Russian steam room or the dry heat of a Finnish sauna for a cold? Bath procedures have the following effects on the patient’s body:
- Thanks to increased sweating, the body warms up deeply, toxins are eliminated faster, and metabolism accelerates.
- The use of essential oils in a steam room has an effect similar to inhalation: the airways are cleared of stagnant mucus and warmed up.
- An irreplaceable thing for a cold is a broom in the steam room. You shouldn’t be overzealous and make a sick person feel feverish, but a light massage and gentle stroking with a broom will bring great benefits, causing blood circulation to speed up and quickly remove waste products from the body.
Using essential oils in a steam room has an effect similar to inhalation.
It is possible and necessary to visit a bathhouse if you have a cold, but it is contraindicated at high temperatures. However, hammam or Roman baths are not suitable for treating colds, because... the air in them is not hot enough.
What will help enhance the therapeutic effect of bath procedures:
- warm herbal tea with honey;
- use of coniferous aromatic oils in a steam room: 10-15 drops of oil are diluted in 1 liter of water, a broom is moistened in it, you can also spray shelves and walls with water;
- light massage with a linden or birch broom.
Is it possible to visit the sauna at a body temperature above 370C? When the body temperature is elevated, the following happens: heating worsens health, heat and humidity increase the load on the heart and blood vessels - this can lead to a heart attack.
Warm herbal tea with honey will enhance the effect of bath procedures
Doctors do not recommend going to the steam room if the viral disease has become protracted. That is why doctors answer the question of whether it is possible to visit a bathhouse with bronchitis with a categorical refusal. Pneumonia or bronchitis cannot be treated in the hammam, sauna, or steam room.
Safety precautions in the bathhouse
For a Russian bath, it is necessary to have an open stove damper for better ignition of wood and ventilation. Without this, the smoke will spread throughout the entire bathhouse. You can simply be poisoned by combustion products.
It is desirable to have wooden handles for metal objects; if they are not there, then you should use a mitten. Don't forget it on the stove ledge next to the vat: it will just start to smolder.
People often get burned by steam when pouring water or applying steam. Be careful and don't rush. Do not open the hot water tap to full power if you are not confident in your abilities or feel weak.
First, cold water is poured into the washing basin, and then hot.
All these simple rules will allow you not to harm your health and not regret that you visited the bathhouse or sauna.
