Can a hydrotherapy foot bath treat insomnia?

When we return home after a busy day outside, the thing we want to do most is to lie in bed and have a good sleep. However, some people suffer from insomnia, which makes them physically exhausted and unable to sleep, which is indeed a torture. Some people will buy a spa foot bath and take it home to relieve insomnia by soaking their feet. Does this method really work? Can foot soaking cure insomnia?

Insomnia is a common disease and a symptom and precursor of many diseases. The main symptoms of insomnia are difficulty falling asleep at night, or sound sleep, easy awakening, many dreams, difficulty falling asleep again after waking up, and feeling extremely sleepy in the early morning. There are many causes of insomnia, the most common ones are excessive emotional tension, high nervous excitement, and cerebral congestion. People with insomnia have autonomic nervous system disorders and their sympathetic nerves are overexcited at night, which makes them excited and unable to fall asleep. Physical fatigue, mental fatigue, nervous sensory fatigue and cold limbs (or hypothermia in the elderly) can all lead to insomnia.

Hot water foot bath can promote blood circulation and metabolism, eliminate fatigue factors accumulated in the feet and the whole body, and restore the autonomic nervous function to a normal state. The warm stimulation of hot water foot bath can accelerate blood circulation in the feet and lower limbs, increase blood flow, and relatively reduce blood flow in the head; therefore, hot water foot bath can improve sleep and eliminate insomnia. The feet are rich in nerve endings and capillaries. Soaking your feet in hot water has a gentle and good stimulating effect on the nerves and capillaries. This warm stimulation is reflected to the cerebral cortex, exerting an inhibitory effect on it. Make the excited sympathetic nerves smoothly convert to parasympathetic nerves. After the parasympathetic nerves are excited, people are in a state of quiet rest, which improves sleep and eliminates insomnia.

After a hot foot bath, on the one hand, it can promote blood circulation in the feet and the whole body, accelerate blood flow, dilate blood vessels in the feet, increase blood volume, and speed up blood flow to the head, relieve cerebral congestion, and help eliminate insomnia; on the other hand, by improving blood circulation in the feet, dispersing deposits on the soles of the feet and eliminating fatigue substances in the body, fatigue is eliminated, and people are in a resting state, so as to improve sleep and eliminate insomnia. Finally, by increasing the temperature of the feet, the coldness of the limbs is improved, which increases the comfort of falling asleep and makes people fall asleep quickly. It can be seen that taking a hot water foot bath before going to bed can eliminate insomnia and improve sleep. This is the reason why they say “soaking your feet before bed is better than taking tonic medicine”.

In addition to treating insomnia, foot soaking can also be used to regulate blood pressure. Soaking your feet can dilate the small arteries, veins and even capillaries in the feet and throughout the body, which will speed up blood circulation and naturally lower blood pressure. At the same time, this method can also serve as an auxiliary treatment for patients with hypertension.