What should I use to soak my feet during the dog days of summer?

Nowadays people generally have the habit of soaking their feet, but most people do it very casually. In fact, there are many precautions for soaking feet. For example, it is not suitable to soak your feet when you are too full or very hungry. Soaking your feet at this time may cause dizziness and other discomforts, so you need to pay attention. As we all know, the weather is very hot during the dog days. What kind of foot soaking is good for the body at this time?

What should I use to soak my feet during the dog days of summer?

Salt, ginger, mugwort, and white vinegar.

Traditional Chinese medicine suggests that soaking your feet in the summer does not require sweating to be effective, which is the biggest difference compared to soaking your feet in the winter. The best time is before going to bed every night (21:00-22:00), the water temperature should be 40℃-45℃, and the foot soaking time should not be too long (15-20 minutes).

Add appropriate amount of ginger and salt to the foot bath water. Salt can clear heat, cool blood and detoxify; ginger has the effects of dispelling cold, stopping vomiting and detoxifying. Regularly soaking your feet with ginger, salt water and mugwort can promote local blood circulation, prevent colds, and improve the constitution of night sweats.

Adding a proper amount of white vinegar can increase skin elasticity, make the skin smooth, eliminate rheumatism, and improve symptoms such as chills and fear of cold; it can kill bacteria and help eliminate mold, athlete's foot, and skin diseases. Adding a proper amount of rice wine can stimulate the skin to sweat, thereby excreting acidic substances from the body and relieving fatigue.

"Foot soaking in spring can raise yang and strengthen the body; foot soaking in summer can remove dampness and relieve heat; foot soaking in autumn can moisten the lungs and intestines; foot soaking in winter can warm the dantian." This is a sentence mentioned in Chinese medicine health books, which mainly explains that foot soaking is a health-preserving method suitable for all seasons, but the health-preserving effects of each season are different.

There are benefits to soaking your feet in summer, and there is a basis for this. In summer, humidity is at its peak. When humidity is blocked in the spleen and stomach, symptoms such as loss of appetite, drowsiness, lack of energy, and irritability will occur. Soaking your feet in summer can help to remove heat and humidity, prevent heat colds, invigorate your spirits, increase appetite, and promote sleep. Because the feet are an important part of the body after the heart and are distributed with a large number of capillaries, soaking the feet in warm water at this time can better stimulate the meridians and invigorate the functions of the internal organs of the body.