It’s no mystery that baths can soothe us to sleep.
The Sleep Foundation says the sleep-enhancing ritual of soaking in warm (not hot!) water has its own term? The “warm bath effect” is believed to help your body regulate its temperature, which is what leads to better sleep. Your skin, hands, and feet may get warmer at bedtime, but your internal temperature decreases. Hence why some people like to kick a foot or two outside the comforter at night. More importantly than our precious ZZZs, though, are the findings that confirm a warm bath can lower your blood pressure, especially if you take your bath between 104.5-106 degrees less than an hour before you go to sleep.
As for spiritual practices, the ritual of immersing in a bath or special springs for curative purposes has been practiced for thousands of years.
Many ancient civilizations esteemed water with great reverence. Like the areas where butterfly pea flower is endemic, these communities considered water a gift from the divine. The earliest written information about therapeutic bathing with herbal decoctions is said to be contained in the Indian Vedas (~1500 B.C.), and in the ancient Babylonian medical scripts (~2300 B.C.). During and after baths, bathhouse visitors would rest and moisten their skin with tonic herbs, thus furthering their therapeutic experiences.
BATH RITUALS + BETTER SLEEP
INGREDIENTS
- ½ tsp Butterfly Pea Flower Powder
- Hot Water
- Oat Milk or Coconut Milk
- Optional: Fresh flowers of choice
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES
Restores nervous system, enhances immunity, anti-inflammatory
DIRECTIONS
- Start by filing your tub or vessel with water in a state of prayer. Visualize and connect to the power of water.
- Add 1tsp of blue butterfly pea flower powder (the great blue healer), fresh flowers, petals of choice.
- Pour in, ideally homemade, oat milk (oats blended in water + strained) or coconut milk for a silky and nourishing lunar magic.
- Step in, and deeply enjoy.
PRO-TIP: ADD CITRUS
Spoiler alert: a change is coming … if you choose to add citrus to the bath water (preferably lemon or lime), prepare to marvel in the natural magic. The water’s color will change from blue to purple as the acid from the citrus impacts the pH level of the flower powder. On their own, lemon baths have additional skin healing properties, including but not limited to: immune boosting, body odor reducing, oil secretion decreasing, dark spot removing, and pore and wrinkle minimizing qualities. So if you’re looking for a spirit and skin-enhancing ritual to add to bath and bedtime, try your Butterfly Bath with and without some additional lemon wedges to find out which will best suit your inner and outer needs for deep healing.
Read more about the history of energetic cleansing baths on the blog.
