Secrets in Stone

It takes only a little heat to take out those toxins in you. It takes only a little heat to take out the stress in you. It takes only a little heat to put the radiance in you. When you need to sweat out without working out, the secret is in the stone.

Though ganbanyoku has long been practiced and popularized in Japan, it is in Cebu where ganbanyoku was introduced. The Queen of Stone Spa is the first-ever facility to offer ganbanyoku services in the country.

Ganbanyoku is known by other names like “stone spa,” “stone sauna,” “stone bath” and “bedrock bathing.”  It is almost like bathing because body-sized stones such as granite are inset into the floor and heated. The “ganban,” a Japanese word for “rock,” is heated up to 40 to 45 degrees Celsius (105 degrees Fahrenheit) and with it emit far infrared rays and minus ions.

A towel is laid on the rock and clients are made to lie for 15 minutes. For the first five minutes, you are made to lie face toward the floor, then the next five minutes you turn over and lie on your back and then another five minutes where you are made to sit down. Then you take a break for 5 to 10 minutes to rehydrate that is, drink water before repeating the same session for three to four times.

With the warm rock, you sweat profusely and as you drip in sweat, it is as though your sweat bathes you. Unlike traditional sauna where your body is heated primarily on the surface or spa where it is a physical experience, the ganbanyoku heats your body from deep inside. This type of sweat is said to be different from what you sweat when running or working out. The Japanese call it “clean sweat.”  The sweat produced in stone baths does not make skin sticky. Instead the natural oils of the skin are released leaving a certain glow.

It is said that while hot stone spa originated in Thailand, it gained popularity in Japan for its health and beauty benefits. Ganbanyoku is said to have a detoxification effect, improve the circulatory system and is good for the skin. As your body warms up, the blood vessels dilate thus ganbanyoku helps improve circulation, increases metabolism and helps eliminates waste and toxins from the body.

Queen of Stone Spa adds that with ganbanyoku, waste materials and unwanted fats in the body together with sweat are disposed. A lot of sweat reduces body fat and causes weight loss effect.

I went through the session last Thursday and it impressed me as a great therapy for people like me who lead active lifestyles and are prone to the toxins of this world. If you are a performing artist or a pianist like me, a ganbanyoku session is great before and after actual performance dates or in between heavy hours and weeks of rehearsals.

Sweat out those toxins.

More than the healing and enhanced energies and metabolism, the detoxification effects of ganbanyoku are not to be underestimated.  No one is spared from the toxins. Man is the problem and man is the solution to intoxication.

A toxin is described as a compound that has detrimental effect on cell function and structure. We put toxins into our bodies inadvertently through unhealthy, processed and refined food, drinking water, prescriptive drugs and exposure to the environment like second hand smoke and pollution from vehicles. We assault our bodies with refined sugar, white flour, hormone and anti-biotic filled meats. We absorb toxins from synthetic fabrics, plastics and paints. We seek satisfaction from fast food, senseless and wicked entertainment and other distractions and materialistic lifestyles.

Even cellphone use is toxic. Scientists in Finland have found that mobile phone radiation can cause changes in human cells that might affect the brain and can weaken the brain’s protective shield against harmful substances. It was also found that one hour exposure to mobile phone radiation can cause cultured human cells to shrink and thus cells are easily damaged.

A headache is the body’s chief warning signal of body toxicity. When a person has a headache, the toxins in the body are circulating so fast in the bloodstream that it causes irritation and swelling in the brain and nerves. Obesity in many ways is another signal of toxins in the body. Obesity is caused by lack of exercise and proper nutrition. Many of the toxins we ingest or make are stored in fatty tissues. When we lose weight, we reduce fat and toxic load in the body.

In its natural course, the body eliminates toxic substances by itself. But whether a man is young or old, not everything goes out as efficiently and the body may need help to strengthen the systems that eliminate toxins. Detoxification then allows the body to eliminate or neutralize toxins through the colon, liver, kidneys, lungs, lymph and skin. The skin is one of the most effective organs because skin excretes toxins through the sweat.

You have a choice between co-existing with the toxins in your body or sweating it out. You have choice between a life of dietary change, moderate exercise and a therapeutic stone bath or a sedentary life of not doing anything with your toxins. For a full fitness and slimming regimen, start with a workout either through fitness exercises or personal training then head for stone bathing and finish with a facial and skin treatment.

Your body is what you make. If you too busy to sweat it out, you are deliberately walking your body into a disease because you allowed toxins inside you to destroy you. To think sweating out toxins with ganbanyoku in just a stone’s throw away.