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Home remedies help against ice feet in winter movement and warm foot baths
It took a while, but in many places winter has arrived. It can be wonderful if you make yourself comfortable with warm tea during the cold season and look at the snow and the frost flowers at the window. Ice-cold feet can ruin our joy. On the other hand, something can be done. Home remedies, which the grandmother already knew, can help.
Cold feet make the winter uncomfortable
With its white splendor, winter is actually a beautiful season, but it brings with it a decisive disadvantage: Due to the cold temperatures, we often freeze on our feet. This does not feel good, but ice feet are usually harmless. Just follow some advice known from grandmother's time. Various home remedies help against cold feet. These include, among other things, suitable footwear, wool socks or even a warm, healing foot bath. Spicy food and sport also warm the extremities. But if you have cold feet, even at mild temperatures, the cause could be decreased blood flow or another illness. Patients should therefore consult a doctor.
Against cold feet, foot baths have proven to be a home remedy many times. (Image: Kzenon / fotolia.com) Freezing is a useful process
Although it feels rather uncomfortable, freezing is a normal and useful physiological process, according to a news agency dpa. "Our body always works ergonomically," explains Monika Baumann, a physician for physical medicine from Munich. "In principle, the circulatory system supplies the whole body with blood, but the blood is increasingly sent to where it is most needed," says the expert, according to dpa. The brain and the vital organs in the chest and abdomen are in the first place. The temperature is kept constant in these body regions at 37 degrees. Arms and legs, however, may be a little cooler. "If you do not need your feet at the moment, for example because you sit in the office for a long time, they will not be supplied with so much blood and cool off as a result," explains Baumann.
Footwear made of natural materials
The doctor advises office freezers to get up and walk around the room occasionally, or squat. This will pump blood back into your feet. Of course, the temperature of the feet is also influenced by external factors. Instead of wearing thin, water-permeable shoes or plastic socks, Baumann recommends in winter to wear natural-material footwear, which should have a rubber sole in wet weather and may also be fur-lined in very cold temperatures. As Jens Wagenknecht, family doctor from Varel, said in the agency message, it is better not to wear several layers of socks on top of each other: "Then you start to sweat, and that is unfavorable for the heat regulation of the body." Effective against cold feet are ascending foot baths, in which the feet are first placed in lukewarm water. Then every few minutes carefully poured warm water until after about 15 minutes, a water temperature of 41 to 42 degrees is reached. People who constantly have cold feet should take such a foot bath every day, even in summer, recommends Ursula Hilpert-Mühlig from the Association of German Naturopaths.
Behind cold feet can also be diseases
Although cold feet are not really a cause for concern. However, caution should be exercised when the feet are warm or discolored, warns Wagenknecht. The cause could possibly be a vasoconstriction, which reduces the blood flow. Triggered, for example, by many years of smoking or diabetes. Other causes of permanent ice feet may be hypothyroidism or anemia due to iron deficiency. In addition, the cold feeling on the feet and hands can be exacerbated by some drugs, such as beta-blockers. Usually, however, it is simply winter and low blood pressure that causes one's extremities to freeze. Wagenknecht recommends to do sports regularly. "When you move, the vessels open, the body is supplied with blood, and your hands and feet also get warm." (Ad)