We often associate a bathhouse with alcohol and noisy recreation. But what can we say about beer in a bathhouse - is it good for us or bad for us?! There are quite a lot of lovers and connoisseurs of Russian steam baths, each with their own view and vision of bathhouse culture.
Some believe that beer is a harmless drink for bathing procedures. Others are firmly convinced of their incompatibility. I believe that there is a use for beer in a bathhouse! First, let's learn more about the foamy drink...
What is beer
Beer is one of the oldest drinks; it is believed that the cultivation of grain crops began for its sake. It was considered a drink of the poor and was ranked much lower than wine.
Beer was made where the climate did not allow grapes to be grown. Beer is a Slavic word that meant any drink. Over time, only an alcoholic drink began to be called this way. Traditionally, “beer” is understood as a low-alcohol drink, which is obtained as a result of fermentation of wort with the help of brewer’s yeast.
It turns out that everyone's favorite foamy beer is alcohol. How does alcohol affect us in the bathhouse kingdom?!
Beer after the bath
After completing the bath procedures, you can indulge in a glass of foam, if you do not suffer from various chronic gastrointestinal diseases. Beer promotes:
But don't drink too much! In this case, the beneficial effect of beer will be negated, and you will get banal alcohol poisoning.
In addition to beer, after the sauna it’s a very good idea to finish your wellness session with green tea, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed juice.
Alcohol and sauna
It is no secret that alcohol dulls reactions, impairs coordination of movements and weakens attention. The state of euphoria that alcohol causes gradually turns into drowsiness. Bath heat, hot water, hot stove stones, slippery floors and shelves are far from safe for a drunk person. Burns and falls are commonplace, the bathhouse punishes severely!
There were also cases when bathhouse attendants, stupefied by alcohol, simply fell asleep in the bathhouse and went crazy. The bathhouse is quite small, poorly ventilated and the carbon dioxide content in it is quite decent. It is the inhalation of carbon dioxide that enhances the effect of alcohol; it is very appropriate to recall the saying: “A drunken sea is knee-deep.”
Meanwhile, the blood is saturated with alcohol more and more. Bath heat and alcohol dilate blood vessels, increasing the load on the heart. And if the walls of the blood vessels are weak and thin, they give in and burst. As a result, a beautiful bruise on the body is guaranteed! It happens that a vessel can rupture in the brain - and this is much more serious than a bruise, it can lead to a stroke!
Even an absolutely healthy person’s blood pressure rises when visiting a bathhouse; this is natural. People suffering from hypertension and drinking alcohol in the bathhouse are suicides!
If you decide to do super experiments with alcohol in a bathhouse, then you must understand that you are going to double overload. High temperature, bath heat and steam, together with alcohol, force the heart to work in emergency mode. Such work can cause arrhythmia, heart attack, myocardial infarction.
What to drink after bath procedures
You can drink when your body calms down and your heart rate returns. And this is about 2 hours. A glass of your favorite beer won't hurt, but will improve your health.
- Beer enhances metabolism and metabolism.
- Beer, especially live beer, by supplying the necessary flora, improves intestinal motility.
- This drink increases the strength and immunity of the body.
Beer has a good effect on the skin, preventing the appearance of wrinkles. But this is only after going to the bathhouse and not earlier than a couple of hours later. And don't forget to drink this drink in moderation.
Mineral water after the steam room will perfectly quench your thirst and replenish lost salts and microelements.
Juices and fruit drinks will nourish your body with vitamins, and herbal infusions can act as anti-inflammatory and soothing agents.
The harm of beer in the bathhouse
The effect of beer is well known - it increases sweating and kidney function. In the heat of a bath, a person sweats, loses quite a lot of fluid, and if you drink an intoxicating drink during bath procedures, banal dehydration of the body occurs. Agree, this is not very good.
By drinking beer between visits to the steam room, you increase the load on the body.
The bathhouse cleanses our body not only from the outside, all unnecessary waste comes out through open pores with sweat, we naturally get rid of toxins and impurities. What does beer do? Does it help the heat of the bath to make our body cleaner?
No! No! And no! In fact, the body becomes intoxicated; our liver and kidneys work to the limit against the background of dehydration. Beer during a bath is a real poison for the body!
There are other negative aspects of drinking beer. Of course, they only drink it cold. A warm, steamed body plus cold beer equals a sore throat, tonsil inflammation, and sore throat.
The beer production technology is such that the finished product retains its natural properties for only 2-3 days. Therefore, manufacturers came up with adding a variety of chemical elements. These are formaldehyde (used for embalming corpses), cobalt (a harmful heavy metal), and alcohol.
Alcohol is used as a preservative and to increase the strength of the foamy drink. And the stronger the drink, the more dangerous it is; it can easily cause poisoning. Very often a person loses control of himself, becomes stupid, and loses shame.
In addition to these harmful substances, beer contains quite a lot of phenols, methanol, formaldehyde and aldehydes, as well as fusel oils. All this is harmful, these are by-products from which a person is poisoned and sick.
A little about the physiology of drinking beer at high temperatures
The Russian steam bath, and especially the Finnish sauna, provide a complex effect on the body, associated primarily with high and extremely high temperatures. On the one hand, this triggers mechanisms of accelerated metabolism, on the other hand, it mobilizes internal hidden reserves, which, of course, are not unlimited.
Beer, although a low-alcohol drink, nevertheless makes its contribution to the formation of ethyl alcohol intoxication syndrome without fail. Let's look at the compatibility of two items such as a bathhouse and alcohol using a simple everyday example. How many people like to drink forty degrees on a sultry July afternoon? There aren't many fans, I'm guessing. We will not take seasoned professionals who consume everything that burns around the clock and all year round into account; this is a special case.
So, the average beer norm in our country is about 2 liters. With an average strength of an intoxicating drink of about 4.5 percent absolute alcohol by volume, it turns out that after introducing the specified norm into the body, we have 90 milliliters of ethyl alcohol, which, in terms of forty degrees, already gives an impressive 200 milliliters of vodka. Impressive, isn't it? Now let's look at the process from a purely medical point of view:
- Ethyl alcohol provokes dilation of blood vessels, both main and peripheral. The same phenomenon is initiated by the increased temperature of the steam bath room. If the walls of the vessels are endowed with a sufficient degree of elasticity, this is good, but if they have pronounced signs of sclerotic damage. Then a rupture of the vessel wall can provoke local hemorrhage, even a stroke;
- No matter what anyone says, food alcohol is a poison that is oxidized by liver enzymes. When taking bath procedures, due to the activation of metabolic processes, there is a large-scale elimination of toxins, primarily through the skin. By drinking alcohol, you radically increase the load on this vital organ;
- During the production of some types of beer, especially those with long shelf life, cadmium-containing preparations are used to stabilize raw materials. Salts of this metal have a very active effect on the mucous membrane of the gastrointestinal tract. Moreover, some clinical studies give reason to believe that the degree of exposure can provoke the development of gastritis, as well as peptic ulcers of the stomach and duodenum;
- Alcohol, in some cases, causes an increase in blood pressure. In conditions of high temperature and humidity of the bath, blood flow increases. Why provoke a hypertensive crisis;
- Research by Czech scientists indicates that the metabolic products of ethyl alcohol are excreted from the body of a person who has consumed it in a bathhouse 12% slower than under normal conditions, no matter how paradoxical it may sound.
Thus, it can be argued that alcohol and sauna, from a purely medical point of view, are incompatible things. At least if drinking beer occurs before taking bath procedures. But what about the Germans, the meticulous reader will ask. In the southern federal states of Germany, drinking beer is elevated to the rank of a cult and the sauna does not stand alone.
The question is not what to drink, but when to drink
Obviously, the Bavarians and Swabians are very much in favor of drinking beer in the bathhouse. Northerners approach this issue much more strictly. In some places north of Berlin, even low-alcohol drinks are banned in the sauna industry. But in the fertile and abundant south, things are somewhat different.
Pragmatic Germans know anatomy and physiology as well as you and I, so they drink beer only after taking a steam bath. And even then, in about an hour or an hour and a half. Before this, they make do with completely harmless fruit drinks, juices, and herbal teas. For unwavering lovers of a foamy drink who love to drink a glass immediately upon leaving, the local bathhouse attendants offer non-alcoholic drinks. In a number of key positions, it is not much inferior to the classic one and does not contain ethyl alcohol in an amount that can have a negative effect on the body. Alcohol after a bath causes harm to the body on a much smaller scale, and the effect is not so acute, but rather blurred.
A word from Experienced! There is no doubt that such an ancient alcoholic drink as beer has its positive qualities. It is massively saturated with B vitamins, in particular riboflavin, microelements, primarily zinc and magnesium, which, in addition to increasing the motility of the heart muscle, play a positive role in general metabolic processes. Do not forget about the metabolic products of brewer's yeast, which have a beneficial effect on the condition of the hair and skin.
The processes of active sweating provoke a person’s loss of moisture, so beer after a bath will help restore the body’s water balance, saturating it with a number of useful elements and vitamins. However, it is worth emphasizing once again that for a positive effect a time interval is required, which should be at least 90 minutes from the end of the steaming procedure.
Alternative uses of beer
If you have definitely decided for yourself the question of whether you can drink beer in a bathhouse, then it is undoubtedly worth mentioning a number of other, alternative ways to use this drink while going to the bathhouse:
- Beer steam inhalation. Its essence is to prepare an aqueous solution of beer at the rate of 750 ml of pure water per 1000 ml of beer. The resulting mixture is thoroughly mixed and in small portions, about 250 - 300 ml, placed on the stove stones. The resulting steam has a beneficial effect on the bronchi and skin, but it is reasonable to carry out such procedures no more than 2 times a month.
- For the fair half of humanity, rubbing the body with beer foam will be an effective way. This unique mix of massage and scrub perfectly opens pores and helps suppress acne. In addition, it can be argued that procedures of this kind strengthen capillaries and reduce the risk of spider veins appearing close to the surface of the skin.
- To strengthen hair, the egg-beer mask is well known and enjoys well-deserved fame. One egg is thoroughly mixed in dark beer in a volume ratio of 1 to 2 and applied to wet hair. No more than 15 minutes of such therapy is enough for not only the hair to become stronger, but also the hair follicles to receive the necessary nutrition.
Thus, beer and sauna get along well and are in harmony with each other, bringing tangible benefits to the overall health of the body.
The benefits of beer in the bathhouse
And yet, with all its shortcomings and harmful effects, beer in a bathhouse still has benefits.
The secret is how to apply and consume the foamy drink. The most beneficial, aromatic effect of beer is this: dilute the beer in hot water and pour it on the heater! Oh, what an unprecedented bread aroma there will be in your bathhouse! The proportions for dilution are as follows: 500 grams per liter of water. beer.
Beer aromatherapy helps cope with irritability and stressful situations. It is considered one of the best remedies in the fight against insomnia.
Beer steam helps fight skin irritations and acne, as it contains special vitamins that stimulate collagen production. If you apply beer foam to the skin of your face and neck, you will only get positive results. Small wrinkles will be smoothed out, the skin will become elastic.
Beer masks are very useful for hair; after this treatment, the hair becomes smooth, shiny, and the ends stop splitting. I recommend using only “live” beer to prepare masks.
Beer hair mask
Heat one glass of beer, add one tablespoon of olive oil. The mask is ready! Apply it to clean hair, rubbing thoroughly into the scalp.
The mask must be left on for at least 15-20 minutes, then washed off with warm water.
Beer mask with kefir
This mask is used to moisturize and grow hair. To prepare the mask you will need 0.5 cups of beer and 0.5 cups of kefir. Mix beer and kefir, apply the finished mixture to your hair. The mask must be left on for 20 minutes, then rinsed off with warm water.
Consequences of drinking beer before a bath
Beer is a low-alcohol drink, so it's easy to lose your vigilance. It is believed that visiting a bathhouse after two or three glasses of beer is common. But a half-liter bottle of beer with a strength of 4% contains 20 g of pure ethanol, which is equivalent to 50 g of vodka. It is unlikely that anyone will argue with the fact that vodka should not be drunk in the heat.
Carbon dioxide enhances the effect of alcohol. A drunk person's mood improves, he is overcome by euphoria, and it seems to him that he can literally move mountains. As alcohol enters the blood, the blood vessels dilate.
In a Russian bath, where the steam is moist, the loads are tolerated somewhat easier than in a Finnish sauna. However, this is what can happen if a person goes to the bathhouse after drinking several glasses of beer:
Beer and sauna
How many people, so many opinions. Some claim that they have been drinking, drinking and will continue to drink beer in the bathhouse - it is pleasant and healthy. Well, adequate adults should understand what they are doing. But in the old days they never allowed drunks into the bathhouse.
Beer is an amazing drink, if it were not now diluted with various chemical elements, then perhaps this conversation would not have happened...
I'm sure that in moderation, beer won't do much harm. Experts also confirm this - one or two mugs of aromatic foamy beer two hours after a good bath will be an excellent addition to the bath ceremony and will only be beneficial!
What can you drink in the steam room?
Most “experts” recommend drinking warm tea, weak herbal decoctions and infusions, juices and fruit drinks. Kvass is also considered a healing drink during bath procedures. So, we responsibly declare that you cannot drink anything in the bathhouse.
No, not absolutely nothing, a little non-cold mineral water, the same juices and fruit drinks, but only a little.
Any liquid that enters your body will be released almost instantly through the sweat glands, without bringing any benefit. But it will increase the load on the internal organs and endocrine glands.
