The Climate and the Marine Therapy

The Thalasotherapy cures, are relaxing, they strengthen and they revitalize the organism. Choose the marine climate that is more pleasing to you.

Hipócrates, the greek physician father of the modern medicine said: "The sea cures the man's illnesses." Such a statement finds its maximum expression in the Thalasotherapy, a discipline that uses all the benefits of the sea, not only the water, both to cure the illnesses as to treat aesthetic problems or to relax the body and the mind. The thalasotherapy cures are relaxing, they strengthen and they revitalize the organism.

The word "thalasotherapy" it comes from thalasa that means in Greek "sea" and therapy (treatment). The thalasotherapy treatments although they go back to the old Rome, they were rediscovered in the England of the s. XIX. It is a natural therapeutic system that embraces three ambits: the water of the sea (hydrotherapy), the marine air (aerotherapy) and the solar radiation (heliotherapy).

In these marine cures the water is used as thermal source, being picked up in different depths to assure its purity, and it is applied at temperatures that oscillate between the 10ºC and the 40ºC. depending on the objective of the treatment. In many cases they are supplemented with pressure, bubbles or ultrasonics.

The marine water is so beneficial that many professionals of the medicine recommend to theirs patients walks by the seaside to heal certain illnesses.

Where does reside the secret of this source of life and beauty of the sea water?

The raw material of the Thalasotherapy is the water that comes directly from the sea, has some special properties among those are the salinity, its movement and its density. All those factors, contribute to get that the water constitutes by itself an aesthetic resource besides therapeutic, vastly profitable. The benefits of the Thalasotherapy to the skin or, what is the same thing, the sea Baths, are not only owed to the quantity of sodium chloride (salt); also intervene the oxygen, the nitrogen, the carbonic gas, the iodine, the fluorine, the copper, the iron, the zinc...

The absorption by the skin of all these elements is translated in a series of beneficial effects, as the improvement of the circulatory system.

The sea baths constitute a suitable therapy for those people suffering problems of varicose veins and general circulation.

The therapeutic effect of the sea water takes place through different ways:

Through contact with the skin, by direct contact with the mucous membranes, through the inhalation and by the dynamic action of the waves and the tides

The marine air, saturated of micro-drops of sea water in suspension, it is rich in iodine, ozone and negative ions, what confers to it antibiotic properties, sedatives of the nervous system and stimulants on the defences of the organism. The sea water is rich in trace elements, perfect to invigorate and to embellish the skin.

So many and so positive properties have propitiated all those specific treatments of beauty that conjugate the thalasotherapy with the facial aesthetics, with the reaffirming treatments - warppings and modellings as the formula to recover the line-with the techniques for legs tired-(press therapy) combined with the thalasotherapy.

Climatic indications

According to the Federation Mer et Santé, the marine climate only exists near the sea. It has an essential paper relating to the thalasotherapy treatments, conditioned to leave the establishment in order to take advantage of the benefits of the sea and the beach. It is characterized, mainly for the stability of the hypo-thérmic and thermic degree and their exceptional purity.

ATLANTIC

Climate "tonic", with a important width of temperature between the Bretagne and the Atlantic- Pyrenees. What means that there is an invasion of maritime air coming from the high sea.
The air is rich in trace-elements, but it is necessary to be careful with the employment of the wind. It is necessary to use it with moderation and with progression. The possibilities of aggressiveness of this climate justifies that the medical surveillance must be sometimes indispensable. The exposure to the Great West guarantees the purity of the atmosphere.

LA MANCHA (British Channel)

Invigorating climate due to the average temperatures of the air, of their great richness in iodine and in trace-elements. It is beneficent in particular for the breathing infections.
In the city of Roscoff, in La Mancha, the doctor Luis Bagot create the first Thalasotherapy Center, in 1899. The climate is characterized by the winds of the West and strong tides. It is said that it is "invigorating" due to the average temperatures of the air, their great richness in iodine and in trace elements. The Gulf stream plays a roll of moderator.

MEDITERRANEAN

The climate "sedative" of the mediterranean sea is advised for the tired organisms, due to their softness and their exceptional sun, specially in winter.

The rheumatisms, articulations and muscular pains they will be sensitive to the softness of the Mediterranean winter.

Contrarily to what is said, the coast of the Mediterranean is not incompatible with the thalassotherapy. However, due to the lack of tides, it is certain that the activity is not within our reach: the sedimentation and the oxygen liberation by the algae are made in depth. When the water of the sea is pumped from offshore, there is not reason of being more polluted that in another part. What is important is an exhibition to the winds is indispensable, but care with the violence of the Mistral and Tramontana winds.

Mayte Suárez Santos. Specialist in Medicine and Termalismo. Member of the French Society of Termalismo and Talasoterapia for the Buco-dental Health.