Healing Heat

Some of my most pleasant memories growing up in Japan were trundling across the street with my family to go to the neighborhood public bath or sento. That’s where many of learned to swim and the underwater trip from the 39° soaking tub to the 41° tub was an adventure. Later on our high school basketball coach would reward the team by walking to the nearby ofuroba where the team would soak away the soreness and then saunter back to the dorm wearing only yukatas with the steam rising into the frosty winter air. The spas and saunas in southern Germany rivaled the Japanese onsens for providing relaxing sweaty conversations with locals and vacationers.  Rounds of golf in Korea are completed with a hot soaking bath or you can go to the local Jjimjilbang to bathe. Around the world there are many countries that have a rich public bathing tradition and whenever I’ve been fortunate to travel have felt they play a very large role in promoting physical and psychological health.

Looking back I think there are two very important health promoting forces in play. First, and foremost, is the power of heat (whether dry or moist) in washing away or killing harmful disease promoting viruses and bacteria as well as reducing allergy causing antigens. Time spent in these cleansing environments reduce the chance of subsequent infections and allergies. Second, is the social health that improves when you shed your clothes and interact with other people. The baths, steams, saunas and spas taken with others is much healthier for the psyche than those taken alone. I’m convinced these two factors, when combined, boost the immunity, relax the mind and stave off diseases.

I wonder if there would be less obesity if every day we knew we were going to be spending time naked with our friends and neighbors? Maybe it is entirely anecdotal but it seems that in countries with a public bathing tradition people spend less time watching TV and more time in conversation with each other. This carries over to how they eat as well. It seemed we spent more time around the table communing instead of the table being a place to wolf down the food and leave to watch TV or do something else. It was a place to spend time and enjoy the food and the companionship.

As a physician I’ve been advocating to my patients with a variety of ailments to invest time in going to the local Y where there is an excellent steam room and sauna. Alternatively they should invest in steam generators and convert one of their showers to a steam shower. Unfortunately very few of them follow that advice and I see them all too often in the clinic with one physical or psychological problem after another. For the cost of many prescriptions they could be experiencing the healing power of heat and begin to enjoy life.

Testing Livewriter

Am beginning to see a trend where applications, even those that are competing share the same information.  This short blog is being written in the new Windows Live Writer and ostensibly will automatically post this to my Blogspot.com page and Windows Live Spaces.

I’m wondering how long it will be before this interaction translates into the healthcare electronic records?  Right now there are a number of Personal Health Records enabling individuals to enter and have access to their health data from anywhere.  The problem with most of these is that the data their doctor enters in their offices doesn’t automatically flow into their PHRs.  There are some organizations, like Cleveland Clinic, who have formed relationships with Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault  but most of us don’t go to Cleveland Clinic. We need to figure out how all EMRs being used in physician’s offices can be configured to automatically exchange data with each of the patients’ PHRs.

Recently gave a presentation about the importance of social media in health care.  We’re a ways away from social media tools being integrated into EMRs but blogging, twitter, Facebook and other social media tools are laying the groundwork for the interoperability that we’re all wanting.

Playing around with what’s available and waiting for the plug-in that will allow me as an individual physician using a integrated EMR from Cerner along with other 100+ physicians and a hospital to concentrate on what I’m doing and seamlessly update my patients’ PHRs.