These herbal compresses have now become familiar sights in modern spas for relief of muscular aches and pains.
Ready-made preparations, as either powdered or dried herbs, can be bought in Thai health stores.
Traditionally the bundle was steam-heated over a charcoal burner. Most spas today use an electric rice cooker for quick and easy steaming.
Once heated, the compress is applied on sore muscles in conjunction with massage.
As with other herbal therapies, the ingredients in the compress may be mixed according to specific formulae to address specific ailments. Generally, the compress contains from 10 to 20 ingredients, though there are some standard ingredients that form the base of every compress.
The Oriental Spa in Bangkok has made waves with the way it combines traditional remedies with high-tech, modern techniques. It was the first Thai spa to incorporate this ancient healing method into their treatment menu, with their Oriental Herbal Pack treatment which combines massage therapy with the application of the herbal compress. If you want to make your own compress at home, they suggest you use some of the following healing ingredients:
Camphor: Its cooling and tingling sensation helps invigorate the skin.
Lemongrass: This has antiseptic properties to help clear up the skin.
Turmeric: Its antiseptic properties help soothe and cleanse irritated skin.
Prai: This ginger is a natural moisturiser that relieves muscular aches and pains while softening the skin.
Kaffir lime: These miracle limes help tone the skin.
Take a handful of each ingredient, and place them in a piece of cotton cloth and tie into a firm bundle. Heat the parcel over a steamer or hot pot before applying on to the body. Traditionally, the application was done in conjunction with massage—the sore muscles were worked first, then the heated compress was applied to the problem spots. The heat relaxes the aching muscles and helps to open the pores, allowing for better absorption of the herbal ingredients. Allow the heat to penetrate into your muscles, and feel stress and tension ease away beneath the healing kneading of a firm (but never painful) masseur.
Benefits include the soothing of sore and aching muscles, an easing of respiration with the ingredients camphor and menthol, and the reduction of tension through the heat and aromatic properties of the herbs.
best for baby, best for mum
Herbal therapies devised by Thai midwives have long played a key role in Thai traditional healing. In the past, most births took place in the home, and women took advantage of the healing secrets that midwives passed down from one generation to the next. Here's how herbs can help a mother—before, during and after childbirth.
During pregnancy, most Thai women soothe the backaches and leg pains that come with bearing the weight of the child in the womb with Thai massage. And as antenatal care was supervised by a local midwife, she would mix herbal formulae for all the ailments associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Each mixture was customised to suit the individual patient, according to whether the patient's energy type was of the fire, water, earth, or wind element. Special ingredients, mainly herbal roots, bulbs and rhizomes, were used for post-pregnancy treatments. There are a number of rhizomes known to Thai healers for their benefits to the womb; most are identified by their specific healing properties, such as waan chak mod luuk, meaning 'womb-pulling rhizome', a large, bumpy root that is believed to help tighten the womb.
Most women would have been prescribed yaa-hom, or 'fragrant medicine'; this comes in the form of dusty gold pellets made from a blend of medicinal flowers and herbs including ylang-ylang, jasmine and camphor, the scent of which is inhaled to relieve feelings of nausea or morning sickness. The pellets may also be dissolved in water and drunk as a tonic to soothe feelings of faintness or dizziness.
During labour, a professional midwife was always on hand: her skills were in demand, and after the birth she would cut the umbilical cord with a sharpened bamboo stick. Known for its antibacterial properties, the bamboo stick didn't have to be sterilised; as well as being sharp and clean, it provided the added benefit of sterilising and cleansing the wound.
Immediately after giving birth, the new mother would undergo the famous yuu fai or 'staying with the fire' treatment for a period of three weeks. This intensive post-pregnancy sauna treatment was once so prevalent in Thai life that everyone has heard of it even though it is not often practised today. The treatment required the woman to lie in a room at home where a fire was kept burning in a charcoal stove at all times, thus creating an intensive sauna. The high temperature forced the body to sweat, thereby flushing out the toxins accumulated during pregnancy. The new mother was not allowed to bathe during this period, and the body was wiped down with a wet cloth instead. No herbs were used with the sauna, but yuu fai was supplemented by herbal treatments that helped reduce swelling and encouraged the womb and muscles get back into shape after the rigours of childbearing. Turmeric poultices were applied daily to the abdomen and buttocks, to help cleanse and tone the skin, bringing it back to health.
It was believed that, as well as ensuring complete recovery of the womb, the yuu fai treatment gave benefits in later life too. It was said that women who didn't undergo the sauna would become temperamental and experience mood swings upon reaching their 50s and 60s. And they would be more prone to aches and pains from during spells of cold or damp weather.
The new mother also took a daily herbal steam treatment using herbal mixtures specifically formulated for post-pregnant women. She sat in a small tent where medicinal herbs were steamed on a charcoal stove placed inside the tent. The treatment lasted about 10 to 20 minutes, and it was believed that the greater the amount of sweat, the better the detoxifying effects on the body.
As with other Thai herbal therapies, post-pregnancy healing treatments varied from region to region, with various ingredients and methods of heat and herb applications. Khun Rungratree Kongwanyuen, Spa Manager at the Lanna Spa, remembers a post-pregnancy midwife therapy used by her older sister. Unique to their seaside hometown of Hua Hin, in Thailand's central Petchburi province, it was called mod luuk khao ou or 'womb returning into place'.
It consisted of a series of herbal incense sticks, the size and shape of cigars; each was composed of a special preparation of dried, crushed herbs that were mixed into a paste and moulded around a wick. Each stick was lit and then placed into a flat metal box called a glong fai. The metal boxes were in turn placed in a specially made, sectioned cotton belt resembling a money belt, tied around the new mother's waist. This heated belt was worn all day and night for 15 days; as each herbal incense stick burned out, it was replaced by a newly lit herbal stick. During this treatment, the new mother was able to go about her daily tasks as usual, without being confined to the tortures of a heated room, as in the yuu fai sauna method.
Ingredients used in traditional midwife therapies include