If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that self-care is so important! While, a face mask or a long relaxing bath might be the usual way of unwinding, according to farmers in the Alps hay bathing is the way forward.
Speaking to the BBC, Stephan Öfner, revealed how this activity has been part of tradition for years in the Alpine meadow where his grandparents were farmers. Öfner revealed how ‘they would sleep in the grass to ease their aches and pain’, emphasising the healing properties of hay bathing.
Whilst this treatment is one embedded in tradition, it has recently been utilised by hotels in this Italian region. Through offering spa treatments such as hay baths, hay peels and hay massages, which use the natural mountain material these hotels have attracted tourists looking for a unique experience which simultaneously offers health benefits.
Hotel Heubad spa is in fact based around this very wellness ritual and offers what it calls ‘The original hay bath’.
The hotel uses local knowledge which has been ‘successfully applied for more than one hundred years’ about South Tyrolean hay and water baths, to transform the raw material of hay into new treatments.
According to the Heuband, these hay baths ‘have a detoxifying and purifying effect’, reinforcing the wellness benefits of the hey flower extracts which farmers in the Alp region recognised. Moreover, another local hotel, Hotel Diana, also boasts how the hay baths boost blood flow and have immune-strengthening effects, emphasising the positive health benefits of the new wellness ritual.
At Hotel Heubad the hay bath procedure takes place for 15 to 20 minutes wherein you are wrapped in warm and damp hay for 38 Euros and left to relax for a further 30 minutes. Yet multiple treatments are recommended for the full health benefits to be recognised, so a package for 6 hay baths is offered for 199 Euros.
If you are looking for more hot new wellness trends, check out these ‘wellness-boosting changes you can try today’.
