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How Wearing Wet Socks to Bed Benefits Your Immune System

Two people wearing Vessi crew socks on their bed.

 

Most people think that conventional medicine is the only way to improve health and quality of life. However, a more holistic approach would tell us otherwise. You can fight off diseases, boost health, and get better sleep using a natural method called the wet sock treatment.

As the name suggests, it involves wearing cold, wet socks when going to bed. It might sound like speculation, but here's why you should give it a try. Plus, if you need a quality pair of socks to use for wet sock therapy, visit Vessi.com and get value for your money and enjoy better health.

Let's get started,

What Exactly Does Wet Sock Treatment Do?

This might come as a surprise, but wearing wet socks to bed can improve your health in several ways. The main goal of the wet sock treatment is to increase blood circulation while decreasing congestion in the upper respiratory passages, head, and throat.

This creates a relaxing effect that, according to many, helps them sleep much better. Wearing cold, wet socks has also been seen to provide pain relief and enhance the body's healing responses during infection. The best time to start the wet sock treatment is on the first day of an illness and ideally repeating it for three nights in a row.

Nevertheless, if you have a compromised immune system or a chronic illness, you should first consult with your doctor before starting the wet sock treatment.

You can try wearing cold socks to bed to alleviate symptoms such as sore throat, throat infections, neck pain, migraines, headaches, ear infections, nasal congestion, upper respiratory infections, coughs, sinus infections, and bronchitis.

How To Perform the Wet Sock Treatment

Things You'll Need

  • A pair of thin cotton socks that reach the mid-calf level
  • A pair of thick wool socks that come up to mid-calf level
  • A bowl of ice-cold water
  • A towel
  • A warm foot bath

Steps:

  1. Start by taking a pair of cotton socks and place them in cold water until they soak completely. Ensure you wring the socks out thoroughly to prevent them from dripping. As an alternative, you could place the wet thin socks in the freezer after wringing them.
  2. Then, warm up your feet because performing the treatment could be harmful if your feet are ice cold. Place your feet in warm water for about 5-10 minutes and use the dry towel to dry off your feet once you're done.
  3. Wear cold, wet cotton socks on your feet and cover them with thick wool socks.
  4. Go directly to bed to avoid getting chilled. Keep the cold, wet socks on through the night, and you'll wake up with dry socks in the morning.
  5. If your body reacts well to the treatment and the symptoms alleviate, you can stop wearing wet socks to bed. However, if symptoms persist, proceed with the treatment for three nights consecutively.

If you wake up and the socks are still damp or cold;

  • You should warm your feet a bit more before wearing the pair of cold socks
  • The socks might be too thick, and you should use thinner ones
  • The socks were too wet because you didn't wring them out completely
  • Your immune system is weak, which means you shouldn't proceed with the treatment
  • you could be experiencing increased chills which you can counter by bundling up your blankets

Side-Effects of the Wet Sock Treatment

  • Increased night sweating due to the rise in body temperature. If you wake up sweating in the middle of the night, you can change your pajamas and wear dry ones.
  • Fever above 104 F. If your oral temperature is 100 F or higher, don't start the wet sock treatment.
  • Intense burning or freezing sensation for people with neuropathy
  • An asthmatic attack from exposure to the cold or an improved immune system for asthmatics.
  • Fever in pregnant women
  • Cachexia in those with a weak immune system

What Can Wearing Wet Socks to Bed Do for You?

1. Improved Immunity

After putting on wet socks overnight, the blood vessels in your feet shrink because of the cooling effect of the cold socks. This causes your body to send nutrients to your vital organs and tissues, which stimulates healing since these nutrients are necessary for fighting off infections.

Your feet will then start to warm up, and your blood vessels will dilate. As this happens, your body will start to move unwanted substances into the bloodstream to eliminate them. In other words, wearing cold socks to bed creates a pumping system inside your body that enhances circulation and lymphatic flow. This causes enhancement of your immune system while decreasing congestion in the upper respiratory passages, head, and throat.

2. Dispelling the Common Cold

When you improve your immune response after wearing cold socks overnight, your body will be in a better position to fight against the pathogens responsible for the common cold. So, if you feel like you are at the onset of a cold, it'll be best to start the wet sock treatment immediately.

3. Improving Sleep Quality

If you've been having trouble falling asleep, one of the natural ways of enhancing the overall quality of your sleep is wearing wet socks to bed. This is because the treatment will stimulate circulation, which will, in turn, cause a sedative effect that will help you sleep.

This relaxing effect will ensure that you won't be tossing and turning the whole night as you wait for sleep. As such, you'll fall asleep much faster and wake up in the morning feeling well-rested and refreshed.

4. Curing a Hangover

After drinking too much much the previous night, most people wake up to the regrettable effects of excessive alcohol consumption. Some of these effects include headaches, dehydration, nausea, and more. One of the easiest ways to counteract these consequences is putting on pair of wet socks as you sleep. It'll solve most of the immediate discomforts and give you a much better rest so that you wake up feeling better than you would.

5. Pain Relief

It can be excruciating to endure pain without any medicine to alleviate it. Fortunately, medication isn't the only solution to relieving pain. With wet sock therapy, you can stimulate and facilitate a faster pain relief response.

As the increased circulation improves the delivery of oxygen and nutrients from your blood cells, you will trigger the healing effect, which will cause a reduction in the degree of pain you are experiencing. So, if you are looking for a natural way to alleviate pain, there you have it; wet sock treatment is the answer.

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