The Native Americans had sweat lodge ceremonies that were meant to provide healing and cleansing for the mind, body and spirit. If this practice had been limited to just one tribe or even just the Native Americans you might be able to discount its effects out of hand. However there are recorded similar ceremonies among the South Americans, the aborigines, the Asians, Africans and Europeans.

One concept behind the sweat lodge ceremony is the belief that breathing in the moisture helped to clear your head and sweating helped to remove toxins from the body. When Native Americans had illness or disease such as a cold, they would typically enter the sweat lodge for a little while and then run and jump into a river, lake, or the ocean.

Studies have shown that their beliefs were not unfounded and are still useful in the modern world. Clearing toxins from the body by causing the pores to open up through heat, then sweating to extrude the sediment from the body and closing the pores once again - makes good scientific sense!

There are some people who think of new age beliefs when they hear the words ?holistic health?. Some people think of ancient magic. Still others understand what it actually is. Holistic health is simply a belief that to actually heal any one problem, or any one part of the body, that you have to work on healing the entire body. This is neither ancient magic nor a new age belief.

There are beliefs that go back farther then written history and they come from all over the world. It is not something that only came from a certain area or a certain part of the world. There are healing practices based on what is known as holistic health from every region of the world. Every group of people from every part of the world for as far back as we know, has practiced the healing arts of holistic health.

Doctors and scientists, as well as medical researchers have verified that sweating is a natural form of healing. When you sweat what you are actually doing is releasing toxins from all over your body. They have also found that breathing warm condensation releases mucus buildup, promotes synapse response in the brain, releases neurotoxins, opens up the lungs and loosens up the muscles.

Furthermore, running from the heat to the cold and back again stimulates the disease fighting systems of the body. This simple yet effective healing process is a form of holistic health, because it cleanses the whole body and therefore it has a much greater effect on a single problem.