Oil bath is a traditional, weekly Ayurvedic home remedy still practiced widely in South India. Oil bath is recommended to yoga students especially for the relief of back and knee pain as well as stiffness. Weekly oil bath reduces excess internal heat (pitta in Ayurvedic) particularly in the joints, liver, and skin. This heat is generated by poor lifestyle, including consumption of oily, processed, and difficult to digest foods, alcohol and tobacco, in addition to stress, air pollution and inadequate sleep. Eating an over sufficiency of healthy foods that are deemed “heating” in Ayurvedic terms, also adds to this imbalance. Excess heat can be felt in the joints as pain and stiffness and in the back, often in the lower right-hand side and hip, as a nearly debilitating pain. This heat also contributes to a short temper, burning anger, red skin, pinkish acne and redness in the eyes. When a daily ashtanga yoga practitioner still carries extra weight, especially around the middle, has difficulty with weight loss or with digestion, and has a regularly sluggish bowel, these are all signs of surplus heat.
In India, oil bath is customarily taken with castor oil which is later removed from the skin and hair with a special paste made of equal parts soapnut and Arappu powder mixed with water. Castor oil delivers the best results but is nearly impossible to remove without these powders. Castor oil can be replaced with almond oil which easily washes off with bath soap.
Daily baths in India are taken by pouring water over the head from a bucket while standing in the bath, a river, or other body of water. It is in reference to this bath that oil bath is so termed. In other words, the student is not soaking in a tub of oil; rather he or she is using oil first on the head. Oil is rubbed into the scalp drawing the heat upward through the body, where it finally exits through the crown of the head.
Yoga students are advised to take oil bath every Saturday, on their day of rest. Oil bath should be taken once a week, at the start of the morning. After oil bath, one should rest for the day and avoid the following: strong sun, cold water, yoga or heavy work of any kind. For men, tradition prescribes that oil bath be taken on Monday, Wednesday or Saturday. For women oil bath is prescribed on Tuesday or Friday; yoga students both male and female can take oil bath on the day off, Saturday. A woman should never take oil bath during menstruation rather she should take it on the fourth day (following the first three days of menses, during which time she has abstained from yoga practice). If one is not able to take oil bath on a given Saturday, he or she may take it on one of the above appropriately listed days.
Directions for Oil Bath
1. Apply ample amount of oil to your head, rubbing into the scalp and through to the ends of your hair. When using castor oil, first place the bottle in warm water to thin out the oil for easier application.
2. Leave oil on the head for the allotted time. For your first oil bath leave the oil on your head for only five minutes and the following week increase the time to ten minutes. Continue increasing weekly by five minute increments until the oil is left on the head for a full two hours (a 6 month process); this is the maximum recommendation.
Years of accumulated heat should safely be relieved in stages therefore it is essential to carefully follow the time recommendation. Inappropriately increasing the prescribed minutes may lead to a cold, vomiting, chills or diarrhea, all of which are symptoms of too much heat rising too soon.
3. Having completed your allotted time for oil on the head, now generously apply oil to the whole body. As you rub oil over your body, take time to rub and massage elbow, knee and shoulder joints, along the spine and into any areas that are chronically sore. You don’t need to apply oil to the face. This step should take an additional five to ten minutes.
4. Take a very hot shower, or bucket bath. Let the hot water run over the scalp as you massage the existing oil deeper into the crown. Continue to rub the oily skin particularly the joints and spine. This is an important step as the hot water opens pores and draws internal heat from the skin and joints. This shower may last five to fifteen minutes.
5. Apply soap and shampoo, or soapnut and Arappu powder mixture to remove oil. After turning off the shower, lather up with soap on the skin and shampoo in the hair to remove almond oil. If castor oil is used, then apply soapnut and Arappu powder mixture rubbing the paste over the whole body and through the hair and scalp. Be careful and avoid getting soapnut powder, dry or wet, in the eyes or nose, as it will cause a burning sensation. As you rub the paste over the skin, it will turn from dark to light green which indicates that the oil is being absorbed.
To make the paste, in a large bowl mix equal parts soapnut powder and Arappu powder with enough water to create a paste with a honey-like consistency. Soap nut is active in absorbing the castor oil and can make the skin feel very dry. Arappu powder leaves the skin and hair feeling soft and smooth.
6. Take a second shower or bucket bath to remove oil and lather or special paste. Take this shower at a warm, comfortable temperature and use enough soap and shampoo to remove the almond oil. If you are washing off soap nut paste and castor oil, be sure to close your eyes when rinsing your hair; you’ll probably want to follow up with shampoo. This shower lasts up to ten minutes.
You have successfully completed oil bath.
7. Wash the shower/bath area. The shower floor will be slippery, be careful. Scrub the shower area well to avoid slipping and pour a kettle of boiling water down the drain to keep it clean. If you have used soap nut paste, you may be faced with a muddy mess. Clean all surfaces and be sure to pour boiling water down the drain.
8. Rest over the next few hours, avoiding hard work, strong sun and swimming in or drinking cold water. For the daily ashtanga practitioner it is important to take a full day off, allowing the body and mind to rest and rejuvenate for the coming week of practice, study, work and family life.
If the desired results of oil bath are not felt at first, don’t give up. Continue to include this time-honored treatment in your weekly schedule and be confident in the radiant health benefits it bestows.
You can find the ingredients here…