What is a hay bath?
The hay bath is probably the most rural of all classic wellness treatments: you lie, embedded up to the neck, in moist, slightly fermenting mountain hay whose own warmth heats the body slowly and thoroughly. The tradition comes from South Tyrol — according to legend from farmers who spent the night in the hay after the mowing and woke astonishingly refreshed. In the 20th century the observation became a cure treatment with a hay-bath tradition of its own, for instance around Fiè allo Sciliar.
How the treatment works
Alpine hay from high-lying, unfertilised mountain meadows is used — rich in herbs and grasses together with their essential oils. The moistened hay begins to ferment and develops temperatures of around 40 °C and more; in this fragrant warmth you lie for 15 to 25 minutes, followed by a rest wrapped up warm. The sweating is intense, the herbal scent does its part — many describe the hay bath as the most relaxing form of sweating there is.
Effect
The moist fermentation warmth works like a mild overheating bath: muscles and circulation are worked through, and the essential oils of the mountain herbs are added via skin and breath. Traditionally the hay bath is used for tension and for general regeneration — hay-fever sufferers, by contrast, should avoid it or clarify with a doctor beforehand whether the treatment suits them.
The hay bath in a spa hotel
The full form with fermenting hay is run above all by South Tyrolean houses with a hay-bath tradition of their own; more widespread are hay-flower treatments — compresses and wraps with hay-flower sachets, as the Kneipp tradition also knows them. Related in spirit are hay saunas, as the ANIMA wellness world of the Vitalhotel Dosses in Val Gardena stages them in its mountain-farmhouse sauna.
