Marcus Aurelius and Marcel Proust, two literary giants, mentioned ice baths in their worldwide famous works.
Today’s post (I wrote it on the 26th of November, 2023) is a curiosity. On that day, I encountered a coincidence. While my morning reading of Marcel Proust’s “In Search Of Lost Time” and Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations,” I noticed both of them mentioned taking cold baths in the works of art. Wasn’t it a coincidence? I believe it was. Moreover, later on, I went for a walk to do street photography, wearing summer clothes in frigid temperatures (it was one degree Celsius (33.8 degrees Fahrenheit). Then, a few hours after returning and warming up in my home, I took a freezing shower.
What did Marcus Aurelius mention about ice baths?
He wrote that doctors often recommend cold baths as a cure. What did Marcel Proust say about exposing one’s body to cold? One of the protagonists (I do not remember his name) was cooling his warm body after hours of walking in a freezing mountain stream. I write about all these things as a curiosity. I remember, from one of the books I read, that if the Pharaoh was ill in Ancient Egypt, he was also recommended to take an ice bath to recover. Do football players and, in general, professional sportsmen take cold showers or go to cryotherapy?
Yes, they do.
As you can see, my Dear Friend, the healing power of exposing the body to cold is not a secret knowledge known only to Ancient people. Did I mention that I started to read Marcus Aurelius’s “Meditations” within the last weeks? I read it in the Polish language. It is the second book (after Proust’s “In Search Of A Lost Time”) I started to read in my native language after five years of break. It will be the second classical ancient Stoic book I read, after Seneca the Younger’s “Dialogs.”
