Hot Baths

Aajonus was emphatic that immersion in hot water is the only practical method for raising the body's internal temperature high enough to melt lymphatic congestion. When the body is surrounded by air, whether in a sauna, steam room, or during vigorous exercise, it has approximately 10 to 12 inches of buffer space and can cool itself effectively. A marathon runner or hard-exercising athlete will reach a body temperature of perhaps 100.8 to 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit at most. That temperature is insufficient to melt the hydrogenated oils hardened in the lymphatic system. He noted that in an herbivore, vegetable oils remain fluid at 101 to 105 degrees because herbivores maintain higher internal temperatures. The human body needs to be brought to at least 102 to 105 degrees internally to begin this process, and water immersion is what makes that possible, because water provides less than an inch of buffer and the body cannot cool itself efficiently against it.

Saunas operate at 137 to 168 degrees Fahrenheit, and infrared saunas at 137 to 152 degrees. He rejected these as actively harmful: temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit destroy vitamins and enzymes in the skin, lungs, sinuses, ears, eyes, and brain. Steam baths reach 165 to 212 degrees and burn mucous membranes throughout the respiratory tract and sinuses, turning them to scar tissue. He was equally dismissive of the idea that a trampoline or lymphatic massage could move hardened lymphatic congestion: jumping on a trampoline moves fluid blood effectively, but hardened lymphatic fat does not respond to mechanical movement any more than a cold stick of butter would begin flowing if you bounced the jar it was sitting in.

Aajonus distinguished two different bath protocols serving two different purposes, and he made clear that confusing them or doing only one without the other could cause problems.

The first type is the long lymphatic bath, intended to melt congestion deep within the lymphatic glands, nodes, and circulatory vessels of the lymphatic system. This bath lasts 60 to 90 minutes, with the temperature maintained between 102 and 105 degrees Fahrenheit. He explained that it takes approximately 45 to 50 minutes of soaking before the body heats deeply enough to begin affecting the lymphatic glands. After 45 to 50 minutes, only the surface layers begin to melt. The remaining 30 to 40 minutes of the bath accomplish the actual melting of the congestion in the deeper lymphatic structures. He compared this to putting a cold, refrigerator-temperature stick of butter inside a two-cup glass jar surrounded by 105-degree heat: it takes 40 minutes before the butter even begins to melt at all, because the cold butter is still radiating coldness outward while the heat works inward. Getting to the deepest lymphatic glands requires the full 90 minutes. A 45-minute bath, he said flatly, does not move the lymphatic system at depth. It only affects lymphatic waste that is already sitting just under the skin in the connective tissue.

The second type is the short lymphatic waste bath, which runs 35 to 40 minutes at 105 to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. This bath does not attempt to melt deep lymphatic congestion. Its purpose is to perspire out of the connective tissue and skin the lymphatic waste that the long bath has melted and dumped there. After the long bath softens and mobilizes lymphatic congestion from the glands and nodes, that material moves into the connective tissue. It must be removed from the connective tissue before the next long bath adds more, or the connective tissue itself becomes congested. Aajonus traced that buildup to the development of lupus and MS, which he described as disintegration of the connective tissue.

The correct protocol he developed is two long lymphatic baths per week, never fewer than three days apart, combined with short 35 to 40-minute baths on the other days to perspire out the connective tissue waste. He said that when he first wrote about lymphatic baths in We Want To Live, he had not yet identified the short bath as a necessary complement, and he later added it after observing roughly one in twenty people developing connective tissue congestion from doing long baths alone too frequently. He gave the example of a man who felt so well after three months of doing long baths daily that he started an international company and worked 16 hours a day. When Aajonus found out the man had been doing long baths every single day for three and a half months, he told him to stop and reduce to two per week with short baths on the other days.

A notable discrepancy existed in the temperature recommendations across different printings of his book and across different seminar statements, and Aajonus addressed it directly.

In many printings of We Want To Live, the maximum temperature cited for lymphatic baths was listed as 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Aajonus acknowledged this in a newsletter, saying the 110-degree figure was a typo in many printings, and that while 110 degrees will melt hardened fats in lymph, skin, and surrounding tissues more quickly and perspire them out through the skin, it may destroy enzymes and vitamins in the skin and connective tissues. He also noted that at 110 degrees most people become too exhausted to take the recommended slow walk after bathing.

His revised recommendation, stated in newsletters and workshops, was to keep long lymphatic baths no lower than 102 degrees Fahrenheit and no higher than 106 degrees Fahrenheit, with 103 to 105 as his preferred range. For the short lymphatic waste baths he gave a slightly higher range of 105 to 108 degrees, with 108 described as acceptable and still within safe limits. He stated in multiple workshop contexts that beyond 110 degrees you begin damaging the skin, and he confirmed that 110 is the absolute upper limit. In one Q&A he said simply: "110 is wonderful if you can take it. Beyond 110 you damage your skin."

In one workshop context he described a bathtub scenario where someone might fill with scalding water reaching 111 degrees, noting this would leave 20 to 25 minutes before the temperature dropped to 102, and while that would work to clean lymphatic waste in the connective tissue and under the skin, it would not be as effective or efficient as holding a steady 105 in a hot tub for the full duration.

The hot tub was his consistently preferred instrument for taking lymphatic baths because it can hold a precise constant temperature for the entire duration, whereas a bathtub requires adding scalding water every 15 to 20 minutes to maintain heat. He suggested letting out about 2 inches of cooled water and replacing it with scalding hot water every 15 to 20 minutes to keep the bathtub within the target range.

For the long lymphatic bath, Aajonus specified a formula to be consumed at a particular time relative to entering the bath. The purpose of this formula is to prevent the melted lymphatic congestion from re-hardening as the body cools after the bath. When the body returns to its normal temperature of 98.6 degrees, the liquefied lymphatic material will re-solidify unless something in the system keeps it fluid and moving.

The formula from We Want To Live consists of one quarter to one cup of unripe pineapple, 3 to 6 tablespoons of coconut cream, 1 to 3 tablespoons of unsalted raw butter, and 1 to 2 tablespoons of raw dairy cream, blended together. The ingredients should be measured in equal proportions within the suggested ranges. He originally instructed that this mixture be consumed immediately upon entering the bathtub or just before getting in. He later amended this, saying he found it better to have the pineapple mixture at the afternoon fruit meal or sipped throughout the day as part of the sport formula, rather than taken immediately upon entering the bath.

He was explicit that the pineapple formula is only for the long bath, not the short 35 to 40-minute waste baths. The short baths are only removing waste already sitting just under the skin, and it will perspire out on its own without the anti-hardening support of the formula. For the long bath, the formula circulates through the digestive tract and into the body during the soaking period so that as the melted lymphatic material begins to move, the substances in the formula prevent it from re-congealing when body temperature normalizes.

When doing long baths only twice a week, the pineapple-coconut cream mixture should be consumed on those bath days. When taking baths daily as part of the combined long and short protocol, pineapple every other day is sufficient.

After exiting either type of bath, Aajonus recommended applying 2 to 3 tablespoons of coconut cream to the skin, coating the body as it dries. He described coconut cream in the bath water and on the skin as keeping the skin moist and preventing the dryness that normally results from extended heat exposure.

Exiting the bath should be done slowly, over approximately 10 minutes, because perspiration continues after leaving the water. He recommended sitting on a toilet seat or another chair in the bathroom, patting dry rather than rubbing, for about 10 minutes to allow this continued perspiration to complete without the toxins resting back on the skin.

After the bath, he instructed people to bundle warmly and rest. He described a protocol from a Q&A document in which, after leaving the bath, a person should go to a prepared resting area with warm food materials kept in a cooler near the bed or floor, including a hot water bottle at approximately 110 degrees to maintain the temperature of the food and formulas. The post-bath formula described in that document involved mixing lemon juice, vinegar, and oils into a warm 16-ounce jar after leaving the tub, while seated on the floor or bed. The slow walk after bathing was also mentioned as important, particularly in the context of helping the melted material continue moving through the system before the body cools.

If using municipal tap water rather than well water, Aajonus consistently specified that neutralizing additives must be placed in the bath water before entering, because municipal water is full of toxins and chlorine compounds that will be absorbed through the hot, open pores of the skin during a long soak. He described experiencing jitteriness and hyperactivity within six minutes of being in untreated municipal bath water.

His standard formula for the bath water itself, given across multiple workshops, was approximately 1 to 1.5 cups of raw milk, 3 tablespoons of raw apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons of sea salt, and a couple tablespoons of coconut cream. He also mentioned clay as an option. Epsom salt was described as acceptable and he noted it is a mined salt. Sea salt was mentioned alongside Epsom salt as interchangeable. The milk, vinegar, sea salt, and coconut cream serve to bind and neutralize the chlorine and other toxins in the water so they are not absorbed into the skin. He also noted that these substances attach to the toxins coming out of the skin as perspiration, capturing them so they do not linger on the skin surface and damage it.

For well water, he said a small amount of milk or coconut cream is sufficient, mainly just to keep the skin from drying out, since the well water does not carry municipal chemical toxins.

The full specifications for water additives are given in We Want To Live under the health modalities section, under baths.

One of the practical obstacles Aajonus addressed extensively was the brain's resistance to heat. He explained that the brain dislikes becoming hot, and many people feel they cannot tolerate the bath after 10 to 15 minutes because their brain begins overheating. The body's signal to exit is strong and uncomfortable. He offered a specific solution.

He recommended bringing a bowl of cold water with ice cubes into the bathroom and using it to cool the top of the head. He also mentioned cold ice packs worn like a yarmulke. By applying cold to the head, the brain receives cooling while the rest of the body continues soaking at the bath temperature. He acknowledged a paradox in this: the brain dislikes both heat and cold, and if the cold pack becomes too cold the brain will also protest. He suggested putting a pad on top of the cold pack if it becomes too cold, finding a middle ground. He also described breathing slowly and deeply as a method of cooling the system when the brain becomes too hot. For people with high blood pressure, he recommended doing this cooling intervention more frequently, every two to three minutes if necessary, rather than every five minutes.

Aajonus gave specific cautions about people who are very thin. He stated that thin people should not take the 90-minute long lymphatic baths. They should only take the 40-minute baths until they have gained sufficient weight, specifying approximately 25 additional pounds before attempting the long protocol. His reasoning was that people who are severely underweight do not have sufficient fat reserves to safely buffer the detoxification that the long baths mobilize. When the lymphatic system begins dumping large volumes of stored toxins into the connective tissue, the body needs fat to manage that load safely.

He also issued a general warning that people should put on weight before starting the lymphatic baths if they are very thin, stating this clearly in the context of a husband and wife team who began the baths alongside starting the Primal Diet.

Aajonus gave several detailed examples from his clinical experience to illustrate the potential of lymphatic baths.

A 69-year-old man with prostate cancer, a failing thyroid gland, and a body that had been heavily medicated came to Aajonus after refusing to continue pharmaceutical treatment. He was chronically fatigued, retired, and described as doing nothing except resting. He began the diet, then started hot baths about a year later. After three months of doing the bath protocol, he felt well enough to start an international stem cell company and began working 16-hour days. He was in his 70s at that point. Aajonus described this as the key that got his lymphatic system moving, and this case was the occasion on which Aajonus discovered the problem of doing the long baths too frequently, when he learned the man had been doing them daily for three and a half months.

A woman with rheumatoid arthritis and a hole in a joint described as not the size of a hardball had that hole disappear within one year of hot baths for extended periods. The same woman eventually was able to shuffle and handle playing cards three months before the workshop, with only slight residual swelling in the joints of the hands.

His sister was given a hot tub specifically for lymphatic bath purposes, and he described the hot tub's advantage of maintaining precise constant temperature as making it dramatically more efficient than a bathtub.

Aajonus also described his own experience when traveling extensively while lecturing and not taking sufficient hot baths to support his lymphatic system. He used seven hot water bottles during sleep as an alternative, filling each with hot water, placing each inside a flannel pillowcase, and arranging them at specific locations: between the calves, between the thighs, at each hip, in each armpit, and one at the left side. He spread three beach towels beneath him to absorb the profuse perspiration. He specified that he did not use electrical heating devices because they emit what he described as enormous harmful electromagnetic fields.

A question was submitted about a person whose iridology showed frozen lymphatics, a death circle, and thick skin, who had been taking baths for 10 months. Aajonus acknowledged this person's situation and indicated that the combination of an extreme toxic load and thick, blocked skin required additional support beyond the baths themselves. He prescribed a topical application of 3 ounces of raw butter, 3 ounces of bone marrow, and 2 ounces of pineapple juice (squeezed by hand) rubbed into the skin every other day, to unblock the skin's ability to perspire heavier compounds through it, to be used in conjunction with the hot baths. He also addressed a question about using natural hot springs multiple times a day for a week as a substitute or boost for those who could not afford a hot tub, and he confirmed that spending a week at a hot springs, bathing often throughout each day, would help boost the lymphatic system and skin.

He described experiments he conducted by taking amputated limbs and placing them in warm water at various temperatures to observe melting rates. He found that placing a lymphatic gland in warm water alone caused it to dissolve faster than an hour and a half, but when the gland was inside the tissue of an arm immersed in the water, it took 60 minutes for the heat to penetrate to the deepest lymphatic gland and then another 30 minutes at that same temperature to begin melting the hydrogenated vegetable oil within it. This was the empirical basis for his 90-minute recommendation.

When a hot tub or bathtub was not available, Aajonus described sleeping with approximately seven hot water bottles as a practical alternative. He filled each bottle, wrapped it in a flannel pillowcase, and placed them at specific body locations: between the calves, between the thighs, at each hip, in each armpit, and one additional location. He placed three beach towels underneath to absorb perspiration. He noted the disadvantage of this method compared to a bath: the bath continuously washes the toxic substances off the skin as they perspire out, while the hot water bottles simply induce perspiration that sits on the skin or is absorbed by towels. Wearing cotton or silk underwear was suggested as a way to absorb the toxins emerging from the skin during hot water bottle sessions so they do not remain on the skin surface, age it, and damage cells.

He also described applying hot water bottles to swollen areas to provide localized lymphatic support, such as through much of the night at a painful site, at 102 to 104 degrees for long periods. He noted that repeatedly applying heat in this way is necessary because toxic fats from cooked oils have hardened and clogged lymphatic and sweat glands, and it can take years of repeated heat applications at these temperatures to melt them.

In response to a direct question about whether hot baths would help open bronchial tubes that were either collapsed or filled with old mucus, Aajonus said the baths would help remove lymphatic waste and congestion throughout the body so that the body can clean itself more efficiently. He specified that hot water bottles applied to the upper chest would provide more targeted assistance for bronchial-specific issues. He did not claim the baths would directly open the bronchial tubes but placed the effect in the broader context of improving overall lymphatic function and systemic detoxification capacity.

Aajonus connected the necessity of lymphatic bath therapy directly to cancer prevention and reversal. He stated that cancer always occurs when the lymphatic system is not fed the fats it needs to make the biological solvents necessary to dissolve dead cells, and when the lymphatic system and skin are blocked and malnourished. The natural resolution of cancer, in his framework, requires getting the lymphatic system properly fed and working. He described eating cheese and taking hot baths for the rest of one's life as potentially paramount to maintenance and recovery in cases where stored toxins are extreme, such as conditions involving granulomas, which he described as indicating the body is in an extreme toxic condition.

He also addressed cancer specifically in the context of connective tissue damage from insufficient short baths alongside the long baths. Congestion building in the connective tissue that is not removed through the short baths can progress, in his view, to MS or lupus, which he described as disintegration of the connective tissue.

Beyond their role in clearing lymphatic congestion, Aajonus described hot baths as a way to modulate the pace of detoxification when the body is producing more waste than it can process. Bacterial, parasitical, and fungal activity all decrease at elevated body temperature. When detoxification produces swelling, the swelling puts pressure on nerves and causes pain. Immersion in a hot bath perspires material out, reduces the pressure, and simultaneously lowers the biological activity driving the detoxification. He described this as making hot baths useful not only for their long-term lymphatic benefits but also as an immediate tool for managing pain and excessive detoxification symptoms.

He was consistent across workshops that long lymphatic baths should be done two times per week, never closer together than three days. This spacing allows the connective tissue to be cleared between long baths. The short 35 to 40-minute baths should be done on the other days, giving the connective tissue two to three days to perspire out the material dumped there by the long bath before the next long bath mobilizes more. He described this cycle as keeping the detoxification process moving continuously and safely.

He also noted that once a person's skin begins perspiring properly and the surface lymphatic waste is cleared, as indicated by having only a thin, clean layer of fat just under the skin with visible veins, the person can progress into deeper lymphatic work. For women, a quarter inch of fat under the skin is appropriate and normal; for men, even less. More than this, or variation in thickness across different areas of the body, indicates stored lymphatic waste in those areas.

In one workshop Aajonus referenced a diagram showing the lymphatic network in the breast area, noting 11 lymph glands visible in that region, with additional concentrations in the armpits, neck, and along the sides of the face near the ears. He noted that this simplified diagram magnified thousands of times would reveal a web network of blood, neurological, and lymphatic connections everywhere throughout the body. He presented this in the context of explaining why the baths must be so long: the toxicity must melt through all the layers of connective tissue to reach the skin and exit through the pores, and the physical distance and density of that tissue is what makes the duration necessary.

Aajonus used iridology as a diagnostic method for assessing the state of the lymphatic system, noting that an iridologist can observe caking in the lymphatic system as it appears in the iris. Frozen lymphatics, a death circle, and thick skin were terms he used in correspondence to describe a severely congested lymphatic situation visible in the iris. He used these observations to assess whether baths of the previous 10 months had helped or whether additional support such as the topical butter-marrow-pineapple application was needed.