You might not consider Texas as a hotspot for well being and wellness. Indeed, the state as a complete is extra usually recognized for its oil fields and cattle farming than a well being resort vacation spot. But Mineral Wells, Texas was designated the official Wellness Capital of Texas by state legislators in 2023. The small town outdoors Dallas earned the excellence for one most important motive: its one-of-a-kind mineral waters.
Yes, in this homey north Texas town exists a pure anomaly: 9 underground wells with spectacular mineral content material. But it’s not simply any outdated spring water packed filled with macro and micronutrients like calcium, selenium, and magnesium that makes the water right here distinctive. On the opposite, it’s additionally the one mineral water in Texas that’s appropriate for each ingesting and bathing and it’s full of goodness.
One-of-a-kind vacation spot
Sure, throughout the nation and world wide there are mineral wells and pure springs brimming with vitamins, however most locations that tout their therapeutic and/or healthful waters solely provide it in one type: for bathing or ingesting.
Not so in Mineral Wells, where the water that will get pumped from the underground wells is prepared for soaking and imbibing proper from the supply (after fundamental carbon and sediment filtration, in fact). And it’s been used for each for the reason that late 1800’s when early settlers started digging wells and virtually instantly realized the water’s well being potential.
In reality, many new residents began bottling companies and started promoting the water shortly after settling down. The just one that also exists at present is Crazy Water, previously Famous Water. In 1913, residents opened a water bar, which continues to be positioned contained in the town’s Crazy Water Hotel, to promote hydration by the glass. Doctors even prescribed bottles of the stuff to ailing sufferers, usually a combination of water from the assorted wells that boast totally different mineral contents.
As a end result, in the early 1900s as much as the Nineteen Sixties, the realm grew to become often called the place “Where America drinks its way to health.” A slogan not far off-base given the well-researched advantages of mineral water—whether or not you select to soak or sip.
Minerals for well being
According to consultants, together with Dustin Strong, licensed holistic nutritionist and licensed utilized scientific nutritionist, the advantages of mineral water are sometimes understated. After all, most of those vitamins are mandatory for well being and survival, together with calcium and magnesium, that are considerable in the waters in Mineral Wells.
“Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the human body. We need calcium for nearly every physiological function,” Strong explains. “It’s so profoundly involved in all the biochemical functions in the body.” Magnesium takes an in depth second. But the water additionally comprises manganese, zinc, potassium and bicarbonate, amongst different minerals, all of which the physique must perform at peak efficiency.
After all, mineral water in one type or one other has been proven to cut back nervousness, enhance gastrointestinal perform, enhance sleep high quality, and far more. And since most of those vitamins will not be produced naturally by the physique, they should be consumed.
Drink to your well being
So why not simply wash down a vitamin complement with a glass of standard water? Strong says these dietary supplements usually declare to provide your entire every day necessities for mandatory minerals, however they’re usually in non-bioavailable kinds, which suggests your physique has to work means tougher to interrupt them down. When you drink these minerals, nonetheless, your physique can shuttle them off to mandatory organs and operations instantly.
Likewise, the minerals discovered in water are vastly extra bioavailable (i.e. usable) by the physique than the identical minerals discovered in meals, Strong says. The extraction of minerals from meals requires ample abdomen acid, which many individuals don’t have a ample provide of on account of consuming whereas careworn or low zinc ranges, he explains. Getting calcium from water means lack of sufficient abdomen acid isn’t a limiting issue and the physique can actually drink the nutrient up (through ingestion or soaking).
And whereas different mineral waters may do the trick, the focus of minerals in the water in Mineral Wells is impressively excessive. It would take 4 or extra bottles of most bottled spring water, even those with increased mineral content material, to get the identical dietary worth as one bottle of Crazy Water. To be a mineral water, you must have a complete dissolved solids (TDS) over 250 mg/liter. According to Rose Jordan, co-owner of Crazy Water, the Crazy Water #3 that’s bottled and used for bathing has a TDS of 900-1100 mg/liter.
Fortunately, in Mineral Wells you can order sodas, espresso, tea, or simply plain water on the Crazy Water Coffee and Water Bar contained in the Crazy Water Hotel or pay to fill bottles or jugs contained in the Famous Water Pavilion. They’ll even ship bottles throughout the nation.
Soak it up
But ingesting isn’t the one method to usher vitamins into your system. In reality, research have proven bathing in the identical stuff can additionally enhance general well being and wellness with the additional benefit of easing pores and skin circumstances.
That’s as a result of some minerals can take in transdermally, Strong explains. As in, your pores and skin can pull vitamins from its environment if you’re soaking in water. Your pores and skin is, in spite of everything, your largest organ. Why you may contemplate soaking in addition to ingesting is that in bathing, transdermal absorption means vitamins can be found to the physique domestically and can be absorbed precisely where they’re wanted. Think psoriasis flare-ups, rashes, or minor bacterial infections.
That’s as a result of when you devour vitamins through meals and water, Strong says, these minerals get pushed to your very important organs to energy mandatory bodily operations first. Your coronary heart, mind, liver, and so forth. get first dibs as a result of they’re chargeable for preserving you alive. But any points in your extremities or much less very important areas like pores and skin or cramping calves solely get what’s leftover—if there may be something leftover. So soaking means pores and skin circumstances like eczema, even your intestine microbiome, get first dibs on the therapeutic powers of the water, however can additionally enhance temper and immune perform.
Want to strive it? In Mineral Wells you can take pleasure in a soak at Crazy Water Bath House and Spa where micro bubbles in the bathtub assist open up pores for higher mineral absorption. In 2025, the Crazy Water Hotel may even provide spa providers together with mineral water soaks.
Meaning whether or not you select to sip or soak, you can nonetheless drink (and bathe) your method to a lift of minerals in this Texas town.