Stress and Bathing: How Bath Time Can Benefit Your Body and Spirit

Stress and Bathing. Do you remember the rhyme: “Scrub a dub dub, baby’s in the tub”?

Remember the joys of bath time when you were little or when your children were little, there was no stress while you were bathing. There were bubbles, and toys, and lots of giggles. Any stress just melted away during bath time.

Understanding The Relationship Between Stress and Bathing

Though a shower is quicker, easier and a whole lot simpler, with the chilly weather approaching, nothing actually sounds better than warming up in a nice hot bath. However, most of feel that we don’t have time for a leisurely bath today. If you are like me, your first thought is usually, “I don’t have time to wait for the tub to fill.” Bath time benefits your body and spirit. However, there are many benefits of Hydrotherapy.

Hydrotherapy:

Defined as the external or internal use of water in any of its forms (water, ice, steam) for health promotion or treatment of various diseases with various temperatures, pressure, duration, and site. Both the use of hot and cold water can have beneficial effects on the body, and different effects are produced depending on the temperature of water.

Relaxing in a tub increases your body temperature. When you hop out, you cool down and your brain releases melatonin, triggering sleepy time Beverly Beuermann-King Click to tweet

How Bath Time Benefits Your Mental and Physical Health

Stress and bathing. Today is the day to slow things down a bit and indulge in one of life’s simple pleasures. It is Bathtub Party Day. Aside from enjoying the bubbles, taking a bath has been found to have a multitude of benefits:

A bath can revive hormone production
Taking a bath can help to detoxify the body and keep hair and skin healthy
One study from Yale University found that though nothing compares to the comfort that a human hug brings, the warmth of a bath can lessen the feeling of loneliness and isolation
Warm baths promote better sleep by raising body temperature. After a warm bath, body temperature falls, which is a natural signal to the brain that it is time for bed
Researchers found that an hour-long bath burned approximately 140 calories, which was about the same number of calories someone would burn during a half-hour walk
Immersing all your limbs in the high heat of a bath has been found to help regulate blood sugar
Soaking in a tub for 20 minutes, can help stabilize blood pressure and contribute to overall better heart health by increasing and improving blood flow to and from the heart

More On The Relationship Between Stress and Bathing To Benefit Your Body And Spirit

Your limbs will feel less sore and more relaxed following a bath,
Studies on balneotherapy, a type of mineral bathing, show that bathing can also help you experience less mental fatigue
Steam from warm bath water can actually aid the flow of oxygen throughout your respiratory system
Studies have shown that elevating your body temperature with a hot bath can actually boost your body’s ability to fight infections and viruses
Cryotherapy or submerging in a cold bath sends an overwhelming amount of electrical impulses from peripheral nerve endings in the skin to the brain which has significant analgesic effect
Cold baths improve healing from cell damage and decrease the risk of necrosis from cancer
Bathing in warm water can increase levels of serotonin, which is the chemical produced by the brain associated with happiness and well-being

Bathing is healthy. Bath time benefits your body and spirit, so relax and enjoy Bathtub Party Day. You may set up a party for one. Or it may be an intimate party for two. Or if you have a hot tub on your back deck, it may truly be a party for your friends.

Beverly’s Tips To Building Resiliency and Celebrating Bathtub Party Day:

Turn off the phone and turn on the music
Light a few candles and turn the lights down low
Add your favourite scents to the water
Relax and let the warmth and the relaxation flood over you

And if a bathtub is not your thing, consider this. Part of the S-O-S Principle that I developed involves finding strategies that get your mind off of the stressful situations around you. These techniques may be our hobbies such as gardening or wood working or it may be activities such as karate or running. It may be downtime relaxation strategies such as deep breathing, yoga, hot shower or a hot bath. The key is to find something that works for you can be .