Why You Should Be Taking A Bath: It Is Great For You

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Baths are not mentioned widely and often as they should be. It is wonderful for you in various ways and can be an elegant way to spend some of your time. Taking a bath doesn’t need to mean spending long hours, and instead, you can consider the time you take as your break time. Additionally, you may not know, but some people even put taking baths to their daily or weekly routines, and you can imagine that there is some reason why they do. 

There are numerous types of baths you can take, and some of these could have even been influenced by various bath traditions around the world, such as Korea, Russia, Japan, and Finland. They can also provide different benefits that can better fit your needs if you choose to partake in baths for more personal reasons. However, you don’t need to feel limited to only taking a specific type of bath and change around according to what you want, unless there is a particular reason why you shouldn’t take a certain type of bath, such as hot or ice baths.  

You might have noticed that some people use shower and bath interchangeably, but the terms are not the same and have some distinctive differences that should be acknowledged. The most distinct difference is that shower uses a spray of water to wash and get clean while being under it, standing or even sitting, depending on your situation. 

While the bath is when you immerse your body or even yourself in a substance for a particular purpose, this could include getting cleaned or for another effect such as container filled with the water or even aromatised water bath to help you get better sleep. Also, there are more ways to take a bath than going for a shower which comes in different forms and types of baths that people can enjoy or take for the beneficial effects that come from them. 

More similar variances between shower and bath can include that they can both involve water, but generally, bath uses more water. Also, baths tend to take longer than a shower because most baths involve you staying in the bath some time to get its benefits more effectively. Baths can be more comfortable than showers, and showers involve continuous water usage until you finish, whereas if baths involve water, you usually fill the container once.

Taking baths provides multiple benefits, and these benefits can differ depending on the type of bath you plan to take. As there are pretty many bath variances, let’s discuss general benefits of taking a bath and also some of the most common types of baths, which usually involve ice or cold water and warm or hot water and their benefits:

• Baths Can Burn Calories

There have been implications that taking a bath can burn calories, and some people do implement regular bathing in daily routines for weight loss purposes. Both ice and hot baths have been known to burn calories. Although they might not be comparable to intense cardio exercises aimed to burn lots of calories, they do both have their way of burning some level of calories. 

You might have noticed the significant difference between hot and ice baths are their temperature, and that is how calories are burnt, using temperature to work your body. For instance, a hot bath increases your temperature, leading your body to a more challenging time maintaining the appropriate temperature. Therefore, your body produces a protein called heat shock protein which speeds your body’s function to burn calories. Before taking a hot bath, you should learn some heal-related complications such as dizziness or fatigue and find the right hotness for yourself. You should consult a medical professional if you plan to put the hot bath in your daily routines. 

Whereas cold baths such as ice baths can trigger brown adipose fat and muscles, leading to two proteins called FGF21 and irisin, which work to burn white fats that store calories. However, you should be careful as you can get adverse conditions such as hypothermia if you don’t manage properly when taking cold and ice baths. Everyone is different, and what works for another person can affect you differently. Therefore, you should have a professional discussion with your medical practitioner if you are planning to take ice baths more often as well.

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• Can Provide You With Range Of Health Benefits

Taking a bath can provide you with significant health benefits, such as your muscle and heart. Some of the heart health benefits can be associated with how you breathe in a heat-induced area. When you take a warm or hot bath, the temperature of water and pressure on your body can increase oxygen intake or even lung capacity. 

Also, spending some time in a passive heating environment can reduce the risk of having heart conditions such as stroke or heart attack, lower blood pressure and improve blood sugar control. Furthermore, having a hot bath can help with blood circulation and the nervous system to be calm and help with intense pain. Additionally, being in a hot bath can loosen the muscles, and being in water can act as low impact workout to reduce the discomfort of your body parts such as joints, muscles, and tissues.

Cold or ice baths provide practical benefits as well. Ice baths can help muscle recovery by reducing swelling, inflammation, and aching. Furthermore, ice baths help you to develop your breathing. They can also help reduce the effects of heat and humidity, such as heatstroke, by lowering your core body temperature.

• Help You Sooth Irritated Skin

You can create a bath that helps you soothe some of your skin conditions, such as irritated, itchy, and dry skin. Although hot baths can dry your skin, that does not mean you cannot adjust a bath to have beneficial effects instead. This can mean changing the temperature of your bath and adding small amounts of items that can help bring out more beneficial effects depending on your needs. If you are interested in learning more ways to improve your skin, you can check here.

You can use warm water to start the bath preparation and add substances such as a small number of essential oils which can create a variance of beneficial effects depending on which you use. For instance, you can use oatmeal that has hydration effects for dry skin and calming effects for irritated skin. You can go simple and add single ingredients to get the most from the healing bath you have created, as sometimes adding less can be better. 

After all, you can bathe another time with other ingredients. It might be better to focus on skin conditions you have now and adjust as you go, especially if you haven’t taken baths with substances in them. Also, another option might be to get bath bombs or bath salts to try if you want that could provide good properties to your bath. 

• Improve Your Mood

Taking a bath gives you an excellent environment to take things slow and easy. Bathing puts you in a spot that has a combination of comfort, alone time, and quietness. Additionally, being in water allow you to feel relaxed, both your mind and body. You can make further adjustments to suit your needs and what makes you feel most relaxing. To not feel pressured, you can try to save a particular time for the bath time so you can focus on relaxing while having a bath only. 

The adjustments can be as broad and simple as you want. Think about what you do when you are isolated and having a break, such as putting music on, face mask, and having cold water to drink.

Also, changing the temperature depending on your mood, warm water can be great, but as you might know now, there are some benefits that hot or cold baths bring. After all, it is the time for you to relax, and you probably know what makes you feel comfortable the most. 

• Prepare You For Better Sleep 

Sleeping is one of the most important things for us, and as a recommendation, you should be getting between 7 to 9 hours of sleep. Taking a bath can help you prepare for better sleep. A cold bath can be great to take as having a lower core body temperature can make you sleep. However, it was found that having a warm bath before sleeping can provide you with similar effects. 

The reason for inducing sleep for temperature changes is that when body temperatures drop at night, the body produces a hormone called melatonin, which makes you sleep. Although a cold bath can reduce body temperature quickly, a warm bath can raise body temperature. Still, after you leave the bath, your body temperature drops rapidly, which activates your body to produce melatonin. 

Furthermore, you can add ingredients to help you sleep, such as lavender oil. Aromatherapy can provide positive benefits, and depending on what you add, and the benefits can change. Lavender oil has excellent benefits, such as reducing anxiety and stress, which help you relax when you sleep. You can take a bath a few hours, 1-2 hours before going to sleep as you see fit. 

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• Assist You With Relieving Cold And Flu Symptoms 

Some of the cold and flu symptoms include bad coughing and nasal congestion, which is linked to inflammation of your nasal passageways. When you take hot baths, the steam can allow blood to move to your face area and loosen your nose blockage. 

For preventative measures, note that taking a cold bath could increase your body’s immune system, which helps you be stronger against illness. Some of these reasons are that taking a cold bath strengthens you from stress. Stress can be related to the immune system as cortisol gets produced when you get stressed, which can occupy your body’s function to produce immune cells. 

• Help You Feel More Awake

Oppositely to helping you sleep, taking a bath can help you feel more awake. If you take a hot bath, you can activate your body’s function to sweat from the temperature rise, making you feel invigorated. However, hot and warm baths don’t disrupt your ability to sleep if you are tired and ready to sleep. Whereas taking a cold bath can stimulate the hormones that make you feel good and awake and energised.

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The simple way to prepare for a bath depends on how you may approach it. You can take a shower first and have a pure water bath. Fill a bathtub with water that you want, and depending on what bath you want, such as ice, cold, warm, and hot bath, you would adjust accordingly. You can add extra ice for an ice bath, and for a cold, warm, and hot bath, fill the bathtub enough to immerse your body. 

You can add essential oil, bath bombs, and salts depending on what effects you want, but if you haven’t used these products before and are not a regular person who bath, you should read the possible impacts of using and taking a bath in a certain way. A recommended time for your baths can be soaking for 10-15 minutes, and you can adjust after taking multiple baths to how you want. Also, when you are trying to add taking a bath to your daily routine, you should consult your medical practitioner, especially if it is hot and ice baths you want to add. 

You should really consider taking baths sometimes as it provides multiple benefits. It is excellent and gives you time to relax, depending on what you do and how you feel, a nice addition to your routine. Whether you work out often, need the extra help to sleep, or need time for yourself and a relaxing environment, making time for a bath can be a fantastic option.

There are so many ways to take a bath, ice, cold, warm, and hot water baths that can be great in their way. Also, you can add extra things such as essential oil, bath bombs, and salts to make bathing more exciting and have more benefits. Although taking baths can be wonderful. Remember to consult with your medical practitioner if you plan to put baths into your daily routine and increase the amount you take baths, especially if you are thinking of taking hot, ice baths or have personal concerns.