Do you still run baths for yourself from time to time? They take time to prepare, consume a lot of water and not all houses have bath tubs to begin with. Which is probably why is all the more reason to make running a bath special and maximise their benefit every single time.
Most of the articles I read about activities for the time when you are enjoying a soak are for children, so as to make provide an incentive for them to bathe and make the experience enjoyable overall.
However, as an adult, running a bath is about more than just washing yourself clean. I feel it comes with both physical and mental benefits if you allow it to. Here are some ways to make the most benefits from taking a bath.
Let it be a time for self awareness.
I highly recommend taking this approach. I will explain why. Yes, you can read a book, have a drink, make a call, listen to music or a combination of those things. But doing less can can help you derive the maximum benefit from your time spent in the bath tub. Basically, do what makes you more aware of your time in the bath, rather than takes your mind off it. Go for a more immersive experience, so as to speak. )
Its a great time to focus on yourself.
And by that I do not mean think about all the things that are going on with work or other activities. Instead, focus on the feel of the water on your body. Be aware of your breathing. Let it slow down. If you are playing music to relax, try and make it as soft as possible so that it almost fades away from conscious awareness. Focus on the wonder of your being, your creation and your presence. On the mysteriousness and miraculousness of water you are submerged in that is essentially made up off exactly the same atoms as you are.
Think about that. As basic building blocks go, there is no difference between the atoms that make water and make you. That is a pretty wondrous thought.
Learn a few breathing exercises.
I highly recommend learning some breath work. There are plenty of breathing exercises that you can learn, all with different or the same benefits, depending on how you look at it. I sometimes like to think of breath work as a workout that one can do anywhere, without any special equipment. If you read about the benefits it offers, breath work sounds pretty amazing including anxiety, stress, pain relief, and relief from various ailments like asthma, allergies and others.
There are different places where you can pick up some breath work training from. There are video tutorials, books and real life classes. In fact depending on where you are, you will find entire programmes and trainers dedicated to teaching breath work. Yoga is popular all over the world today and breath work is an elemental part of it.
Any kind of meditation programme will also inevitably focus on breathing a lot. In fact, I would like to recommend a couple of books that I read that I found very enlightening and interesting. But this is another topic altogether and I will pick it up in more detail in another post.
The point here is that breath-work is a prefect activity for one when you are soaking in a bath. It allows you to focus on your immersive experience and boosts the healing potential for this time spent many fold.
Make it like the sea.
Speaking of healing, there is are many cited instances where some yoga teacher or trainer, also sometimes referred to as Gurus, have healed people from various ailments with just water and salt.
I remember reading somewhere about an Indian yoga practitioner and a president of the United States, where the practitioner cured the gentleman of some debilitating issue with his knees using a bath and some salt, during his stay in the same hotel. Apparently he got a green card for his troubles on the recommendation of the president himself. However, I cannot vouch for the veracity of this story.
The point however remains valid. This is the reason bath salts exist. But most people who have heard of bath salts might not be aware of how deep this healing practise can go. So once again, benefits of bath salts is a much larger topic, but I suggest you look into it a little more and allow the combination of salts and a bath benefit you in a myriad of ways.
I have heard it can work surprisingly well with rheumatism and arthritis as well as other similar ailments. Heat therapy is a stalwart of all kinds of physiotherapy although physios tend to use machines that generates deep heat such as infrared and ultrasound that heats up the tissue inside rather than the surface heat that hot water and heating pads tend to provide.
Essential oils and aromatherapy.
This is similar to using bath salts. You are using essential oils and aromatherapy to enhance the healing properties of a bath. I should mention here that benefits from both salts and essential oils are purportedly better derived from a warm bath. So keep that in mind.
Aromatherapy is also touted to be powerfully healing from those who practise it. Although it should be remembered that this is a holistic healing practise and hence gentle and slow.
And also, suggesting all these methods is in keeping with maximising the bath experience itself. The more you make it count, the more take away from it. Meaning that the physical and mental benefits of having taken a bath stay with you stronger and longer.
For example, if you are doing it to relax and get a better night’s sleep, then making it a simpler experience rather than a very busy one will probably work better. If you want to have a glass of wine, it will probably be better to that once you are out of the bath. That way you can add one experience on to another rather than mishmash them together.
Meditate.
Many people have the wrong idea about meditation and they aren’t to blame for it. It is a commonly propagated idea that mediation is about making your mind blank. No thoughts. That is one of the reasons why so many people get dissuaded with the prospect.
However, being meditative is not about blanking out. It has more to do with focus. Focus on something you are doing, as long as that focussed thinking is not a source of stress. Therefore, activities like listening to music, painting, nature watching, observing objects with wonder are all meditative activities.
For some people, their work is akin to mediation because they happen to enjoy it that much and tend to get completely engrossed with it. These can be people in any field of work i.e. musicians, artists, scientists, inventors, engineers, businessmen etc.
Focusing on your experience in the bath can also be a kind of a meditative process.
Get It Right- Entrée et Sortie
Remember to fill the bath tub with the right amount and right temperature of water. Usually about half full works and tepid works. Water is buoyant. So if you over fill the tub, two things will happen. The level will rise with your body submerged in it. The other thing will be that with more water you will feel more unseated and being ‘bouncy’ in the tub leading to the need to frequently adjusting your position.
It is also safer to have low water levels when in a bath tub.
Set a timer. Do not doze off. And get out before you start feeling cold and your skin starts to shrivel like a fig.
Go ahead and share your thoughts and ideas on a perfect bath in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you, as always.
It’s almost that time of the year as I write this. So, season’s greeting, joyeux noël et une bonne année a tout le monde!
