Hot Water: Therapeutic Benefits of Soaking

by Lorrie Klosterman and illustrations by Annie Internicola, December 31, 2010

If you’ve enjoyed a hot tub experience, you know that the relaxation and skin sensorama it induces is benefit enough. It’s also a psychological stress reducer and has healthful impacts on physiology. Lolling in a natural hot spring or a heated large tub or pool has the combined benefits of increasing body temperature and relieving gravity’s usual tug on the skeleton and tissues. Body temperature and heart rate gradually rise, but without also triggering a rise in blood pressure (as exercise does) because blood vessels dilate with the heat. As a result, blood delivery improves, bringing in nutrients and oxygen and taking away toxins from areas that may otherwise suffer sluggish flow. As the body’s natural cooling mechanism kicks in (aka sweating), pores all over the skin release moisture that carries away chemical wastes. Massaging jets of water or air further enhance all this fluid movement, and just plain feel wonderful.

Heating yourself also supports immune cell travel among your tissues and nurtures tissue repair. The combination of warmth and freedom of movement, thanks to the body’s buoyancy in a tub of water, speeds healing from injuries and surgery, improves arthritis symptoms, helps those who are obese or have restricted mobility, reduces the need for pain medication, loosens muscles before a workout or soothes them afterward, and improves sleep.

Note that hot-water soaking is not advised without first checking with a medical expert, or for the very young, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with cardiovascular or other serious illness. The intersection of hot tubs and the use of alcohol, drugs, or medications that cause drowsiness has proven fatal. And though exercising while in a tub may sound like a great workout, doing so can dangerously ratchet up body temperature and stress the heart.