Did you know that opting for this soothing activity every day could lower your risk of getting heart diseases?
| Mar 27, 2020, 11:24 IST
Now that you have so much time on your hands (since we're all in lockdown), how have you been utilising all that time? Are you opting for new hobbies or cooking a new recipe? Or are you just laying around in your pyjamas all day? Well, while you're welcome to do all this, why not add one more activity to your list and go have a warm bath? A new study has found that having a warm bath on a daily basis might just be associated with lowering your risk of developing heart diseases or getting a stroke.
This is because when you soak in warm water or you take a warm shower it can help reduce your blood pressure and this, in turn, can help reduce heart disease risk. The study also found that this works well only if you take a warm bath every day as opposed to once or twice a week. Bathing has already been associated with better sleep quality and better health in general in the past but now researchers wanted to see if it had any benefits for heart health.
“We found that frequent tub bathing was significantly associated with a lower risk of hypertension, suggesting that a beneficial effect of tub bathing on risk of [cardiovascular disease] may in part be due to a reduced risk of developing hypertension,” researchers said. The researchers conducted a really long-term study on about 43,000 participants from 1990-2009.
The study also showed that taking a warm bath daily helped reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 28% and reduced the risk of stroke by 26%. “There can be no doubt about the potential dangers of bathing in hot water, and the occurrence of death from this increases with age, as well as with the temperature of the water,” Dr. Andrew Felix Burden wrote.
He added, “Investigations into the potential cardiovascular benefit of heat-free immersion in warm to hot water are needed,” he says. “In the meanwhile, caution is needed because of the higher mortality associated with such bathing in an unselected population.”
This is because when you soak in warm water or you take a warm shower it can help reduce your blood pressure and this, in turn, can help reduce heart disease risk. The study also found that this works well only if you take a warm bath every day as opposed to once or twice a week. Bathing has already been associated with better sleep quality and better health in general in the past but now researchers wanted to see if it had any benefits for heart health.
“We found that frequent tub bathing was significantly associated with a lower risk of hypertension, suggesting that a beneficial effect of tub bathing on risk of [cardiovascular disease] may in part be due to a reduced risk of developing hypertension,” researchers said. The researchers conducted a really long-term study on about 43,000 participants from 1990-2009.
The study also showed that taking a warm bath daily helped reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 28% and reduced the risk of stroke by 26%. “There can be no doubt about the potential dangers of bathing in hot water, and the occurrence of death from this increases with age, as well as with the temperature of the water,” Dr. Andrew Felix Burden wrote.
He added, “Investigations into the potential cardiovascular benefit of heat-free immersion in warm to hot water are needed,” he says. “In the meanwhile, caution is needed because of the higher mortality associated with such bathing in an unselected population.”