5 Bath Accessories That Benefit Your Health

A warm bath at the end of a long day can do wonders to help relax tense muscles and bring you peace of mind, but did you know that with the right accessories it can also benefit your health? Don’t miss this essential guide to bath accessories that are good for your body and mind:

Essential Oils
The oils extracted from various plants like lavender, sandalwood, bergamot, peppermint, and rosemary, have been used homeopathically for centuries to aid all types of ailments including headaches, anxiety, and brain fog. A warm bath serves as a great carrier for an essential oil which can benefit your mental clarity and calmness. Add a few drops of your favorite essential oil straight to your bathwater, or if you are taking a shower, add a few drops to a washcloth you leave on the shower floor (the essential oil will aerosolize when hot water runs over it).

Back Scrubber
Straining to scratch and scrub hard to reach parts of your back can seem impossible and cause you to awkwardly twist and contort your body. This might do more harm than good leading to tense and inflamed low back muscles and neck pain. Using a back scrubber solves this issue by giving you an extendable loofah-like scrubby on an ergonomic handle or belt with which to rub and clean your back. Different types of scrubbers for your shower or bath can be found online or in many drugstores and grocery stores.

Dry Brush
Dry brushing prior to your shower or bath can do wonders for your appearance and health. As a type of exfoliator, a dry brush helps to slough off dead skin cells and built-up impurities on the surface of your skin that are clogging up your pores. As well, the long, upward strokes up your legs and arms towards your heart help to stimulate lymphatic drainage, boosting your immunity and encouraging the flow of lymph which helps to pull toxins out of your tissues. Experts recommend dry brushing while standing nude in the shower and then rinsing off before you take a bath to experience the best effects.

Music
Listening to soothing music while you soak in the tub can have more powerful effects on your mental well-being than you may know. Music bears a unique connection to specific parts of the brain linked to emotion and research has shown its ability to play a positive role in your health. Researchers at McGill University, for example, reviewed 400 research papers covering the neurochemistry of listening to music and discovered that it aided mood and stress management and even gave the immune system a boost.

Shower Chair
For older adults especially, easy-to-use equipment that both simplifies the bathing process and helps prevent falls is a must for staying safe and mobile. Shower chairs can provide a much needed non-slip seat on which to sit when legs feel weak or tired, grab bars help to support and stabilize you when standing or sitting in the bathtub, and non-slip tape or textured mats on the floor of the bath or shower can prevent you from slipping when the water is running or soap bubbles build up.

In addition to mental wellness and relaxation, baths offer myriad health benefits including helping to clear nasal congestion, alleviate muscle aches, cleanse and hydrate skin, and even induce sleep when taken right before bed. It’s important to remember that you want your bath water to stay between lukewarm and very warm; water that is too hot can actually increase your heart rate, make you excessively sweat, and potentially dehydrate you.

This is a guest blog entry.