Most people love the feeling of soaking in a hot tub, but did you know that using a hot tub can actually make you healthier? Hydrotherapy is the ancient idea that the temperature and pressure of water can actually improve certain parts of the body’s function. The use of hydrotherapy to treat arthritis is fairly well known, but the benefits of hydrotherapy don’t stop there and you don’t have to be sick to experience the wide variety of health benefits gained from the regular use of a hot tub.
Hydrotherapy Basics
Hydrotherapy has a very simple definition: “the use of water to treat ailments.” There are records of ancient Persian, Greek, and Roman societies bathing for health purposes. There is no one way to treat a patient with hydrotherapy. Often, the use of hot or cold water temperatures as well as the use of various water pressures is used to treat illnesses. In a common hot tub, the heated water and pressurized jets give users many of the same health benefits that a patient would experience in a medical setting.
Health Benefits
There is a documented reduction of arthritis symptoms with hydrotherapy, although the practice is somewhat controversial in the medical community due to the fact that no one can prove exactly how these health benefits are gained. However, it’s clear when using a hot tub that the pressure of a hot tub’s jets can ease common muscle pain, like a massage does. In addition, the temperature of the tub itself can have various benefits including decreased blood pressure. It has even been stated that hot tubs may help ease the symptoms of insomnia. It’s not know whether the hot tub itself or the relaxation that the hot tub makes you feel that provides most of these benefits, but either way you win. Best of all, hot tubs just feel good, and everyone loves going over to a house that has one! It may be the most fun way to treat an illness in existence.
The Bottom Line
People have been using hydrotherapy as a treatment of rheumatoid arthritis for many years despite the controversy in the medical community. There are studies that suggest that it does indeed reduce muscle pain, discomfort, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Also, the recreational use of a hot tub provides pain relief and general well-being, and is just plain fun to use. So what are you waiting for? This is the season for hot tubs, so contact a pool and spa construction company in Tucson, Arizona and talk to them about installing a hot tub today.
Cammie Channing is a health, wellness, and family writer from Tucson, Arizona. Check her out on Google Plus here.