A hot bath twice a week, the cure for depression?

A hot bath twice a week, the cure for depression?

Having a relaxing time with a hot bath would be more effective on morale than sport.

"I do not believe in baptism, the waters of the Jordan, or any of that, but I think that I feel for hot baths the same feelings that believers feel toward holy water," wrote the American author. Sylvia Plath in her novel La Cloche de Détresse. Whether it's our case or not, it seems that we should in any case revisit our opinion on the thing: the hot bath would have more positive effects than we think. According to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Freiburg and relayed in the magazine New Scientist, taking a hot bath at the end of the day would have a positive effect on the mood of depressed people, and this, more than physical activity !

A story of body heat

To arrive at these results, the researchers asked 45 people suffering from depression to have an experiment two nights a week: they had either to take a bath at 40 ° C for 30 minutes, then relax for 20 minutes in a blanket by drinking hot water, that is 40 to 45 minutes of physical exercise. After 8 weeks, they were asked to rate their well-being and the verdict was fairly clear: people who had the bath option reported feeling better than those who played sports. The reason ? The circadian rhythm, the biological rhythm of the body, tends to be disordered in depressed people. By playing on the body temperature, it can be re-adjusted and improve the quality of sleep, which is known to play heavily on the mood. So, if we have a little slack, we take a bath bomb, we light a candle and ... to us the good bath!