While soaking in a warm bath sounds nice, not all of us are blessed with a bathtub at home. Fortunately, showers can also be just as soothing. Apart from cleansing your skin and making you smell better, showers can also relax your body and decrease stress. A few simple tweaks and additions are all you need to make this routine more calming and rejuvenating.
Here are a few shower tips that can help decrease your stress and anxiety:
Relax your muscles with a steamy shower
One main benefit of hot showers is that they help with muscle relaxation. The heat from the water warms your muscles and relaxes your nerves. This can then soothe muscle fatigue and relieve body tensions. Taking a hot shower can also make you feel calm and reduce your stress levels after a long day. Get help from a plumbing or heating company to make sure that your water heater is in good working order.
Other benefits of a hot shower include:
- Improves sleep
- Offers relief from cold or respiratory symptoms
- Improves blood flow to joints and muscles
- Helps improve brain health
Take the plunge with a cold shower
Although a hot shower feels nice, having a cold rinse boasts a lot of advantages too. It can improve circulation throughout the body and help you start the day. There is also the benefit of boosting endorphins (happy hormones), which then result in feeling less pain and fewer side effects of stress. A clinical trial also suggested that taking a cold shower for 5 minutes once or twice daily helps relieve symptoms of depression.
Other benefits of a cold shower include:
- Supports metabolism
- Calms itchy skin
- Helps decrease inflammation and swelling
- Boosts energy
- Improves skin and hair
- Make a shower playlist
Listening to music can lighten your mood and help boost your exercise performance. You can bring the benefits of music to your bathroom by playing relaxing songs while you shower or take a bath. Fine-tune a playlist ahead of time, so you’ll always be ready to hit play once you hop in the shower. There are also practical reasons for doing so. Bathrooms have good acoustics, so your favorite tunes sound much better there.
Make it more relaxing with essential oils
Adding essential oils to your bath or shower can help improve your mood and promote relaxation. This is especially true for calming scents such as lavender, chamomile, frankincense, and citrus oils. You can set up a diffuser in the bathroom if you have one, or create DIY oil steam. All you have to do is put about 10 to 15 drops of oil onto the cloth or pad and place it on the shower floor. Just make sure that the water is not directing hitting the oils.
Update your shower head
You can customize your experience by upgrading or replacing your shower head. This can be installed easily or with a little help from a plumbing and heating company. You can go with a handheld shower head with massage options or a shower spray with multiple spray patterns. An overhead one that boasts a full spray can also be a good choice if you want a rain-like spray for your body. A rain shower head can also be installed for hydro-therapeutic purposes.
Lather up with a soothing body wash
A good body wash or gel lets you enjoy relaxing scents as you clean your body. You can also create a luxurious shower experience, especially when using luxurious products or those with a gentle formula or moisturizing ingredients. A body wash is also better for your skin than soaps, as it is more hydrating. Many of them are also scented with calming scents like lavender to calm your mind and relieve stress.
Make your shower more relaxing with the tips mentioned above. You can also choose to remodel your bathroom and add a frameless shower door or a bathtub if that fits your budget.
