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Love taking hot baths? You might be a little lonely, study suggests.
Your shower and bathing preferences may reveal more about you than just your grooming habits. Scientists at Yale University suggest that people who take frequent long, warm showers or baths tend to be lonelier than folks who spend less time bathing and like cooler water.
Researchers suspect that the physical warmth of a shower or bath provides people with a substitute for a lack of social warmth, or coldness, in their lives.
In one study, 51 college students were asked to complete surveys about their lifestyle habits and levels of loneliness. Undergrads who felt more socially excluded said they lingered longer in a shower or bath and preferred warmer water temperatures. (There were three questions about bathing habits: How often do you take a bath? What temperature water do you use? How much time do you spend in the bath? All had scale-like answers, plus other questions about lifestyle habits so participants wouldn't know bathing was the topic of interest to the researchers.)
The effect was sizeable: The degree to which students felt lonely accounted for nearly 25 percent of the variation in their bathing frequency.
(Author's note: Maybe it was just my college dorm shower experiences, but I'm amazed the students had much hot water at all for luxuriating. On a good day, I felt lucky for a lukewarm spray rather a cold trickle. Yale must have Ivy League plumbing.)
Because this first study looked at mostly younger college-age adults, researchers wanted to see if they would find similar results in an older group of people outside the university setting (translation: more private-home bathrooms, fewer sharing the shower). So they repeated the same surveys in 41 men and women ages 19 to 65. Although they didn't observe a link between loneliness and bathing frequency, they did find that lonelier participants favored warmer water temperatures.
The scientists speculate that physical warmth, such as a shower or bath, is a form of self-therapy to restore social warmth when we're feeling isolated. They view loneliness as a form of "social coldness" that can be somewhat relieved by applying physical warmth.
Of course, we compensate for social coldness by restoring the missing warmth in other ways that don't involve getting wet. As an antidote to loneliness, we may down a shot of whiskey, cradle a cup of coffee, or toss on an old ratty sweatshirt from that U with the rinky-dink plumbing.
Although the researchers found evidence that people don't consciously seek out physical warmth as a stand-in for social warmth, they suggest it's a good replacement for it -- and that it temporarily soothes emotional distress.
"It appears that the 'coldness' of loneliness or rejection can be treated somewhat successfully through the application of physical warmth," write the study authors.
What works for you when you're feeling lonely?
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Leave a Comment:
I love a good, hot bath and I think I take more than the average person. Although I don't consider myself to be lonely, bathing does provide comfort after a bad day and calm after a stressful day. It's just one of my favorite ways to relax. It IS personal therapy, but not (in my opinion) for loneliness. Unless I've been lonely my whole life despite a supportive family, close friends, and a husband. I do think it could help with loneliness but I don't think that's the only thing bathing soothes. It's just a nice way to unwind.
I love hot baths and hot showers (hate drinking hot liquid). I would not say I'm lonely I just run alot and my muscles hurt. A bath is a great way to relax and destress. Alot of my baths included my bf after a long run. I think maybe the link is more between unwinding and baths. Maybe lonely people are more stressed out. As for temperature I think that is just what feels best and if your skin is sensitive or not.
This entire article is bogus. I've not read anything so absurd in a very long time. I only hope there's no one out there who is buying any of this.
This is, unfortunately, one more example of how our news leaders lack investigative abilities. Instead of uncovering corruption, investigating leaders, following paper trails, we now have fluff reports on fluff.
You are aware that it's a choice to read these articles, yes? It's simple to avoid the fluff, D Gerrow, rather than read it and complain, gripe and criticise.
One grows weary of those who complain endlessly about this type of article. Don't read the blasted thing, and quityerbitchin!
I use a hot (temperature: 110-115 degrees) bath when I'm having chest pains or a bad migraines. There is something about sinking down into the hot water so my chest is completely covered seems to ease the pain. When I do take a hot bath, I tend to stay in there until the water gets cold, or the wife panics and comes in to get me up.
Bobby! Please don't drown in the bathtub!
My legs are long enough that drowning in the bathtub is close to impossible. My knees don't bend too well anymore since I hit 54 and the multiple injuries I did to my knees makes them lock into place once they reach certain angles. My wife knows this as she has helped me "unlock" them numerous times in the past, but she still panics even after 25 years of marriage.
Well I'm lonely and I NEVER bathe, so clearly there's no correlation.
lol maybe bathing is just what you need to cure that lonely feeling :)
Or shower people just like to be cleaner. After living in Japan, the thought of a Western style bath, where one sits in water and actually washes in it so that the water gets full of one's body filth just grosses me out!
I was in Japan, many moons ago, and was totally impressed with the size of the bathtub in the hotel room. It was square but half the size of the western tub and maybe a smidge small than that. Way cool, to say the least, and space saving. You couldn't lie down in it - hence, no soaking in the grossness.
Cari,
You really didn't need to insert a personal aside to let everyone know you went to Yale. One thing they obviously didn't teach you was that good reporting mandates an invisible writer. Try a refresher course at a community college.
Maybe you should follow your own advice about a refresher course. The author didn't say she went to Yale, she said she felt lucky to get a lukewarm spray where she attended, and people at Yale have hot water so the plumbing there must be good. Can nobody read any more??
Reading comprehension skills are down, it's true.
The study that was conducted by John A. Bargh and Idit Shalev at Yale University is available on the web at
The study that was conducted by John A. Bargh and Idit Shalev at Yale University is available on the web
at
The study that was conducted by John A. Bargh and Idit Shalev at Yale University is available on the web
"The subtitutabilty of physical and social warmth in daily life", Emotion, in press.
I wonder how much money was wasted on this useless study.
I hope my tax dollars went toward it. I'm glad to learn something new rather than sit in the waste of ignorance and stupidity.
They forgot to mention that people were bringing devices into these showers/baths and this was the real cure of their "loneliness" ;)
Really, is this how some scientists earn their paycheck? Is this kind of information beneficial to human kind?
No, dear, the scientists earn their paychecks by teaching at the college. Research and publishing the results is how they get tenure. Tenure is how they keep their jobs.
You haven't been to college, have you?
Yes I have been to college, I have a 4 year degree in business. You don't need to be so condescending, all I'm saying is that this kind of study is a waste of money and has no value.
Mix an abstraction such as loneliness with measurables such as water temperature and time, and you have - nothing.
I thought they were going to say a long hot bath....and a razor blade.
And in a related story above this one on the MSNBC homepage, we are told why our toes and fingers wrinkle up when they get wet.
The body is an antenna attuned to that which is in the atmosphere. We are covered with organisms, bombarded by ethereal particles, vibrated with electromagnetic forces, the sum total thereof provides a quietness of spirit that embraces and heals the soul bringing peace. It is no small wonder that if we regress in the service of the ego the simplicity of a bath(essentially recreating the fecund mystery of wholeness that antedates earthly life) will provide you with a peace to heal depression.
I take a hot bath before going dancing, (and after..)
A roomful of happy people and accidental excercise helps with loneliness and blues.