Stop the presses—today is officially the best day of our lives. As longtime bath junkies, we fill our tubs will all kinds of detoxifying salts and such in order to convince ourselves that lounging around whilst submerged in water—often, a glass of wine in hand—is somehow good for our health. Well, today we feel vindicated in our justification of abject laziness, as new research shows that hot baths can be as good for you as exercise. A researcher at Loughborough University recently decided to study the health benefits of what’s called “passive heating,” (aka laying around while being heated up) by comparing the calories burned in an hour-long hot bath to those burned in an hour-long cycle. What he found was that a one-hour bath burns as many calories as a 30-minute walk, which sounds like a ringing endorsement for shunning exercise in favor of hanging out in a bubble bath to us. What’s more, peak blood sugar was lower in those who took to the tub after eating than it was in those who went for a bit of exercise, which just says to us that we should double our daily baths, and potentially even see if we can get our bosses to agree to a work-from-the-tub day once a week. Passive heating, the study finally also concluded, may help reduce inflammation—so, it’s basically like kale and exercise soaked in bubbles. We hope this news makes your plan to go home and watch Big Little Lies from the tub feel as life-affirming—we know it did so for us.
