A hot bath helps overcome feelings of loneliness. Psychologists from Yale University came to such an unexpected conclusion.
A warm bath is nice to warm up on cold days – but it also helps those who suffer from a lack of friendly communication. Yale University psychologists John Bargh and Idit Shalev asked participants in an experiment to record their mood before and after bathing every day, as well as note the temperature of the prepared bath. It turned out that the more lonely and empty a person feels, the more hot a bath he wants to take and the longer he enjoys it. And he does it not in vain: after a hot bath, the feeling of loneliness among the participants really weakened! The authors suggest a special meaning in the well-known expressions “warmth at heart” or “warm feelings”: these universal bodily metaphors refer each person to his early experience, when physical warmth – a caring adult took us in his arms and pressed us to him – also meant warmth of the soul. .