SPAS

I hid it for months. When friends would ask why it took so long to get ready. I'd fake some excuse, like, "I, uh . . . had a long distance phone call." It isn't easy living with a secret like mine. Inevitably the pressure of hiding it gets to be too much and a guy cracks. Finally I came out of the closet to admit that I'd been taking nightly baths. When I tried to explain how relaxing a good hot soak can be, my buddies would stare at the ground and change the subject. Bathing is fine if you're a woman, but men just don't indulge unless they’re in a hot tub, sipping wine with a babe.

It all started quite innocently one night a few months back. I felt on edge, but there wasn't time for my usual exercise. I decided to try a hot bath. To simulate the relaxing effects of a sauna, I followed up with an ice-cold shower. Toweling off, I noticed how relaxed I felt, as if I’d hiked or bicycled strenuously.

I had discovered something women have always known, the relaxing quality of a good soak. In the good ol' U.S.A., at the end of a long hard day pounding nails in the hot sun, we men stand tall and take a shower but this division of the sexes is not universal. Cultures all over the world consider bathing a coed activity. Japanese families traditionally had large wooden indoor tubs or garden pools where they all bathed together. In Finland, where saunas were invented, government officials hold important meetings in their beloved cedar-lined sweatboxes.

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, considered water cures a basic foundation of treatment. Ancient Greek doctors commonly used hydrotherapy on patients. Romans were intense bathers who, after conquering a region, immediately turned the smelly rabble on to a good hot bath. This pleasure caught on quickly, at least until early Christians gave a "thumbs down" to such pleasures of the flesh and condemned the hedonistic public baths. Placing spiritual cleanliness first led to centuries of smelly Christians only quashed by the invention of modern plumbing.

The three therapeutic properties of "taking the waters" are heat, swiftly moving currents of water, and minerals. A hot bath's relaxing properties are heightened by the massaging action of vigorously moving water and the presence of minerals as found in natural hot springs. Water's benefits should come as no surprise, as the human body is some 90% water and two-thirds of our planet is covered with the stuff.

European spas are, for the most part, centuries-old nature retreats where people of all types and ages go to revive, but in the U.S. they're usually beauty camps for bored housewives or another name for molded plastic hot tubs.

Was it an ancient nomad who first soaked his tired feet in a hot, bubbling mineral spring and sighed with relief? Spas' origins may never be discovered, but they’ve been enjoyed for millennia. Roman public baths were large complexes supplied by elaborate aqueducts that channeled mineral waters through steam rooms and bathing pools. Citizens of Merano, Italy still enjoy a Roman spa that dates back 5,000 years.

The word “spa,” a general term for mineral baths or health center based on the therapeutic qualities of water, comes from the name of a popular Belgian resort, still enjoyed today for its baths and mineral springs.

Rest assured, men. However you take your waters, the soothing benefits of a hot bath are time-tested and proven--no matter what your buddies might think.