Do the Right Thing: Take a Shower at Night
There are numerous advantages of taking a shower at night. Many of these are health benefits which you might have never realized. While personal hygiene is the main reason why many people prefer to take a shower after returning from work at night; there are other excellent reasons why you should take a warm shower before going to bed, or at least in the evening.
Dispel Bacteria, and Celebrate Fine Health
Many might cavil at the prospect of swapping the morning shower for a night one. Only those who have a very dry skin, live in a place where the water is very hard or suffer from rheumatism need to restrict themselves to taking only one shower in a day. However, taking a warm shower or soaking in a hot bath has been known to relieve arthritic pain in sufferers. When you shower in the evening, or before you retire for the day, you get rid of all the grit and bacteria you might have accumulated during the day, preventing body odor, and skin infections.
Keep your bedclothes clean too:
Going to bed clean after you’ve showered away the day’s sweat, and in fresh clothes keeps your bedsheet and pillow clean too. Since you don’t introduce allergens to the bed, you keep at bay those sniffles and red eyes. For those who can’t shower before bedtime, it is recommended that they wash their feet, and dry them well before going to bed.
Improve Your Mood
Showering freshens you up, thereby cheering you. Especially, those who are in the habit of singing while showering find the evening shower a major mood elevator. It reduces or even eliminates stress. Depending on the kind of shower you use — the rainfall showerhead, a jacuzzi, or the jet which sends out a sharp spray — showering improves blood circulation. This aids elimination of harmful toxins, while releasing the hormones which soothe, and cheer you. Your night shower helps regulate blood pressure, and heart rate, thereby improving cardiac health.
Physical Relaxation
When you rub your body during a shower, it loosens taut muscles, reducing bodily tension, and stress. The massage enables your internal organs to function properly while slowing down your metabolic rate. It can prevent cramps during sleep. The relaxed muscles ensure that you drop off to sleep faster. If you’ve been troubled by some challenges, you might be astonished by the creative solutions you think up after a sound sleep induced by the night shower. Not just your body, but your mind rejuvenates from that relaxed sleep.
Get Rid of That Nasty Acne
You would be ensuring lovely skin, and inviting everyone’s envy by showering away the excess oils, day makeup, and grit from your facial skin. The pores unclog, giving you a glowing skin. When you apply the night cream or moisturizer on a clean face, you double its efficacy, and ward off wrinkles, and look younger. You can prevent acne and pimple breakouts by keeping your skin clean. As long as you don’t use any harsh soaps, or scrubs which roughen your skin during your nightly shower; your skin will benefit. Don’t let the water get too hot though.
Protect Yourself from Allergies
Getting rid of the pollen, free radicals, pollutants, and other allergens from your body, and your hair with timely showers reduces your propensity to get adverse allergic reactions at the psychological moment. A warm shower is known to loosen the mucus in the lungs, thereby providing cough relief.
Other Benefits
You lessen your chances of catching any eye infections when you are rigorous about keeping your face clean. Further, you can improve your conjugal life by going to bed fresh and fragrant. If you swap the morning shower for the night one, you free up me-time in the morning. You can choose from sleeping a few minutes more, getting some time to read the morning newspaper before going out for the day, eating a leisure breakfast, or simply doing a spot of yoga to calm mind and body.
Originally published at www.prayagindia.com.
