Some bath salts turn you into a zombie.
And some keep you from being one come tomorrow morning… by giving you a great rest tonight.
Today we’re gonna bring back to that relaxing meaning – for the sake of sleep.
(And this sexy retro Suvari still to keep your attention for the next 30 to 45 seconds):
“Deep tubtime thoughts: never shave in salt bath lest you emerge looking like the surface of a basketball.”
But instead’a snorting or smoking or whatever it is you do with the other substance, we’re gonna drug up with the safe kind – by absorbing it into our skin. (Which we won’t be gnawing off later because – despite the same names – it’s not the same thing as the synthetic drug kind in which our infamous Southerly cannibal dabbled.) In fact, this’s all stuff you can buy right off your local supermarket shelves. The ingredients? Morton’s natch epsom salts, baking soda, and you. Super simple. And, to be honest, I’ve heard of this before. However, what I’ve never asked is: how? How do these things I’m meant mix in that giant oval cauldron my body goes in… help me fall asleep? Is it a placebo effect? Confirmation bias because I wasted money on this so it better work? Wait… is this actually heroin in here and you guys just lied to me?
The truth is, there’s actually a science to this slumber stew you simmer in.
For one, the epsom salts work ’cause they’ve got magnesium sulphate in ’em. To those of you cocking your head to the sides confused-dog style, magnesium’s good for bad nights because it’s a natural muscle relaxer. What it does it usher calcium from your muscles, back to the blood, and let it move elsewhere. It also helps regulate glucose metabolism. All of which are vital in allowing for muscle relaxation. And, while that explanache alone may’ve put you to sleep (win-win – right?), the reason any’a that matters is because relaxing muscle tension means your body gets to turn on the “relaxation response”. (Yes, that’s a thing. And, yes, we need that toggled on for power-down time.) And why’s the blood-sugar management stuff matter? Because otherwise your hormones’ll go cray while you’re comatose, making you do things like wake in a daze at 3 A.M. on a Saturday, thinking you’re late for work, and rushing out the door with a Louboutin on the left foot and a Puma on the right.
Great… but how about the baking soda? What the fizz does that do?
This one’s a brilliant yes-and to mix with Morton’s because it’s also a doozy for snooze time. How? Because it “supplements the body with extra CO2 to be absorbed”, as one blogger puts it. See, while you’re sleeping, the flesh satchel you live in regulates your carbon dioxide levels and drives ’em higher. Especially during that deep REM sleep when all your body’s building blocks get on the grind to undo your daily destruction of them. (Thankless bastards that we are.) It’s like a nocturnal santa’s workshop of somatic mending in there – all happening while you’re zonked. Cellular repairs initiate. Stem cells multiply. And that magical damage control factory all runs on CO2. The idea, I suppose, is to kickstart this process via baking soda. Which leads some to ask: why not just eat it? And, yes, you can do that. Indeed, everyone has their own way of adding in the baking soda component. Some prefer to mix it with water. Some people prefer to mix it with vinegar. Some prefer sponging it up in a tub.
As for me?
The latter in a bath with chammomile and epsom… seems far more relaxing than ingestion. Or foaming at the mouth.
I mean, if I wanted to do that instead’a nap…. I’d just take the other kinda bath salts.