Things To Do In The Bath for a Long, Calm Soak

Some nights we sink into the tub and the day follows us in: the inbox, the dishes, the thing someone said at 3 p.m. Having a few things to do in the bath gives our hands and eyes somewhere calm to go, so the soak can stretch from as little as 15 minutes to an hour or longer. Here are six that work in a tub, from a book and a playlist to finger crochet, a tray snack, a five minute list for tomorrow and hand shadows on the wall, with what research says about each kind of activity.

Why things to do in the bath matter

A bath is leisure time, and leisure has been measured in real time. In a 2015 study in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 115 adults reported on their mood and stress six times a day for three days. When they were doing something they counted as leisure, they reported more positive mood, more interest and less stress than when they weren't.

Making things counts too. In a 13-day diary study in the Journal of Positive Psychology, 658 young adults logged how much time they spent on creative activities each day. On the day after they'd spent more time than usual being creative, they felt more enthusiastic and reported more flourishing.

So the list below sticks to calm activities that keep the hands or eyes busy and survive steam. The tub sets the rules: one hand is often damp, there's no table, and anything dropped either sinks or soaks through.

Read something on paper or a waterproof screen

Reading is the classic of all things to do in the bath, and the easiest way to make a soak run long, since a chapter rarely ends on time. For screens, the number to look for is an IPX8 rating. Kobo lists its Clara BW e-reader as waterproof for up to 60 minutes in up to 2 meters of water, which is far deeper than any tub.

Paperbacks need a dry hand and a dry place to land. A small towel over the tub edge handles the first, and a tray handles the second. Our guide to reading in the bath covers library books, steam and what to do when one goes under.

Put on a playlist picked for winding down

Music asks nothing of our hands at all. In a 2015 study from the University of Marburg, 55 university students rated their stress four times a day across a normal week and an exam week. Listening to music went with lower stress ratings, and the drop was biggest when they said they'd put music on to relax.

So it helps to pick the playlist for that reason before getting in. A long playlist also works as a clock that never tells us to get out. The speaker runs on battery and sits on a shelf or the sink counter, well away from the water, and the phone stays dry too.

Make something small with our hands

Small handcrafts are the hobby version of things to do in the bath. Three that suit a tray:

• Finger crochet. No hook, just yarn looped over the fingers into a chain. Yarn doesn't mind a damp hand, and a chain can stop mid-row.
• Bracelets. Big beads on stretch cord, worked in a shallow dish so nothing rolls into the water.
• Air dry clay. A small lump on a board makes a ring dish or a bead. The rinse water is the catch. Ceramics Monthly warns against rinsing clay-covered hands or tools in a sink connected to household plumbing, because the particles settle in the drain pipe and clog it over time. Clay stays on the board, hands get wiped on a cloth, and nothing clay goes down the tub drain.

Write tomorrow's to-do list

This one takes five minutes, a pencil and a notepad. In a 2018 study from Baylor University, 57 young adults spent five minutes writing before lights out in a sleep lab. Half wrote a to-do list for the next few days, half wrote about tasks they'd already finished. The to-do list group fell asleep significantly faster, and the more specific their lists, the faster they fell asleep.

A notepad on the tray, five minutes on tomorrow, then the pad goes face down and the rest of the soak belongs to us.

Eat and drink from a tray

A snack in the tub has its own rules: one hand, no crumbs, nothing that melts in a warm room, and no glass that can fall into the water. A bath tray that spans the tub keeps it all within reach. For ideas, our pieces on what to eat in the bath and what to drink in the bath go through what holds up in steam.

Throw hand shadows on the wall

Hand shadows need one hand, one light and a pale wall, and a bathroom usually has all three. Light travels in straight lines, so the shadow is bigger than the hand by one ratio: bulb-to-wall distance divided by bulb-to-hand distance. With the light 2 meters from the wall and the hand 1 meter from the light, the shadow is twice hand size. Move the hand to half a meter from the light and it's four times. The University of Kentucky's physics course sets this up as an exercise on how shadow size depends on the light source, the object and the surface.

Sharp or blurry edges come from the bulb. A big frosted shade casts a wide fuzzy fringe, which the University of Illinois Physics Van calls the penumbra, around the dark core, the umbra. The fringe is roughly the width of the glowing part times hand-to-wall distance divided by bulb-to-hand distance. A 20 centimeter dome with the hand halfway blurs the outline by about 20 centimeters. A small lamp with a 1 centimeter bulb blurs it by about one, and the rabbit gets its ears back.

For shapes, Henry Bursill's Hand Shadows to be Thrown upon the Wall, published in 1859, is free in full on Project Gutenberg. Most of its plates use two hands, so in the tub we stick to one-hand shapes: a duck with the thumb as the lower bill, a rabbit with two fingers up as ears, and a snail with a loose fist as the shell.

Making the bath a habit

Every activity here does the same job, giving the soak a reason to keep going. We're Flewd, and we make stresscare soaks for exactly these long nights in the tub, when there's a chapter to finish and a playlist with an hour left on it. Each sealed pouch goes under the running tap, carrying concentrated magnesium chloride alongside nootropics, aminos and vitamins, so one pouch is the whole setup.

Baths that come back night after night have their own research. Researchers in Shizuoka, Japan, surveyed 6,000 adults about their bathing habits, and the ones who bathed in a tub daily, through every season, more often reported being happy and getting enough rest and sleep. For a whole evening built around the tub, see our spa night at home.

Questions we get asked

What are the best things to do in the bath?

Ones that work with a damp hand and nothing to set down: reading on an IPX8 e-reader or a paperback over a towel, a playlist, small handcrafts on a tray, a five minute to-do list, a tray snack and hand shadows.

How long should the bath be?

As little as 15 minutes, and as long as we like after that. Thirty minutes, an hour or longer all count, and a little hot water topped up now and then keeps it warm.

Can air dry clay go down the drain?

No. Ceramics Monthly warns that clay particles settle in household drain pipes and clog them. Wipe hands and tools on a cloth and keep the clay on a board.

Is a warm bath okay for everyone?

Anyone who's pregnant, taking medication or managing a health condition should check with a doctor before starting a new soaking routine.

Related

• A spa night at home
• Bathroom lighting ideas
• What to drink in the bath