The Portable Spa and Mind-Body Dualism
When it comes to total relaxation in style, there’s nothing like a hot tub to put you into the lap of luxury. It’s a very quick transition, where you can be in your driveway, still thinking about the thousand things left undone at work, and minutes later have your work clothes peeled off and enjoying the splendid sensation of hot water and massaging jets. Relaxation is something that people are often suspicious of these days, where the competitive workaday world tells us to keep working harder. When you have a portable spa, you have a reminder that it’s time to slow down once in awhile.
It’s not only a reminder, it’s a very practical tool. Your body develops a memory of sensations, and after a little time, it will start to have reflexes for your hot tub, and relax much quicker. Even the muscles have a memory, and they respond to repeated stimuli in repeatable patterns. The mind sometimes tries to get in the way of the muscles, and it might feel like your back is not releasing its knots as fast one day compared to another, but if you can get out of your own way, it will do that magic. This is one of the great benefits of having your own portable spa, you can learn how to mentally relax and unwind along with your body.
There has been a long debate in philosophical circles about the connection between the mind and the body, and it’s one of the central points of contention in Western thought. Descartes was the one who made the famous dictum, Cogito ergo sum, which translates roughly to I think therefore I am. This poses the idea that the mind is what determines our being, but there is a lot of contention about this idea. In circles of philosophy, the arguments are quite complex, but in other circles, especially when it comes to holistic medicine in non-western cultures, there is the suggestion that the body and the mind are not separate, but absolutely influence each other. There is some discussion too about this notion that the body can influence the mind. The body might know how to relax more quickly, and in the case of hot tubs, if the body relaxes, the mind often follows.