Hot tubs are the ultimate home relaxation product, and can provide their lucky owners with hours of joy and indulgence.  Hot tubs are often also called spa baths, and provide a link with the traditional spas which have been used in human society since prehistoric times.  While manufactured personal spa bath products are fairly new in human society, natural hot springs have been used for millenia as a way to induce relaxation, heal physical ills, and achieve spiritual purification.  Today, many spa products are still used in medical facilities for rehabilitation, arthritis, and a number of skin conditions.  However, with so many people today suffering from stress and its related effects, it is their use as a simple relaxation device that is perhaps their most important function.

There are more people today conscious of health related issues than there have ever been before.  As obesity rates and other preventable illnesses grow in western society, there is a definite backlash of awareness around the areas relating to health and fitness.  Relaxation practices are one particular area of healthcare that people are becoming more conscious of all the time, as work hours increase and stress rates rise all over the developed world.  Bathing in hot tubs is one of the best ways to quickly relax both body and mind, and can be done in dedicated health and fitness centres, or in home environments.  More and more people are finding it possible to install a spa bath in their own bathrooms or gardens, where they are able to enjoy the benefits of relaxation whenever they desire.

Balneotherapy is a term that refers to the treatment of disease by bathing, a practice that has taken place since prehistoric times.  Hot and cold natural springs were visited in an attempt to cure ailments and attain spiritual balance and purification.  Evidence of the ritual purification by water can be found in Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions.  The fact that all five of the major world religions had such practices shows just how special and universal water treatment has been in the history of humankind.  The native Americans, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks all also used water to achieve physical and spiritual purification.  While the average hot tub bather of today may be less concerned with attaining spiritual enlightenment, the relaxation purposes of modern spa baths are still related to these ancient practices.

Along with the more specialised treatment of certain physical ailments in dedicated medical institutions, hot tubs are widely used to combat stress and achieve relaxation.  Physical, emotional and mental stress have all been noted to be the precursors to many other more acute health conditions, meaning that the use of spas and hot tubs play an important health related role in the modern world.