Work has left you frazzled. Your legs ache when you get back from the gym... don't pop those aspirin just yet. Think hot springs. Cranking up a hot tub and hopping in is a natural remedy that can provide significant relief from physical pain and stress.

There are more than three million home spas in the U.S. today. There are numerous reasons spas have made the move from the decks of Hollywood producers to the back yards of middle America. Spas help reduce the effect of stress on your body, assist in muscle recovery after the stress of exercise, and help heal muscles near arthritic joints.

There are three elements to hydrotherapy that, in tandem, provide these healing effects on the body: heat, buoyancy, and motion. When you exercise, your muscles develop thousands of microscopic tears which result in painful lactic acid build-up in the muscle tissue. Hydrotherapy's motion and warmth cause blood vessels to dilate, lowering blood pressure and speeding the flow of oxygen, endorphins, and cell-repairing nutrients to injured muscles. Additionally, buoyancy of the water reduces the strain on your knees and joints which allow the surrounding muscles to relax. This can be of crucial help to arthritis sufferers, because when joints are inflamed, the surrounding muscles become tense to protect them. Relaxing in a spa then makes your muscles more limber and reduces the pain. Water's healing potential has long been known.

We don't tend to associate intelligence with our bodies, yet as Thomas Edison said, "Great ideas originate in the muscles." Radical psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich believed that many of us inhibit or deny impulses, feelings, traumas, and stresses by tightening our muscles and creating a kind of "body armor." He felt that as you cut off the source of pain, you also cut off the source of pleasure. By loosening body armor, by letting muscles relax, you can return to a feeling of flow and creativity.

Few things can relax the body more than a home spa. And a relaxed body leads to a relaxed mind. There is no better place to start relaxing than an hour in your home hot springs.