Jan 2012 Remember when you were a kid and your mum used to make hot water bottles for you on winter’s nights? You’d go up to bed and the hot water bottles would have warmed the mattress and the duvet and you’d snuggle up inside and drift off to sleep.
No reason why you can’t have that feeling just because you’ve gone and grown up, is there? Hot water bottles are one of life’s forgotten pleasures, it seems, with central heating all but obviating the need for them. Plus, frankly, the pace of life these days is just a little too hectic to think about pampering yourself with hot water bottles before you collapse and get your eight hours.
Well, it’s time to bring the pampering back. We’re told often enough that taking a little “me” time out of every day is essential for managing stress levels: what could be more like “you” time and less stressful than filling a couple of hot water bottles and shoving them into an invitingly clean bed? Filling your hot water bottles becomes a soothing end of day ritual. Your bed, beautifully warmed by the hot water bottles, becomes something to look forward to – a haven rather than a place to pass out.
Ever slipped into a winter’s bed and curled up into as tight a ball as possible to try and generate warmth with your own body heat? Hot water bottles say forget that, come stretch out like a starfish in your blissfully ambient sheets while all the other poor suckers cower miserably under the covers and wait for everything to warm up. What about the old “my body’s warm but my feet are freezing” scenario? With hot water bottles, no more. Forget going to bed in socks or shocking your partner into a decline by trying to park your shivering extremities under their legs. Hot water bottles are the answer.
Hot water bottles don’t just warm beds, either. Any woman’ll tell you that hot water bottles are the simplest palliative for period pains. Hot water bottles work for reasonably major muscle pain, too: the heat from the hot water bottles softens the damaged tissue, which allows it to stretch back to its proper shape. Once the muscle is warm, blood can flow through it freely – it’s the flow of blood that carries the oxygen the tissue needs to fuel its repair. Lower back pain can be eased by hot water bottles – just place one under the lumbar region and feel the ache seeping out – and hot water bottles can also provide relief from joint pain. Wherever there’s an ache, hot water bottles can help.
