The hikers, nature lovers, and health enthusiasts have come from far and wide to experience a few of the many natural hot springs scattered across the American West. By soaking in the 120+ degree waters, they’ll tap into a centuries-old wellness tradition of thermal and mineral baths and experience a list of benefits that is nothing short of, well…magic. (New Mexico’s official slogan is The Land of Enchantment, after all.)

The Jemez hot springs are just one of many ways that people can try out balneology, the practice of healing illness with mineral water.

Balneology has roots in many indigenous cultures and can be traced 5,000 years through history to the Bronze Age, where it was used by the Greeks and Romans throughout Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa. In Germany and Japan, mineral bathing remains a popular choice for the health-conscious, with millions of people visiting thermal/mineral bath spas each year.

But is it just magic?

Ok, fine—not really. There’s a lot of science behind it as well. Soaking in hot water is known to help improve skin conditions, relieve muscle tension, clear the mind, and give the immune system a boost. Researchers are finding that this is likely the result of “passive heating” provided by the bath. Passive heating occurs when the heat source is outside of the body, as opposed to active heating, when the body is generating its own heat (like breaking a sweat at the gym). This allows the body to reap all of the benefits that increased temperature has to offer, without the exertion of having to work for it.

One study on passive heating found that a 30-minute hot bath burned the same number of calories as a 30-minute walk, and that the 30-minute bath was actually more effective at regulating blood sugar levels.

When you add minerals into the mix, the promise for health benefits grows even stronger. Natural salts, calcium, iron, sulfate, and magnesium are among the minerals that can be found throughout natural hot springs and man-made spa pools. Though their exact effects are still being studied, it is well known that these minerals can make skin silky smooth. Some dermatologists believe that this also leads to healthier skin in the long term, as the minerals regulate the bacterial colonies that live on our skin surfaces and trigger acne, eczema, dryness, and other conditions.

The heat and mineral combination might even help our bodies absorb some of the minerals that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to, explaining a large body of non-clinical evidence that suggests mineral baths help to relieve muscle fatigue and speed recovery.

The great part about thermal and mineral baths is that—while spas and remote hot springs are pretty tempting—it’s pretty easy to recreate them in the comfort of your own home if you have a bath tub. Beauty brands like Pursoma offer mineral bath kits to get you started. Or, you can get creative with your own mix of minerals, maybe even adding in a few essential oils for an aromatherapy boost.

Of course, you’ll want to check with your doctor first to make sure you won’t be putting yourself at risk. And please, if you see a hot spring while you’re out hiking, don’t just assume that it’s safe to take a dip. Some hot springs, like those in the Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone, National Park, can reach a scalding 459 degrees Fahrenheit…proving that while getting hot feels great, there is definitely such a thing as too hot.

Investigators from Penn State found that when study participants woke up feeling like the day ahead would be stressful, their working memory, which helps people learn and retain information even when they’re distracted, was lower later in the day. Anticipating something stressful had a great effect on working memory regardless of actual stressful events.

The findings suggest that the stress process begins long before a stressful event occurs, said Jinshil Hyun, a doctoral student in human development and family studies.

“Humans can think about and anticipate things before they happen, which can help us prepare for and even prevent certain events,” Hyun said, according to a news release from Penn State. “But this study suggests that this ability can also be harmful to your daily memory function, independent of whether the stressful events actually happen or not.”

Martin Sliwinski, director of Penn State’s Center for Healthy Aging, said working memory can affect many aspects of a person’s day, and lower working memory can have a negative impact on individuals’ daily lives, especially among older adults who have already experienced cognitive decline.

“A reduced working memory can make you more likely to make a mistake at work or maybe less able to focus,” Sliwinski said. “Also, looking at this research in the context of healthy aging, there are certain high-stakes cognitive errors that older adults can make. Taking the wrong pill or making a mistake while driving can all have catastrophic impacts.”

While previous research has examined how stressful events can affect emotion, cognition and physiology, not as much has been done on the effects of anticipating stressful events that haven’t yet happened in the context of everyday life.

For their study, the researchers recruited 240 racially and economically diverse adults. Over a two-week period, the participants responded seven times a day to questions prompted from a smartphone app: once in the morning about whether they expected their day to be stressful, five times throughout the day about current stress levels, and once at night about whether they expected the following day to be stressful. The participants also completed a working memory task five times a day.

Hyun said that while laboratory studies have the benefit of controlling the participants’ experience during the study, the use of smartphones to collect data as the participants went about their daily lives had benefits as well.

“Having the participants log their stress and cognition as they went about their day let us get a snapshot of how these processes work in the context of real, everyday life,” Hyun said. “We were able to gather data throughout the day over a longer period of time, instead of just a few points in time in a lab.”

The researchers found that more stress anticipation in the morning was associated with poorer working memory later in the day. However, stress anticipation from the previous evening was not associated with poorer working memory.

Sliwinski said the findings, recently published in the Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, show the importance of a person’s mindset first thing in the morning, before anything stressful has happened yet.

“When you wake up in the morning with a certain outlook for the day, in some sense the die is already cast,” Sliwinski said in the news releae. “If you think your day is going to be stressful, you’re going to feel those effects even if nothing stressful ends up happening. That hadn’t really been shown in the research until now, and it shows the impact of how we think about the world.”

The researchers said the results open the door for possible interventions that can help people predict when their cognition may not be optimal.

“If you wake up and feel like the day is going to be stressful, maybe your phone can remind you to do some deep breathing relaxation before you start your day,” Sliwinski said. “Or if your cognition is at a place where you might make a mistake, maybe you can get a message that says now might not be the best time to go for a drive.”

Sliwinski said they researchers are working on additional studies that will use wearable sensors to gather even more in-depth data on the effect of stress on participants’ physiological states. Hyun added that she’s also interested in future studies that can help uncover possible psychological or biological mechanisms behind how stress affects cognition.

According to a news release from the American Physiological Society (APS), the non-intuitive findings contradict traditional concepts of the taxing physical toll of winter and the relaxed ease of summer.

The findings were presented at the APS annual meeting, Experimental Biology 2018, in April.

Cortisol–often referred to as the “stress hormone” because it is released into the bloodstream during stressful situations–helps regulate the body’s levels of sugar, salt and fluids. The hormone helps reduce inflammation and is essential for maintaining overall health. Cortisol levels are typically highest in the morning and gradually drop throughout the day. Levels are lower in the evening to maintain healthy sleeping patterns. Illness, lack of sleep and certain medications can affect cortisol levels more than normal daily fluctuations. Researchers from Poznan University of Medical Sciences in Poland have now discovered seasonal patterns in the cortisol levels of medical students.

The research team studied a group of female medical students on two separate days in the winter and for two days again in the summer. The researchers took saliva samples every two hours during each testing period–a full 24-hour cycle–to measure levels of cortisol and markers of inflammation. The volunteers completed a lifestyle questionnaire during each testing session about their sleep schedule, type of diet they followed and physical activity levels.

Previous studies on the seasonal variability of cortisol have shown inconsistent findings–possibly because participants were tested in their own homes and not in a uniform setting. In the current study, however, the research team found cortisol levels to be higher on the summer testing dates.