Oprah Daily

Oprah’s happy place? Her bathtub. In fact, the self-described “bathing connoisseur” once declared that for over a decade, her onyx tub—which had been carved to fit the precise shape of her body—was her most prized possession. That’s because as a child, raised in a 1,100-square-foot home, it was her job to regularly clean the one the family shared. “The tub had become my symbol of success,” she said. “For some people it might be shoes and handbags, cars, square footage, where you or your children attended school. For me it was a tub.”

Not to mention that it also offers her a restorative escape, a place where she can truly relax and recharge. “It's my ritual," says Oprah. “It’s where I go to get ideas. To be inspired. To calm myself.” According to marine biologist and Blue Mind author Wallace J. Nichols, PhD, that mood-boosting reaction even has scientific support: “When we step up to the bath, a neurochemical switch begins—stress hormones like cortisol decrease, our breathing and our heart rate slows, and we move into a more relaxed, clear state of mind, resembling what occurs in our brains during meditation,” he told Oprah Daily. “What’s happening when you submerge is a deep evolutionary response to water that all mammals have. It’s a signal that you’re safe and secure, that you’re in the right place.”