Saunas are a great way to sweat out for receiving therapeutic benefits. Here heated air relieves you from muscle and joint pains along with other health benefits.
However, for some, the high air temperature of saunas can be intolerable. Some may even experience burns for higher temperatures.
Does it mean they cannot enjoy a soothing sauna session?
Infrared light saunas allow you to enjoy sauna experiences at a comfortable temperature. There is also less risk of burning.
The question is, what is an infrared light sauna and what benefits do they offer?
In this article, we will talk about infrared light saunas and how it can benefit you.
What is an Infrared Light Sauna?
An infrared light sauna utilizes infrared light for heating the air and the user’s body. When anything is heated up, it emits infrared rays. Thus, an infrared sauna directly using the infrared makes sense.
Infrared lamps or panels are used in these specialized saunas. As a result, infrared light can directly penetrate the user’s skin and heats up the body before heating the surrounding air.
In an infrared sauna, the temperature is kept at 120° F to 140°F. While in traditional saunas, this temperature is kept at 150° F to 180°F for optimum benefits.
Infrared light can penetrate the skin to make the user sweat intensely at a lower temperature. Thus the user will experience a tolerable environment while inside the infrared sauna.
In infrared saunas, only 20% of the heat is utilized to heat up the air. Rest 80% is used to heat the user’s body. Here the core body temperature of the users increases 2 – 3 degrees to make them sweat.
Benefits of Infrared Sauna
Both infrared light therapy and saunas have their own set of benefits. In an infrared light sauna, all these benefits can be achieved together. The most prominent benefits of infrared sauna are:
- Relaxing environment: During an infrared sauna session, your body experiences comfortable heat. Also, infrared light helps your hormone glands work better. It makes your body release melatonin and endorphin hormones and makes you relaxed.
- Better sleep: Infrared light helps the body produce melatonin. Melatonin is the hormone responsible for soothing the body and helps you sleep. So, with an infrared sauna session, you can get better quality sleep.
- Weight loss: The common link between exercising and infrared sauna sessions is sweating. While heat is generated under the skin, it helps to break out body fat. As a result, you can lose a few pounds with infrared sauna sessions.
- Relieve sore muscles and bones: Infrared light penetrates the skin and reaches the muscles and bones. Reaching these body parts, this light energizes the cells and heats them up. This can effectively help in healing bone and joint pain. If you have arthritis, infrared saunas can be a good therapy option for you.
- Detoxification: Sweating is a great way to remove toxins from the body. With sweat, some harmful heavy minerals along with alcohol, nicotine, sulphuric acid, etc., can be removed from the blood.
- Clear and tighter skin: Infrared light boosts collagen production in the skin. Collagen makes the skin tighter and flawless. It can also remove aging signs to some extent. If you receive red light facial therapy, you can deal with issues like acne and eczema.
- Improved Circulation: Infrared light can energize the mitochondria of cells. Therefore, the cells get a boost in metabolism and enhance circulation around the body. It allows the blood and nutrients to reach all over the body effectively.
- Some research suggests promising results for treating chronic fatigue syndrome.
- Another review suggested infrared saunas can help in lowering blood pressure.
Possible Drawbacks
There is not much evidence of infrared saunas causing severe problems. However, it is wise to be cautious about common negative experiences of any saunas. These possibles bad experiences being:
- Overheating
- Dehydrating
- Interfering with medications
Also, saunas can cause complications for pregnant women and heart patients. Also, avoid using saunas under drug influence or alcohol consumption.
Things to Follow While Using Infrared Sauna
The following procedures can be beneficial to avoid possible drawbacks while using saunas:
- Drink plenty of water: In an infrared sauna session, you can lose a lot of water from your body by sweating. Therefore, hydrating before entering the sauna is crucial. You can even grab a drink to sip while in a sauna.
- Choosing the right temperature: For first-timers, the high temperature of a sauna can be too much. Setting a lower temperature can be helpful in this situation. You can increase the temperature from your next sessions.
- Set time for being in the sauna: A 20-minute sauna session may be too long for beginners. Also, it increases the risk of dehydrating. Instead of a 20-minute session, choose a 10 -15 minutes session for the first time. You can increase your time eventually.
- Clothing: You can wear bathing suits or wrap a towel around while going inside an infrared sauna.
- Sauna Activities: During your sauna session, you can relax, meditate, and listen to songs. However, don’t fall asleep during a sauna session.
- Cooling Down: Take some moment to move after your infrared sauna session. You can feel lightheaded as you have lost a lot of water by sweating. Once you cool down, take a bath or shower. Don’t forget to drink plenty of water.
You can start with 3 – 4 infrared sauna sessions per week. Increase the number of the session if you feel healthy and can tolerate 4-day sessions.
Final Words
Infrared saunas host the latest technologies to provide the best sauna experience. It features lower temperature yet additional health benefits. If you are tired of scorching heat from traditional saunas, you must give infrared saunas a try.
