As you may know sweating is a fantastic way to detox your body of unwanted toxins and improve your circulation, especially today when chemical loads are so high. Your skin is your ‘third kidney’, since it’s believed to be responsible for eliminating up to 70% of your body waste.

If you’re injured or unable to exercise, sweating can be almost impossible. In these situations, turning to infrared saunas to sweat can be helpful.

Infrared saunas have a multitude of benefits from helping you to relax, to relieving pain, losing weight, detoxifying and creating glowing skin.

I’m constantly hearing stories from clients with chronic pain, fibromyalgia, muscular injuries and recurrent infections who swear by infrared saunas for their recovery or ongoing recovery.

 

7 Benefits of Infrared Sauna Therapy

 

1. Boosts Immune System

Increasing your body temperature tricks your body into believing it has an infection so it up regulates white blood cell and antibody production. Giving you a huge immunity boost. Great for lingering and recurrent infections or not quite feeling right after a cold or virus.

 

2. Relaxation

Warmth is relaxing to your body and mind as we all know. Infrared saunas turn up this effect up by increasing your circulation and heart rate similar to mild cardio workout. Endorphins and serotonin (the happy drug) are released into your blood and pumped around the body giving you feelings of euphoria and calmness. And who doesn’t want more of that! Also great for regulating sleep patterns.

 

3. Detoxification

Sweating is a crucial elimination pathway in the body, alongside breathing, urination and defecation. Essential to helping your body release toxins, including heavy metals like mercury and lead, and environmental chemicals. Infrared saunas are seven times more effective at eliminating toxins than traditional Swedish saunas, based on steam or heaters.

Why not team a series of infrared sauna sessions with a detox programme? Crank up removing the toxins in your body that keep you overweight, double your energy and feel super clear-headed. Book in to get started on a customised detox today.

 

4. Improved circulation

Infrared saunas increase your circulation and blood flow by increasing your core body temperature, without increasing your blood pressure. This happens because blood flow is diverted from your inner organs towards the extremities of the skin.

Regular infrared sauna use in the middle-infrared level, can stimulate blood flow, improve muscle recovery, and decrease pain and inflammation after intense exercise.

 

5. Pain Relief

Infrared saunas speed up healing and reduce pain by stimulating vasodilation of peripheral blood vessels, bringing oxygen to joints, muscles and extremities and removing metabolic and toxic waste products faster through the skin.

Infrared saunas also help to release large amounts of endorphins, enkephalins, serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine, which help regulate pain, mood, sleep, appetite, anxiety and concentration.

Chronic pain, joint pain, headaches, arthritis, fibromyalgia and sports injuries all benefit from infrared sauna therapy.

 

6. Glowing skin

Clearer, softer and healthier looking skin are all by products of using infrared saunas. This happens through increasing the circulation in your skin, eliminating toxins and chemicals from your pores and removing dead cells on your skins surface.

 

7. Weight Loss

Did you know a 30 minute infrared sauna session can burn roughly 600 calories? How? Well energy is needed to keep up with an increased heart rate and having to lower your core temperature.

 

How do Infrared Saunas work?

Infrared sauna emits rays that penetrate the dermal layers of the skin pulling toxins from the deeper stored fat cells and muscle. This strategy is far more efficient than regular saunas (7x more detoxifying) which use steam or heaters to raise ambient air temperature, which then heats you.

Infrared will directly heat you, raising your core temperature which then heats the ambient air. This makes it a more bearable heat to sit in for longer periods of time.

Infrared sauna treatments are full spectrum which means they have different levels: near, middle, and far.

These different levels represent the different sizes in infrared wavelengths and refer to the intensity of the treatment. Most people find that:

• near-infrared levels are best for pain, wound healing and increased immune function
• middle-infrared levels are ideal for weight loss, increasing circulation and promoting muscle relaxation
• far-infrared levels are used primarily for detoxification purposes, relaxation and reducing blood pressure.

Please check with your doctor before using infrared saunas if you have –

• Pacemakers
• Pins, rods and other implants
• Medicines applied by skin patches
• Pregnancy
• Silicone implants

 

Recommendations

Infrared saunas are safe to use daily but it’s best if you start slowly to make sure you acclimatise to the heat. So, start with 30 minute session from 1 to 3 times a week depending on how you cope with heat then progress to 45 minutes which can be done daily if desired.

Tom, from Private Sea says if he feels like he’s getting a cold he uses the infrared sauna daily for 2 weeks to give his immune system a boost and clear the virus. However, he does say his symptoms are normally enhanced the day of the sauna then clear the following day.

My go to for infrared saunas is the Private Sea Float Centre, where I often team it with a float or a massage. It’s one of my self care treats. I also love to give it as a gift. Self care is so lacking today in this busy world.

If this article has helped you and you feel it may help someone else you know please share it.

Julie xo