Sauna provide significant health benefits
Blood circulation and sweating
When you taking a sauna, the hot air and heat pumps up blood circulation near the skin and triggers sweating your body tries to cool the body’s core temperature. By encourage sweating, the body starts to rid your body of unwanted by-products of metabolism and improves general circulation. As the heat increases, blood vessels dilate, and circulation in the skin climbs. As resistance to blood flow through your veins and capillaries drops, your blood pressure goes down. Then your heartbeat increases to keep blood pressure normal.
Using heat in ancient times
In medieval times, healers relied on saunas to cure illnesses, and priests used their heat to chase away evil spirits. And further back, Hippocrates of ancient Greece (over 2,000 years ago) often referred to as the father of modern medicine wrote, “Give me the power to create a fever, and I shall cure any disease”.
Heat has been used for centuries to exact cures for illness. When your body temperature rises above 98.6° Fahrenheit, the immune system is stimulated and the growth of viruses and bacteria slows while the production of white blood cells increases.
White blood cells are the backbone of your body’s immune system
The rise in body temperature causes the body to produce more antibodies as well as interferon, which is a protein that has been shown to have powerful disease fighting properties. These processes work together to provide the steam bather with a ton of benefits, some of which are just now being discovered.
Scandinavians do operate their sauna differently from Americans
Typically, they like to heat their saunas up very hot to over 200° in the beginning, then they get a good steam going so the sauna is not dry at all. They prefer wood-fired heated sauna rocks and pour generous amount of water. Electrical sauna can handle a couple of ladles of water, but generally not copious amount of water.
Often the steamy sauna room is better for older sauna bathers or anyone with respiratory issues as the dry sauna air can irritate the upper respiratory tract. If so, add a few ladles of water over the hot sauna heater.
Scandinavians and Americans alike to follow a sauna with a cold plunge. It’s incredibly refreshing, invigorating and enjoyable, and good for your arteries and veins. Truthfully, you are as healthy as your circulatory system!
Any risks?
For most, the main risk is staying in the sauna for too long and then fainting from overheating or moving around too quickly. If you know you have heart disease or you’ve been using drugs or alcohol, then be very careful. Do NOT combine drinking or other drugs with a sauna or hot tub.
In Finland, it’s not uncommon for physicians to let patients sauna from conception all the way up to the day of delivery. And of course, children should only use a sauna with adult supervision.