The Health Benefits of Saunas

Saunas have been known throughout history to help relax and improve one's overall health, and promote well being. In many parts of the world taking saunas is a regular part of a healthy lifestyle. The reason is that saunas offer a relaxing way to improve immunity, skin, circulation, and heart health.

The word sauna is Finnish for bath and has long been a part of that culture. In Finland, early writings describe dug out embankments where wood fired stone stoves heated rocks.

Later saunas were log cabins built above ground. The rooms were vented but allowed to fill with smoke for half a day as the temperature rose inside. When the smoke cleared, bathers entered to enjoy the warm, stimulating atmosphere.

The benefits that drew early Finlanders, and other cultures, into the sauna are many. First, it is an enjoyable environment in which the mind and the body can rest at leisure, a place to alleviate stress.

Lounging in the sauna is relaxing but as you soak in the heat and start to feel relaxed, your body starts working as if you were doing vigorous exercise. The effect of your organ's work out starts to show and you are cleansed from inside out through intense sweating.

The importance of sweating

Ayurvedic medicine, which dates to 568 BC, was where the benefits of sweating were first recognized. Throughout the centuries physicians have pointed to the health benefits of saunas in its various forms including the Finnish sauna, Russian banai, Islamic hammam and the Native American sweatlodge.

Proponents of "sweat baths" claim that sauna relieves colds, arthritis, headaches, and hangovers. Medical evidence gives relevance to the benefits that "bathing" in high temperatures brings to overall health.

Sweating rids the body of waste, regulates temperature and cleanses the skin. In today's world that is overrun by sedentary lifestyles and a chemical bombardment on the body, sweating through sauna brings this much needed physical action.

In a sauna, the heat sensitive nerve endings throughout your skin are aroused and alert sweat glands. One particular type of sweat, called insensible perspiration, works it way through blood and other cells to the skin's surface.

On the way it collects undesirables such as excess salt or even heavy metals. Excreting these wastes through sweating alleviates strain on the organs which would otherwise be responsible for the process, like the kidneys. The release of excess salt through sweating can be beneficial for mild hypertension.

A 15-minute sauna can result in the excretion of about one liter of sweat or the daily average. It is a rapid de-toxic session that can flush out pollutants including copper, lead, zinc and mercury, toxins that strain the body's functions and can lead to mild to severe illness.

Sauna's effects on the skin

Sauna-induced sweating provides comprehensive cleansing of the skin and sweat glands by opening pores and flushing superficial impurities from the body. In addition to improving health, the cleansing effect helps keep skin clear and viable.

The skin's toxin eliminating functions sometimes gain the title the "third kidney." The array of blood vessels, nerve ending, lymph connections, pigmentation, oil glands, hair follicles, complex cells and sweat glands make it more complex than it is often given credit.

Sauna's effect on the skin helps it stay healthy, resist bacterial infection and irritation. Stimulating the epidermis with brushes or loofa can increase sauna's benefits freeing clogged pores of old cells.

Inside the body in the sauna

The temperatures inside a sauna raise the heart rate and dilate capillaries as the internal organs demand blood and oxygen, not unlike the result of a brisk stroll. The effect helps normalize blood pressure as capillaries relax and increase in volume. Sauna's effect on high blood pressure has been studied and conclusions show a significant reduction during the sauna.

American doctors often advise the elderly and those with heart problems to avoid the sauna-induced "stress". European doctors have a different opinion but sauna is a more common activity throughout European cultures and the increased circulation to extremities is deemed as extremely beneficial.

The increased body temperature from partaking in a sauna is often called an artificial "fever". In this state, the body has a higher metabolic rate that is thought to allow damaged cells to repair themselves faster. It is also believed that bacterial and viral agents are exterminated in temperatures above normal body temperature. During sauna, the body's internal temperature can be as high as 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

In essence sauna produces a "fever" - part of the body's natural healing process. This stimulates the immune system to produce disease fighting antibodies and blood cells, and even interferon - an anti-viral protein with cancer fighting capability.

The "fever" that sauna produces in the body can accelerate metabolism increasing the activity of the thyroid gland, the adrenal gland, the ovaries and the testes. Some sauna enthusiasts claim an increased sex drive is the result of regular sauna bathing.

In addition to increased metabolism and circulation, sauna also increases the body's need for oxygen. In a properly humidified sauna, the lungs also work to eliminate waste through the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.

The heat inside a sauna can open clogged respiratory passages for relief from minor respiratory problems. It should be noted that this depends greatly on the humidity within the sauna. High humidity can make breathing more difficult and low humidity can damage mucous membranes. Sauna is not recommended for people with severe respiratory disease like pneumonia.

After all the intense heat and bodily changes, cooling is an important part of the sauna experience. Some people opt for abrupt cooling to reverse the sauna's effects plunging into icy baths or even a winter ocean. The effect is dramatic: pores close, the heart's pace changes and blood vessels contract.

Abrupt cooling is not recommended for everybody. In fact, the German Sauna Association recommends a warm foot bath to keep blood vessels open, even alternating between warm and icy to help the body return to normal. Nonetheless, hearty sauna enthusiasts often find abrupt cooling invigorating and the best way to complete the experience.

Sauna in Medicine

The relaxing and energizing experience of sauna that brings so many health benefits to the body has been applied to various therapy regimens. An increasing number of medical clinics use supervised sauna bathing for detoxifying patients of chemicals. The therapy can be called Bio Toxic Reduction Therapy, Hyperthermic Detoxification, Sauna Therapy, the Physical Therapy/Detoxification Program or Heat Stress Therapy. In simple form they are called "sauna therapy".

The sauna therapies use traditional saunas (non electric stoves) with heated stones at low and moderate temperatures. They are part of an overall plan that includes diet, exercise and other therapies under medical supervision.

Most often sauna therapy is used when a patient has experienced specific chemical exposure. Despite preventative efforts, humans are regularly exposed to some of the 50,000 chemicals in commercial use. The human body is exposed through direct and indirect contact through food, clothing, air pollution, water and job-related activities.

The progression of chemicals has surpassed the human body's capabilities to safely process and excrete them. Instead these toxins accumulate in fatty tissues throughout the body and internal organs. Most of these contaminants are fat soluble. The body can convert fat soluble substances to water soluble substances and release toxins through excretion.

Sauna therapy facilitates this process and enhances the speed and effectiveness. Accumulated poisons are mobilized during sauna into circulation and then transported from the body through sweat, urine or breath.

While sauna helps alleviate common chemical body burdens of modern life, it can be particularly helpful in cases of acute or extreme exposure to chemicals.

In a 1983 study by D.C. Roehm a Vietnam veteran with a history of exposure to dioxin (Agent Orange) and DDE (from pesticide) underwent a program of sauna baths and megavitamin therapy. After 250 days, test results showed that the DDE levels in the patient dropped by 97%.

In 1982, another study by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences followed Michigan farmers who were exposed to PBB, one of the most persistent and toxic organohalides (found in synthetic organic compounds such as CFC). The study reported a 42.4% reduction of organohalides four months after sauna therapy.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer studied a group of electrical workers exposed to PCB's. Significant reductions of the toxins were found in the group that underwent sauna therapy (while continuing to work), while their coworkers experienced an increase of PCB in their bodies.

Spiritual Sauna

In addition to a health and wellness activity, the sauna is associated with spiritual rituals that derive from the "fire" - a source of power, vigor and vitality. The taming of fire in the sauna gives these places a sense of sacredness that many cultures celebrate.

In Finland, where fire is believed to be heaven sent, intentional care of the sauna fire is believed to drive off disease and evil. The steam vapor that rises off of water-splashed hot rocks is referred to as loyly, the spirit of life. Finnish women often chose to give birth in the sauna where good spirits helped ease childbirth pains and protected newborn children.

Several Native American tribes held similar beliefs that rocks contained benevolent spirits and that the vapor released them into the sauna participants.

In cultures around the world, the sauna's fire and sweat atmosphere conjures up images of re-birth where physical and spiritual impurities could be removed. This connection made the saunas of the world a place for rites of passage and spiritual reflection.

Sauna Culture

The sauna's history in the United States is but a few centuries old. Around the globe, it has been woven into the social fabric of communities.

Sauna is a communal activity and in sauna enthusiast regions of the world children are taught from a very young age to behave in a sauna as they would in church. Indecent or disruptive behavior is not tolerated.

It is customary in places like Finland for families to share private saunas and that public saunas are separated by gender. In Central Europe, saunas are often mixed-gender but similar rules of behavior ensure that the sauna remains a wholesome and healthful experience for everyone involved.

The image of the sauna has been tainted by various versions that stray far from the original. Many massage and entertainment parlors have tried to operate behind the guise of being a sauna.

In sauna cultures, the sweat bath is a relaxing version of a neighborhood picnic or other social event. Saunas provide a "third center," a place away from work or home where people can relax and enjoy each other's company.

The Turkish hammam is central to the social lives of Turkish women and one of the few places they can congregate for hours in the company of women only. In Russia, the bania is a place to stave off the loneliness of long, dark winters.

In its purest form, sauna is a healing experience where the trappings of societal misconceptions fall away in trade for the ultimate wellness ritual. The sauna is a place to relieve pain or exhaustion, cleanse the body and purify the mind.

Finns believe that the care of the soul is received in the sauna, all unpleasant feelings fall away and you feel at peace with the whole world. Now that's worth a little inhibition.

Resources:

Finnish Sauna Society www.sauna.fi

German Sauna Association www.eos-werke.de

http://www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/sauna.htm

http://www.saunafin.com/health_benefits.htm

"Beyond Antibiotics," Dr. Michael A. Schmidt, Dr. Keith W. Schnert & Dr. Lendon H. Smith, North Atlantic Books, Berkley, CA, 1993.

"How to Get Well," Dr. Paavo Airola, PhD., Health Press, Sherwood, OR, 1974.