Can infrared saunas remove toxins?

Yes. Infrared saunas are incredible toxin removers. High penetrating heat used regularly will remove undesirable toxins from the body with ease.

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Infrared saunas penetrate deep.

Infrared saunas are different from a traditional sauna because they penetrate beneath the surface of the skin. They use wavelengths of light that are invisible to the naked eye called infrared. These wavelengths do not just heat the skin, they go deep into the body to warm from within. This is a far more effective method than a traditional sauna. Traditional saunas use mind clogging steam to heat a room. The hot air in turn heats your skin. Unfortunately for traditional saunas, the heat only warms the outer layers of skin. The body feels almost no heat deep within. If you were to attempt to feel the same penetrating heat from a traditional sauna you would have to remain inside the steam room for over an hour, which is dangerous and should never be done. Infrared saunas heat in 20 minute sessions are so effective that the body begins to sweat out toxins from deep within.

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How does sweating help?

The body expels toxins in numerous ways, one of these ways being sweat. Sweat contains many toxins that the body does not desire to have within. Sweat happens when we exert our core to an extent. This increases our temperature inside. The bodies natural reaction to heat is to sweat, cooling the skin. Sweat will remove more toxins than even urine. Since urine is mostly waste. Heat is one of the bodies greatest defense mechanisms. A fever is a natural reaction by the body to fight off a disease. In this same way, heat is applied to reduce the amount of toxins living beneath the surface.

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Can heavy metals be removed?

Mercury, lead, aluminum, and cadmium. These are examples of heavy metals that find their way into the body from daily activity and calorie intake. You would not knowingly ingest any of the heavy metals in large quantities but they find their way inside the body nevertheless. Can the heavy metals be removed by infrared saunas? Yes. Sweat is composed of numerous toxins, including heavy metals such as these. Heavy metals create a poisoning effect inside the body. Any amount of mercury for example is toxic. This metal can lead to muscular spasms and even death. Sweat can help remove this toxin from the body. Even small doses of the substance should not be left inside the body. Other metals can cause Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, kidney damage, and liver damage.

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Can toxic chemicals be removed?

Toxic chemicals find their way into the body through many avenues. We often eat unhealthy food or are exposed to contaminated water. Smokers have a high amount of toxic chemicals within their body as well. Second hand smoke is another way we ingest toxic chemicals into our otherwise healthy bodies. Can toxic chemicals be removed with infrared heat? Yes. The chemicals are expelled through sweat just as heavy metals can be. Sweat is a miraculous ally for removing toxins. The dangers of not sweating out the chemicals can be disastrous. These toxic chemicals can poison the body, resulting in formation of cancers and numerous diseases.

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How does pollution affect the body?

Pollution can destroy the body and infect the lungs. The toxins you breath in everyday from pollution will remain in the body until you sweat them out completely. Urine expels waste and often times will not remove pollutants. This results from pollutants affecting every part of the body. The first to suffer will be the lungs and nasal cavities. Next the kidneys and liver can fail from over exposure to pollutants, toxic chemicals, and heavy metals.

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How does the sauna help the kidneys and liver?

The kidneys and liver do an excellent job at removing toxins and waste from the body. However, they cannot do it alone. When overworked, the kidneys and liver can fail. Once damaged they will never function as well as before. Therefore it is important to give these organs all the help they can get. Infrared heat causes the sweat to expel many of the toxins that can damage the kidneys and the liver. Your body will not lose its ability to sweat and therefore is a safe way to always remove toxins, easing the suffering of your other organs that are trying to keep you healthy.

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How will the user feel?

After a 20 minute session everyday, the user of an infrared sauna will feel amazing. Toxins can slow the mind and stress the body. Sweat will reduce the stress with calming heat and relax tense muscles. The sweat that vacates the body will take brutal toxins with it. This will ease your vital organs as they also are trying to remove the same toxins. With healthy organs and a healthy relaxed mind, the user will feel a lot healthier.

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Infrared saunas relax sore and tense muscles

Many with MS will suffer from paint of the joints and muscles. Far-Infrared saunas ease sore muscles with relaxing heat. The joints of a person’s body can become inflamed. Far-infrared heat in the sauna penetrates deeper through tissue than a normal steam sauna. The resulting depth calms the inflamed joints, easing the pain one feels.

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Infrared saunas will increase energy

Fatigue is a major symptom for those who have MS. One reason the fatigue appears is from a lack of sleep due to pain. Regular use of infrared saunas will create an increase in energy during the day. After using the sauna in the evening the resulting relaxation causes the user to fall asleep quicker and stay asleep longer.

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Lowering irritability with use of infrared heat

Infrared saunas use safe infrared energy. Frequent use has numerous benefits, one of which is less irritability. The calming heat eases tense muscles. The loss of frequent pain that dampens the mood of MS patients will quickly increase their happiness and comfort levels.

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Can an Infrared Sauna help with eye pain and headaches?

Absolutely. Headaches and eye pain is sometimes linked with the tense muscles in the neck and upper back. The infrared saunas may help to ease these tight muscles and generate a complete loss of pain to the treated person. Using the sauna regularly produces these results. Use the infrared sauna along with your current treatments and see improvements in all of these areas.

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Health Benefits

The health benefits of working out and an infrared sauna are very similar. Improved circulation, weight loss, and detoxification. These benefits come from the bodies natural responses to high heat, causing a person to sweat. The infrared sauna has additional benefits that a workout does not, such as relaxation, pain relief, strengthening the immune system, and skin purification.

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Increased Heart Rate

Infrared saunas heat the room to over 150 degrees. The rise in temperature will increase heart rate, providing a cardiac workout. The heart will increase blood flow to stimulate the sweating process. This increased heart rate is very similar to the heart rate experienced during a workout.

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Weight Loss

Infrared saunas provide the heat that causes a person to sweat. The release of toxins provides health benefits and even weight loss. To maintain a healthy weight with diet, use an infrared sauna regularly. This process happens with the increased heart rate mentioned before. The body has to work harder to cool parts of the body. This results in calories being burned off, without strenuous activity.

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Cardio and Infrared Together

An infrared sauna has numerous health benefits along with a healthy diet and cardio workouts. All three of these things should be used together. A sauna is especially useful when a person cannot workout due to injury or strained muscles. A sauna is a great way to relax those muscles after a heavy workout. The high heat will relax and soothe those sore muscles. Infrared Saunas and cardio workouts both have numerous benefits to one’s health, it is highly recommended that they are used together.

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Why A Regular Sleep Pattern Is Vital for Your Health

A regular sleep pattern is vital to everyone’s health. A good night’s rest is one of the essential building blocks to healthy daily habits and decisions. Chronic sleep deprivation can cause negative effects on our mood and cause you to lose focus on daily tasks and responsibilities. Furthermore, sleep deprivation can affect your hunger hormones causing you to have an increased appetite. It is recommended that you get at least seven hours of quality sleep each night in order to have a healthy mind and body. Sleeping less than seven hours of night has been associated with high blood pressure, weight gain, diabetes, depression and other negative health effects. Experts at the Mayo Clinic say it is important to get the proper amount of the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep because it is during that time our mind and body recovers from the physical and mental tasks of the day. During REM your brain also files long-term memories and separates important information from unimportant information. If the REM state of the sleep cycle is cut short, you could see a decrease in acuity and mental focus.

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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Has No Known Cause.

According to experts at the Mayo Clinic, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a disorder defined as extreme fatigue that cannot be explained by any one underlying medical condition which can get worse with physical or mental activity and doesn’t improve with rest. While there is no known cause to CFS, experts have several theories that it may be triggered by a combination of factors, psychological stress or viral infections. There is not a specific test to diagnose CFS, so you may need a variety of medical tests to rule out other health problems. Things like stress and age may increase your risk of CFS. CFS occurs at any age; however it mostly affects people in their 40s and 50s. Experts focus on symptom relief when looking for treatment options for CFS patients. One of the recommended treatments is regular sauna use. Sweating is a therapy practice that dates back thousands of years. According to Harvard Health Publications, the Mayans used sweat houses approximately 3,000 years ago.

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How Do Saunas Affect The Body?

Today, the effects on the body are similar regardless of how a sauna is heated. Traditional saunas use heat to warm the air around you, while an infrared sauna heats your body directly. Infrared saunas are one of the few mediums that provide infrared heat in a controlled environment. Infrared heat is an invisible electromagnetic wave with a wavelength longer than that of visible light that helps improve blood flow. Saunas cause vigorous sweating and an increased heart rate from anywhere between 100 to 150 beats per minute, similar to the effects triggered by moderate exercise. If you cannot tolerate the heat of a conventional sauna, a more accessible way to achieve these effects would be through an infrared sauna because they produce the same results at lower temperatures. When your body is in a sauna your heart rate increases and your blood vessels widen, which increases circulation. According to the book “Sauna Therapy for Detoxification and Healing,” written by Dr. Lawrence Wilson, researchers in Finland have found that sauna use aids in deeper, more restful sleep.

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Sauna Sits to Treat Fatigue

Two patients with CFS saw improvements in their symptoms including pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance following treatment with thermal therapy, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. The study done by doctors at the Respiratory and Stress Care Center at the Kagoshima University Hospital in Kagoshima, Japan subjected the two patients to far-infrared ray dry saunas. Each person received treatment once a day for a total of 35 sessions. After 15 to 25 sauna sessions, patients reported dramatic improvement in their CFS symptoms. After discharge, the two patients continued therapy approximately once or twice a week for about one year. According to the study, neither of the subjects showed relapse or inflammation of symptoms during their first year after discharge. Experts say the study’s results suggest that thermal therapy may be a promising alternative method for the treatment of CFS.
If you are new to sauna sits, it is recommended that first-time users spend no more between five and 10 minutes. As you get more and more used to the heat, you can slowly increase the time you spend in the infrared sauna to up to about 20 minutes. In addition to limiting the time spent in a sauna, experts also advise to avoid combining alcohol consumption with sauna use. According to a year-long study of people in Finland who experienced sudden death showed that the person had a sauna within the last three hours in 1.8 percent of cases and in the last 24 hours in 1.7 percent of cases. Many of these people had also consumed alcohol. Instead, no matter the type of sauna you use, it is recommended that you drink about two to four glasses of water after a sauna sit in order to replace the fluids lost from sweating.

Resources: Mayo Clinic; “Sauna Therapy for Detoxification and Healing,” by Dr. Lawrence Wilson; U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health; Masuda A, Kihara T, Fukudome T, Shinsato T, Minagoe S, & Tei C. The Effects of Repeated Thermal Therapy for Two Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. [published online April, 2005].

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Far InfraRed Radiation or FIR relates to the longer wavelengths of radiation in the infrared spectrum, between 5.6 and 1000 micrometers (3). FIR wavelength cannot be perceived by the eyes, but its heat penetrates up to 1.5 inches (almost 4 cm) beneath the skin (4). FIR has been found to stimulate cells and tissue and is considered a promising treatment method for certain medical conditions (4).

There are new techniques for delivering FIR radiation to the human body. In fact, you may have heard of a far-infrared sauna. If not, you can Google the term and find lots of information and products.

Specialty lamps and saunas, delivering pure FIR radiation (eliminating completely the near and mid infrared bands), have become safe, effective, and widely used for the therapeutic benefits of FIR (4).

Clothing made with fibers containing FIR emitting ceramic nanoparticles, which is woven into the fabric, is being used to generate FIR radiation, and attain health benefits from its effects (4).

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Benefits of FIR:

There are multiple medical applications of FIR that can improve health and reduce or even treat disease:

• Reduces pain and inflammation (4)

• Promotes cell repair post exposure to FIR (4)

• Enhances circulation in the skin (4)

• Protects against oxidative stress (4)

• Enhances weight loss (4)

• Stimulates cell proliferation, increases tissue regeneration (4)

• FIR sauna therapy has been used to improve cardiac and vascular function and reduce oxidative stress in patients with chronic heart failure (5).

• FIR saunas have a beneficial effect on quality of life in patients with type II diabetes. Physical health, general health, stress and fatigue all improved in the treatment group receiving FIR (6).

• A study of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis showed a reduction in pain, stiffness, and fatigue during far infrared sauna therapy (8).

• FIR has the effect of reducing the proliferation of some cancer cell lines (4). This suggests that FIR radiation may be used as an effective medical treatment for some cancer cells (4).

• FIR therapy reduced symptoms of exercise-induced muscle damage in highly-trained athletes after a trail running race (8).

• Modulates sleep: one study used a blanket containing FIR emitting ceramic discs and reported improved quality of sleep in the study subjects (9).

• Gloves have been made out of FIR emitting fabrics and these gloves can be used to treat arthritis of the hands and Raynaud’s syndrome (10).

• FIR therapy is effective in relieving pain in patients with chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia (3).

• FIR benefited patients who experienced persistent and progressively increasing phantom limb pain after amputation (3).

• FIR stimulation alleviated depression in patients with insomnia by increasing serotonin (3).

• FIR can reduce the pain of wounds after standard medical wound treatments. Wounds exposed to FIR had lower healing times (11).

 

Risks:

FIR is generally quite safe compared to other medical interventions. However, there are risks of infrared radiation exposure to the skin and the eyes. A potential concern is an increase in photo-aging (skin aging due to light) (12).

Infrared radiation can also harm tattooed skin and cause skin inflammation (13). The lens of the eye is very sensitive to infrared radiation and long-term exposure can contribute to cataract formation (14).

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How to access FIR:

There are three main ways to benefit from FIR radiation:

• FIR saunas

• FIR ray devices

• FIR emitting ceramics and fabrics (4)

 

What is Near Infrared:

Near Infrared Radiation or NIR relates to the shorter wavelengths of radiation in the infrared spectrum; NIR, 0.8–1.5 µm (3). NIR is used in the therapy called Photobiomodulation or PBM. We have just written an extensive article on Photobiomodulation, which you can find here.  It is a form of light therapy that uses near-infrared light over the brain, inside the nasal cavity, or over injuries or wounds (15).

The light is used to heal, improve tissue repair in wounds, bones and tendons, reduce pain and inflammation and restore and stimulate multiple physiological processes which repair damage caused by injury or disease (15). The healing occurs wherever the beam is applied. The light stimulates the cell’s natural healing and pain relief processes.

 

Benefits of near infrared therapy:

Photobiomodulation is used for a huge variety of health issues as it has a significant anti-inflammatory effect. (Again, please refer to our article on PBM for the full details)

• The key applications of PBM for the future are in the areas of inflammation and autoimmunity (16).

• Cognitive performance or brain injury (16)

• Wound healing (16)

• Arthritis (16)

• Muscle healing (16)

• Inflammatory Pain (16)

• Lung inflammation and asthma (16)

• Abdominal fat, obesity and type 2 diabetes (16)

• Cancer (17)

• Achilles tendinopathy (16)

• Thyroiditis (16)

• Psoriasis (16)

• Hair loss (16)

• Cognitive performance, memory and mood (18)

• Cosmetic and aesthetic improvements (18)