Best Arguments for Sauna Use

I’m a big proponent of using the sauna. Given the chance, I’ll start preaching about all the reasons people should be spending as much time in a sauna as possible. So let me sum up in a two minute read, the most convincing numbers I’ve seen to convince you why you would want to include the sauna as part of your regular health maintenance.

The Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor study followed 2,315 men, aged 42-60 from eastern Finland, for about 20 years.

From this study, several bits of interesting information were pulled. For one, it seems it’s hard to find a Finnish man that doesn’t use the sauna at least once a week, so the studies that pulled from the data compare the use of the sauna for men that use the sauna 2-3 times per week, or 4-7 times per week, to those that only used the sauna once per week.

Among the benefits were a 46% reduced risk of developing hypertension, a 63% reduced rate of sudden cardiac death, a 50% reduced risk of death by cardiovascular disease, and a 66% reduced chance of developing dementia.

Read that last paragraph again, and consider those numbers. A 50% reduced risk of death by heart disease, over a twenty year period. Right there… That alone should convince you. While cancer can be a horrible and deadly illness, heart disease is responsible for more deaths than all forms of cancer, combined.

4-7 times a week too much? The “2-3 times a week” group, while not as dramatic as the “4-7 times a week” group, still had outstanding numbers. A 24% reduced rate of hypertension, 22% fewer deaths by sudden cardiac death, and a 27% reduced rate of deaths by cardiovascular disease.

Not worried about heart disease? That number for reduced dementia rates, which includes Alzheimer’s, should sell you.

And there are more reasons to use a sauna than avoiding serious health matters in your future. There are plenty of benefits you’ll enjoy right away. Smaller hyperthermia studies, as well as animal studies, have shown the possibility of other amazing health perks. Like increasing cardio performance, improving your mood, and reducing muscle loss when sidelined with an injury.

A 2007 study performed at the University of Otago in New Zealand found that a 30 minute sauna session, after a 15 minute exercise session, improved time to exhaustion by 32%. That was with just 2 sessions a week, for a 3 week trial.

The Journal of Applied Physiology published a rat study that showed a 32% decrease in atrophy rates, in an 8 day trial on rats subjected to hindlimb unweighting. While that creates both interesting and disturbing images, it also shows the possibility of significantly reducing muscle loss when you are unable to workout.

And among the many articles on sauna use and mood improvement, is a Japanese study that showed an improvement in 6 factors of mood (Profile of Mood States – POMS), and 2 anxiety factors.

So while I always suggest you look at studies that involve animals, or small sample sizes, with a bit of skepticism, there are some big human numbers on the important health risks (OK, with the caveat that the Finnish study was all male subjects.), and enough smaller studies to at least peak your interests on the many other ways using a sauna can improve your health.

If you are looking for a deeper dive into the science of sauna use, I highly recommend you start by viewing the videos that Dr. Rhonda Patrick has shared on Youtube. The following two go deep into the “what and how” science of sauna benefits.