Stress plays a huge role in death. It’s no secret to doctors everywhere that stress kills. And yet, in countless examples, we see that stress to a certain limit is also something that improves our health. Likewise, the health benefits of dry saunas are largely due to the stress it puts on the body. It seems to both stress our bodies and heal it immediately after use.
Of course, everyone has their limits. This stress limit depends on each and every person and is best found through trial and error. No one can tell you your limits as each person is unique in their makeup.
This is why it’s so important to try new things, and if you’ve never tried a dry sauna before, this month is a great time to test it for yourself.
As something that has been used across many cultures and throughout many ages, saunas provide benefits to the human body in countless ways. When safely practiced, exposing the body to extreme heat can prepare it for other future extremes.
The complete list of the health benefits of dry saunas is long, but to keep things simple, below I outline some of the most important.
Dry Saunas Build Endurance
For example, exercise is a form of stress on the body that helps us build our physical and mental strength. It is known to be one of the best ways to stay healthy and live a longer, happier life.
Among some of the other notable health benefits of dry saunas include an increased tolerance to heat and an increased overall endurance.
Combined with the above, the purifying effects of dry saunas have a powerful effect on our bodies and minds. Sweating out a pint of toxins during a session in the dry sauna does wonders for the body and mind. Regular users of dry saunas think better, feel better, and look better overall.
Dry Saunas Helps Detoxify the Body
Studies show that dry saunas can do a lot of the same good for the body as exercise does. Use of a dry sauna provides a type of beneficial stress that purifies the body of toxins.
Also like exercise, using a dry sauna can help the body repair cell damage alongside purification benefits. Consistent use of a dry sauna helps the body protect itself from many kinds of future stressors.
Dry sauna use can even serve as an alternative to exercise for those who are unable to. While it doesn’t fully replace exercise and the countless benefits it provides, it can have profoundly similar effects.
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It helps Reduce Inflammation
Another notable effect among the health benefits of dry saunas is the ability to help protect the brain against inflammation. Inflammation is a huge cause of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and dementia and dry saunas counteract these effects. It can even help the body grow new brain cells.
To demonstrate, a large study was done on middle-aged men who used saunas four to seven times a week. As compared to men who used the sauna only once per week, those who used it more had a 65% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
This shows that by consciously exposing ourselves to certain forms of stress, we are better able to deal with stress in the future.
However, there is a sweet spot to this. It’s usually not recommended to most to spend more than 15-20 minutes a day in such a hot environment, at least at the start of your regimen. Still, when done consistently and in small amounts, we can counteract and even reverse the harmful effects of stress in our daily lives.
In fact, regular sauna use is shown to have positive effects on cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, it has healthy effects on everyday cardiovascular health, whether a person has issues with their heart or not.
As inflammation is the source of a wide range of diseases and ailments, decreasing this response in the body means it can heal itself more effectively. As a result, dry sauna bathing up-regulates genes that combat oxidative damage and aging.
Saunas Help Against Depression
On that note, the brain is vulnerable to countless ailments caused by inflammation, and depression is one of them. As use of dry saunas reduces inflammation markers in the body, symptoms of depression become less common.
While in the sauna, it’s not going to feel “comfortable”, per say. This is another thing exercise and dry sauna use have in common. But the point is to put a bit of stress on the body and mind. After 15 or so minutes pass in a dry sauna and you exit the room, your body is more sensitized to endorphins.
In fact, using dry saunas increases the same chemicals in the body responsible for the “feel-good” response that exercising gives.
Like everything else in life, balance is key to success. The health benefits of a balanced and consistent practice using dry saunas are undeniable, according to the evidence. Each person has their own balance in how much stress is good for them, and it’s important to one’s health to find that balance.
So the evidence is clear: too much stress can kill, but also ironically, it can heal.
Though it’s important to limit stress in our daily lives, it also seems to be equally important to consciously choose to stress our bodies and minds in order to cultivate a better response to stress in the future. Thus, balance is an important part of the equation.
Dry saunas are a great way for us to test this balance. It gives us the ability to stress our bodies and minds mildly and therefore heal in the long run.
Those who achieve this balance live long and happy lives, and what else is there to ask for?
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