Warming Up to the Sauna

Kate Hauf, the writer’s wife, “soaks” in her new home sauna.

You’d never know it just by looking, but my wife turned 40 this year. We don’t usually do big birthday celebrations, but 40 is a big one. Some people don’t handle getting older very well, but I think Kate is more OK with it than most. She is a special lady, so I wanted to do something special for her day. I didn’t think throwing her a huge party in the middle of a pandemic was the best idea. So, I bought her a sauna.

It’s a two-person sauna that came in the mail and was super easy to assemble. We put it in our basement. It has different-colored lighting for your chromotherapy needs. (I haven’t researched that yet.) Kate enjoys the red light. It reminds me of Amsterdam. It has a sound system with Bluetooth hookup. Kate has been soaking (that’s what we call it) in the sauna listening to podcasts – mostly about health and fitness – or a chill meditative playlist on Spotify, almost every day since we assembled it. I had always heard of the benefits of a “soak” in the sauna, but I had never really researched it until now. And the benefits might have more far-reaching implications in today’s world.

A sauna is a small room or building designed as a place to experience a dry or wet heated environment. Ours is a dry far-infrared sauna heated with carbon heat emitters. In Finland, where the traditional sauna was invented, the Finnish will hit themselves with bundles of birch twigs called vihta while in the sauna, leaving their skin red and sore while increasing circulation and leaving themselves smelling like an enchanted forest. We haven’t tried that yet, though I’m not opposed.

Die-hard Finnish sauna soakers say infrared saunas are not authentic saunas, but the health benefits are many. Saunas are such a staple in Finnish society that researchers have been able to perform many long-term studies showing the various benefits.

In a study published in Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, researchers examined the influence of sauna on pulmonary functioning in patients with an obstructive pulmonary disease and found a significant improvement of the lung function parameters. It concluded that patients with an obstructive pulmonary disease can take part in sauna programs without eliciting bronchoconstriction; sauna even causes transient improvement of the lung function. Healthy lungs are especially important these days.

A study in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension states: “Exercise and sauna had positive effects on 24-hour systolic and mean blood pressure in patients with untreated hypertension. Exercise and sauna and sauna alone reduce total vascular resistance, with positive effects lasting up to 120 minutes after heat exposure.” This was after one session. Imagine the long-term effects with consistent use.

The heat exposure of the sauna forces your body to respond in many of the same ways as moderate exercise. Your heart rate will increase, and your blood vessels will dilate. This improves cardiovascular function and helps to lower the long-term risk of cardiovascular disease. But it is not the same as cardiovascular training from exercise. Both sauna and cardiovascular training are still recommended for long-term general health.

One of the results from increased cardiovascular function may be the lowering of resting heart rate. This is the one that might have the more far-reaching implications to which I alluded earlier.

Heart rate, it turns out, has a huge effect on cognitive performance and ability to sustain attention. You’ve heard of fight-or-flight response. Stress or fear will raise your heart rate in order to elicit specific physiological responses that will put your body into optimal position for survival and combat performance. This optimal performance is usually achieved between 115 and 145 beats per minute. If the heart rate continues to increase, there might be some physiological responses you may not necessarily want.

At about 145 beats per minute, complex motor skills begin to deteriorate. As heart rate continues to rise, you will lose depth perception and peripheral vision (tunnel vision). There will be auditory exclusion and cognitive processing begins to deteriorate. When you get above 175 beats per minute, you will experience irrational fight-or-flight response, maybe freeze, and gross motor skills (running, charging) will be at peak performance levels.

When someone is put in a situation of extreme stress – for example, law enforcement, military or firefighters – the effects could lead to devastating outcomes. When you are in high-stress situations, losing cognitive function and increasing irrational fight-or-flight might be the last thing you want (unless you’re running from a man-eating lion). So, how do you mitigate this response? If you already have a high resting heart rate, reaching the elevated rates associated with cognitive decline is going to happen far more quickly. If you have a low rate and a more flexible cardiovascular system, it might take a little more to elicit the same response.

The sauna might be one part of a healthy plan to lower that resting heart rate. Of course, appropriate diet and exercise are going to be integral parts as well. Even if you don’t have access to a sauna, you should be working on lowering that resting heart rate, especially if you have a job that puts you into high-stress situations. Start working on your cardiovascular health. Monitor resting heart rate and blood pressure. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Meditation and mindset training are proven ways to lower stress and therefore can help in lowering resting heart rate. Take some restorative yoga classes and go for a walk on the beach for that stress relief. Get a massage and do some meditation. Find a personal trainer (gyms are still closed but personal training is allowed) or take some outdoor classes to condition that cardiovascular system.

The sauna has many far-reaching benefits. I believe it has had a definite positive effect on our own health over just this past month. The Finnish might think my sauna isn’t a real sauna, but they also host the World Air Guitar Championships, so I’m not too sure about those Finns. Maybe when my wife turns 50, I’ll take her to Finland for a real sauna experience.