Infrared Sauna

Health Professionals have been using far infrared technology for years. Have you ever gone to a Physiotherapist with a sprain and they put a red heat lamp on it? Well that’s infrared. Infrared treatment is also widely used in burn units to accelerate healing and hospital baby care incubators. Far infrared is from the safest end of the sun’s spectrum and is also something that our warm body generates. There is no downside with infrared sauna.

I understand, however this is not traditional sauna. Traditional steam/hot rock saunas raise the temperature of the air in the sauna cabin in order to warm the body. Far infrared (FIR) saunas use the safe warming properties of the sun’s far infrared spectrum to warm the body rather than the air within the cabin. This process is called conversion. FIR warms only the object and does not raise the temperature of the surrounding air. To understand how infrared heat works, picture yourself outdoors on a summer day with the sun beaming overhead. Your body feels warm from the sun and you become hot. Then a cloud passes overhead, blocking out the sun. The temperature outside has not changed, but you feel cooler in the shade. Your body was being heated by the sun’s far infrared rays. Infrared heaters warm the body in the same manner as natural sunlight.

The Infrared sauna uses infrared heat to heat the body. How? Electricity is run through the heaters on the walls, which through the resistance of the heater itself, increases the surface temperature of the heater. Once the heater reaches a certain temperature, the light (which we perceive as heat) emitted from the heater is far infrared heat. This light (let’s call it heat to save confusion) interacts with the body directly and penetrates 4 – 5 cm into the skin. Creating a cardiovascular workout on the body whilst removing heavy metals and toxins from deep within the skin. As the sauna heats the body directly, it wastes much less energy heating the air compared with a traditional sauna. You can put a bottle of water in front of an infrared heater and it won’t get warm, they are designed to heat YOU. Since you are being heated more deeply the infrared sauna can work at much lower, more comfortable temperature than the traditional sauna, at a range from 45 – 70°.

That’s great, however your sweat is mainly water and sodium. When you sweat in a an infrared sauna about 20% of your sweat is deep seeded toxins that the body has trouble otherwise processing. Heavy metals, such as lead, cooper, mercury, plastics and even arsenic are safely removed through the sweating process.

What you find after 30 minutes in a sauna, is that you’re actually in a cardiovascular workout, especially if you have the sauna a little hotter than your normal session to work the body a little harder. The key here is that the body is working naturally to cool down and it does this by sweating. When we are sweating, we are also burning calories. This alone may result in weight loss however isn’t the only mechanism at play when we are in an infrared sauna.

Are we just losing water weight? Well no! Remember when we are in an iHealth Sauna our body is working naturally to cool itself, so a lot of the body’s processes are heightened and working hard. This means processes like fat assimilation are also working at an increased rate to what they normally do. We also sweat out toxins whilst we are in an infrared sauna due to the depth of heat that sauna provides, inducing a deeper sweat. If you have a sauna and use a white towel to wipe down your sweat, it’s pretty clear that the brown sludge left on the towel after 30 minutes isn’t all just water.

Just yourself and an open mind, we provide the rest; Towels, silicon earplugs, organic body wash, shampoo & conditioner, moisturiser, cotton buds, hairdryer and exceptional service.

The deep heat that occurs during an IR sauna session helps peripheral blood vessels dilate, bringing relief and healing to muscle and soft tissue injuries. Increased blood circulation carries off metabolic waste products and delivers oxygen-rich blood to oxygen-depleted muscle, so they recover faster. The heat from the sauna also helps to reduce soreness on nerve endings and muscle spasms as muscle joints and fibres are heated. Muscles relax most readily when tissues are warm, for greater flexibility and range of motion. IR heat helps to relieve muscle tension and thereby helping your body to make the most of its intended healing abilities.