There is nothing more relaxing than sitting in a steam sauna and sweating all your cares away!
A steam sauna not only helps you unwind but is also very good for your health.
You may not even be aware of all the health benefits that this practice can offer your body, which is why we created this guide.
We explore what steam saunas are as well as the medically proven benefits they provide your wellness.
What is a Steam Sauna?
The practice of sweat bathing or sitting in a super-heated room for extended periods is not a new one.
Saunas have been around for thousands of years and can be found in many different ancient cultures.
From Central America to China to Europe, sauna use dates back many centuries and can still be found today.
The practice is probably most popular among an entire culture in Finland, where one-third of the population uses a sauna regularly.
A sauna is defined as an enclosed room where dry, heated air is used to create a type of therapeutic experience.
The addition of steam adds to the relaxing effects of this treatment for many people.
By sitting in hot air, your body then needs to sweat to cool itself.
Sweating is one of three excretory pathways in our bodies that is used the eliminate wastes, pollutants, toxins, and other unwanted substances from our cells.
The traditional sauna popularized in Finland uses dry heat and a humidity level around 20 percent, but a steam sauna has much higher levels of moisture in the air.
Most saunas reach a temperature of up to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
This air temperature can raise your skin’s heat to around 104 degrees.
Many people prefer to keep humidity levels high, creating a steam sauna, because it makes the air easier to breathe and helps to moisturize the skin.
A sauna works by using a heater that is powered by wood, gas, or electricity, which then heats volcanic rock.
Pouring water over these rocks immediately creates water vapor, and this steam is released into the air.
The more water you pour over the rocks, the more steam you get.
Saunas are generally constructed from softwoods and include a bench, platform, or seat, depending on how many people it can accommodate.
Larger saunas may have an upper bench and a lower seating area, so you can move up or down depending on which temperature you prefer.
The wood is unfinished so that the finish does not give up toxin fumes in the high heat and so moisture can quickly evaporate.
The variety of sauna kits, prefabricated rooms, and custom-built options make it easy for you about anyone to find a sauna that will meet their needs.
Modern saunas are more easily controlled, come with important safety features, and you much more energy-efficient than older models.
Steam Sauna Benefits
Regular use of a steam sauna can have many benefits for your health.
Medical researchers have been investigating the effects of sweat bathing for many decades, and we know understand its benefits more clearly than ever before.
This section explores the documented uses of a steam sauna and how it can improve your overall wellness.
Steam Saunas Lower Inflammation and Relieve Pain
Regular use of a steam sauna can help you prevent and treat conditions that are related to excessive inflammation in the body that results in pain.
When you are exposed to hot temperatures, your body releases heat shock proteins, also called HSPs.
These proteins are anti-inflammatory so that they can reduce your body’s natural inflammatory process.
Inflammation is one of the leading causes of pain as well as stiffness and joint mobility problems.
Inflammation even causes digestive issues, heart disease, and many other medical conditions.
Use of a steam sauna can help relieve headaches and chronic pain associated with inflammation (1, 2) while also boosting your antioxidant levels, which cab combat oxidative stress (3).
Steam Saunas Enhance Your Mitochondrial Health
Each cell in your body contains an organelle known as mitochondria, which is responsible for creating the energy your cells need to perform its necessary functions.
When mitochondria become depleted, weakened, or damaged, your cell lacks the power it needs and stops working properly (4).
Your body needs healthy mitochondria to maintain optimal health and help you live a long life.
When mitochondria are malfunctioning, you are headed toward disease, injury, or illness.
When sitting in a steam sauna, you expose your body to heat stress, which has a positive effect on your mitochondrial health (5).
Heat stress makes these organelles healthier and strong, triggering the repair and recycling of damaged mitochondria.
Heat stress also protects your cells from oxidative stress, which can deplete the mitochondria of its energy.
Healthy mitochondria allow you to resist the effects of aging and disease, so keeping them healthy should be a top priority.
Steam Saunas Improve Heart Health
Use of a steam sauna can improve your heart health in several critical ways.
The heat of a sauna encourages improved blood flow throughout your body, and it can reduce your blood pressure, as well.
Your body releases antioxidants when it is exposed to stress, and these are important for protecting your heart from oxidative stress, a leading factor in the development of heart disease (6).
A research study conducted in Finland illustrates this point well with longitudinal data from regular sauna users.
Researchers discovered that those who used a sauna up to three times per week had a 23 percent reduction in their risk of dying from coronary heart disease and a 27 percent reduction in death from cardiovascular disease.
Users who enjoyed between four and seven sauna sessions per week had survival rates that were nearly double this, at 40 and 50 percent, respectively (7).
If you have high blood pressure, regular sauna use can help.
Researchers have noted a significant drop of nearly 50 percent in those who enjoy a sauna session four to seven times per week (8).
Steam Saunas Can Boost Your Longevity
The HSPs that are released when you sit in a steam sauna are also connected to your longevity.
These proteins promote the recycling and repair of damaged cells and tissues, plus they regulate your levels of glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that helps you resist the effects of aging (9).
When you combine these benefits, you can see how sauna use could help you live longer, as your cells are more likely to resist deterioration and disease.
Sitting in the high heat of a steam sauna also activates the FOXO3 gene within your body.
This gene releases a protein of the same name which suppresses or activates other genes.
This mechanism helps to control your stress resistance, cell metabolism, and apoptosis or cell death.
These processes keep your cells working correctly and existing in a healthy state (10).
By triggering the FOXO3 gene and the production of this protein, as well as the production of HSP, you are contributing to cell longevity when you use a steam sauna.
In another Finish study, researchers illustrated this effect by examining long-time sauna users over 20 years.
They found that the more subjects used a sauna, the less likely they were to die from all types of causes.
Those who used their sauna up to three times per week had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease as well as all other causes of death, and sauna use up to seven times per week increases your survival chances by 40 percent (11).
Steam Sauna Use Promotes Athletic Performance and Muscle Strength
If you are an athlete or are interested in improving your muscle strength, you should consider regular steam sauna use.
Exposure to high heat from a sauna enhances your production of HGH or human growth hormone, and the more frequent your use, the higher your levels of this hormone will be (12).
HGH is necessary for muscle growth and for resisting muscle breakdown due to injury, strenuous activity, and working out.
Also, HGH promotes the producing of IGF1 or insulin-like growth factor 1. This compound boosts your cells’ sensitivity to insulin (13).
HGH and IGF1 help your muscle cells absorb more amino acids, which are the building blocks of muscle tissues while also enhancing protein synthesis and inhibiting the breakdown of proteins within each muscle cell.
All of these combine to promote more muscle strength and better muscle tissue health while allowing you to recover more quickly after activity (14).
And because sauna use lowers inflammation, it has an added benefit for athletes after a hard workout.
Using a steam sauna also promotes higher plasma volume and increase red blood cells in your system, as well as improved circulation.
This means all your tissues are getting more oxygen, which can boost your athletic performance. You must use a sauna regularly to enjoy these benefits (15).
Sauna bathing acclimates your body to higher temperatures, making it possible for you to work out longer and feel less fatigue when you are hot.
This process is known as hyperthermic conditioning (16).
Steam Saunas Enhance Detoxification
Our bodies are continually exposed to all sorts of contaminants and pollutants, including chemicals and heavy metals in the air we breathe, the personal care items we use, and the foods and water we consume (17).
Because it is nearly impossible to escape these harsh toxins in our lives, it is important that you help your body remove them through your natural excretory mechanism, including sweating.
Using a steam sauna can help remove several types of toxins from your body using this method.
Sweat bathing, as sauna use is sometimes called, helps you excrete many more wastes from your body than you usually would.
Most of us don’t sweat much anymore in our daily lives, so using a steam sauna can provide you with this benefit that flushes many different heavy metals and other pollutants from your system (18).
Sweating is more effective than urine or feces at removing heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, lead, and arsenic from your body (19).
Using a Steam Sauna Improves Your Immune System
When your body is under heat stress, such as from sauna use, your internal temperature rises in the same way it does when you have a fever.
This signals your immune system to ramp up and be ready, which will strengthen its responses over time.
Regular sauna use improves your ability to fight diseases and infections (20), and those who regularly engage in this activity suffer from fewer common ailments such as colds (21).
Steam Saunas Protect Your Brain and Enhance Mood
The heat stress of steam sauna use also promotes the production of BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
This compound triggers your brain to make new neurons and promotes maintenance and repair of existing cells.
BDNF enhances the formation of new neural connections, which is how we learn and remember new information (22).
Your brain also releases endorphins when you use a steam sauna, much like it does with you exercise.
These feel-good neurotransmitters can help boost your mood while enhancing your ability to cope with stress (23).
You feel more relaxed when you sit in the heat of a sauna, which promotes mental and emotional wellness, too (24).
Steam Sauna Use Helps with Weight Loss
Regular steam sauna use can help you lose weight because the high temperatures are known to regulate appetite (25).
The elevated temperatures also provide a boost to your metabolism and improve your oxygen levels in much the same way as exercise does (26).
Those who use a sauna regularly can experience two times the weight loss and five times the fat loss as those who do not engage in this practice (27).
Steam Saunas Help You Fight Disease
In addition to all the other many benefits that a steam sauna can offer your body, it can also actively help you fight disease.
Using a sauna regularly increase your HSP and FOXO3 protein levels, and these both play a significant role in controlling many disorders and conditions, including neurodegeneration and cancer.
Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are caused by misfolded tau proteins that results in a type of plaque that leads to neurodegeneration.
Both HSP and FOXO3 help to repair these misfolded proteins and prevent the formation of amyloid plaque.
Regular sauna use results in a decrease in the risk of developing dementia but as much as 64 percent (28).
Those who use a steam sauna regularly can also improve their respiratory function, including a reduction in congestion as well as enhanced overall lunch capacity (29).
Sauna use and its high temperatures also promote the death of some types of unhealthy cells, including cancer cells (30) because they are not able to adapt to the high heat.
Cancer cell growth is prohibited, while healthy cell growth is promoted (31).
Final Thoughts
Regular steam sauna use not only helps you relax, but it also benefits your physical and mental health in many ways.
If you are not using a sauna regularly, you may want to consider how this practice could play a role in your improved health.