Introduction
Doing something as relaxing as sitting in an infrared sauna sounds like it wouldn’t burn calories, right? But surprisingly, sitting in a sauna can help you lose weight. While the weight loss is usually not significant, using an infrared sauna regularly can help you slim down and shrink your waistline.
Infrared Saunas use far-infrared heaters to generate heat that penetrates the skin and causes an increase in body temperature. The heat triggers your body’s natural thermogenic response, which works hard to cool itself by creating sweat and increasing your heart rate. Your heart needs to work harder to distribute more blood throughout your body to cool it down, which means more calories are burned!
One 30-minute session in an infrared sauna will burn up to 400-600 calories. Of course, this number depends on things like the intensity of the session and a person’s physical condition. Studies have shown that sweating can help people lose a few pounds per week combined with diet and exercise.
What is an Infrared Sauna?
An infrared sauna is a type of sauna that uses light to create heat. This type of sauna is sometimes called a far-infrared sauna – “far” denoting “far away” and referring to the infrared light’s position in the light spectrum. An infrared sauna works differently than a traditional steam or hot rock sauna. It doesn’t make the air itself hot. Instead, it heats the body directly via electromagnetic radiation (light).
Unlike traditional saunas, which rely on heat from preheated rocks or steam, an infrared sauna engulfs your body with warmth. As a result, infrared heat energy increases your core temperature rather than just heating the air around you, like with other saunas.
It creates a gentle subtler warming effect that may help boost metabolism and circulation more than other heating therapies.
The potential benefits of using intermittently using an infrared sauna include the following:
- Improved cardiovascular health
- Weight loss support
- Reduction in full-body pain and inflammation
- Detoxifying effects
- Skin rejuvenation support
- Mental well-being through relaxation and stress relief
How Does an Infrared Sauna Work?
Infrared saunas provide many benefits, including detoxification and relaxation, but one of the most popular questions from users is, “Does an infrared sauna burn calories?” The answer is yes – it’s thought that a single 30-minute session in an infrared sauna will burn up to 600 calories, depending on your body weight and other factors.
An infrared sauna works by using infrared heaters to heat the air in the room. The heaters emit infrared light that radiates through the air to your skin. This light carries energy into your body’s tissues instead of warming up the air around you, as with traditional saunas. When your body absorbs this energy, it increases its temperature, which helps to release toxins through sweat. Additionally, this process causes your metabolism to increase and can lead to calorie burning.
It’s important to note that an infrared sauna session won’t make a big dent in your daily calorie needs, so it shouldn’t be used solely for weight loss or calorie burning. Instead, use an infrared sauna for its relaxation benefits and for aiding in releasing toxins from your body. Also, note that if you go too far beyond your resting heart rate during exercise (generally 140 bpm), you should stop and rest until it returns to a normal level.
Does an Infrared Sauna Burn Calories?
An infrared sauna is a popular way to relax, but many people wonder if it can help them lose weight. While traditional saunas use heat to make you sweat, an infrared sauna uses infrared light to heat your body. So, does an infrared sauna burn calories? Let’s take a look at the research and find out.
How Many Calories are Burned in an Infrared Sauna?
Infrared saunas are growing in popularity as a means of achieving whole-body physical and mental health. But does an infrared sauna burn calories?
The short answer is yes; infrared saunas burn calories since the temperature of the air inside is higher than normal. The sauna creates an environment where your body must work much harder to cool itself down. As your body works harder, it will burn more calories as energy to lower your core body temperature and maintain a healthy balance.
So how many calories can you expect to burn in a session? Studies have shown that people can burn up to 600 calories per 30-minute session depending on their size and level of activity during their session. It is estimated that this would equal 90 minutes of gym exercise or 30 minutes of vigorous running. However, this number may vary depending on stretching, light exercises while in the sauna, and even having conversations with other individuals in the room. These will increase your internal heat production resulting in increased caloric burning potentials. Results may also depend on differences between individuals, such as age and gender, and environmental factors, like air pressure, humidity, and heat inside.
Sessions must be done with caution. Infrequent use is advised for best results due to possible dehydration when exposed for long durations at high temperatures, which may result in adverse effects if done improperly or too often.
What Other Benefits Does an Infrared Sauna Have?
Aside from burning calories, regular use of an infrared sauna can bring various additional health benefits. These include:
- Enhanced detoxification and elimination of harmful toxins: Infrared heat penetrates deeply into the tissues, stimulating sweat production and allowing the removal of accumulated toxins.
- Pain relief: Heat therapy can help relieve tense muscles, arthritis, and another joint, nerve, and muscle pain.
- Stress relief: Many people find that relaxing in a soothing infrared sauna can reduce stress hormone levels and ease feelings of anxiety or depression.
- Immune system support: Regular infrared sauna use has increased white blood cell counts and boosted the immune system’s ability to fight infection and disease.
- Improves the appearance of skin: As sweat carries away dirt, oil, and old skin cells from the surface of your body, essential minerals like calcium and magnesium are delivered back to the epidermis while Blood Flow increases on the skin surface, allowing better nourishment for your cells to remain youthful looking.
Conclusion
Infrared saunas are a great way to improve physical and mental health. They offer multiple benefits, including improved circulation, detoxification, relaxation, and pain relief. Studies have also shown that they may assist in weight loss when combined with a healthy diet and regular physical activity; however, there is no clear evidence that the calories burned through an infrared sauna alone will be enough to support meaningful weight loss over time.
It is important to remember that achieving any meaningful loss or health improvement through sauna use will require consistency and patience. As with any physical activity undertaken to lose weight, it’s best to speak to your doctor before engaging in an infrared sauna regimen.