If you suffer from pain, inflammation, or other chronic conditions, using a wet sauna could help improve your well-being.
While most people think of saunas as merely a way to relax, they are, in fact, a powerful tool to add to your wellness arsenal.
Using a wet sauna can boost your immune system, help you fight disease, and much more.
Keep reading to learn about the many health benefits of this simple yet effective practice.
What is a Wet Sauna?
The practice of sweat bathing is as an ancient one and has been used by cultures all over the world for centuries.
For thousands of years, people have recognized the mental and physical benefits of sweating as a therapeutic practice.
The people of Finland still embrace this practice, with over thirty percent of the population using a sauna on a regular basis today.
But what is a sauna, exactly?
Well, a sauna is an enclosed space where the air is heated to very high temperatures, and people sit and relax in this heated air.
While inside the sauna, your body reacts to the extreme heat by sweating, which naturally cools your skin.
Sweating is also how your body releases toxins and wastes from your system, so sweating is a detoxification tool, too.
The traditional saunas of Finland, upon which most modern saunas are modeled, used relatively low levels of humidity inside the room.
But you may want your sauna experience to use more moisture in the air, which can make it easier to breathe s enhance your relaxation experience.
The act of adding water to your dry sauna turns it into a wet sauna, which is a popular way to enjoy this experience.
Most saunas generate temperatures that reach close to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
A sauna is usually heated with a stove that is powered by gas, wood, or electric heat, and this stove not only heats the air inside the sauna but also volcanic rocks that sit atop the heater.
When you pour water on these rocks, it immediately turns to water vapor, which adds moisture to your sauna experiences, turning it into a wet sauna.
Some people also prefer to add other extracts and essential oils to the water they pour over the rocks, to add a touch of aromatherapy to their sauna experience.
Saunas are made from soft, untreated woods that can withstand the hot temperatures to which they are exposed.
Sauna wood is unfinished so as not to expose users to harsh chemicals or toxins that can leach out under high heat.
Wet saunas are available in a wide variety of models today, including many features that make them easy to control and safe to use.
A wet sauna can be enjoyed by one or more people, depending on its size.
A typical sauna that is built for multi-person use has two levels of bench seating.
Those who want a hotter experience sit on the top level while those looking to cool off a little will sit on the lower level.
Some people even prefer to step out of the sauna periodically to cool down for a bit before reentering for another short session.
Wet Sauna Benefits
Using a wet sauna has many health benefits that promote both physical and mental wellness.
Researchers have been studying the effects of sauna use for some time, and we now have a significant set of data to support the claims that using a sauna regularly can benefit your health in many important ways.
This section will explore these benefits in greater detail.
Wet Saunas Improve Mitochondrial Health
Every cell in your body requires energy for it to perform its necessary functions, and your cells each generate their own energy using organelles known as mitochondria.
Mitochondria are so crucial because, when they malfunction or become depleted, your body quickly becomes susceptible to disease and injury (1).
Healthy mitochondria are essential to your overall longevity and wellness.
When you place your body under heat stress, such as while sitting in a wet sauna, you are exerting a positive influence on your mitochondrial health (2).
Heat stress makes these organelles stronger and healthier while also triggering the processes that repair and recycle damaged mitochondria.
Heat stress also protects these hard-working systems from the effects of oxidative stress.
Thus, using a wet sauna can help make your cells more energetic and fitter, which can allow you to fit the aging process and disease much better.
Wet Saunas Use Detoxifies Your Body
One of the first reasons that people enjoyed using a sauna was because it helped them shed toxins from their bodies.
Today, we are all exposed to a wide range of pollutants, chemicals, and heavy metals in our food, water, air, and personal care items (3), and using a wet sauna can help you eliminate these.
The act of sweat bathing, another name for using a sauna, encourages you to sweat more than you usually would, which releases all sorts of trapped wastes from your pores and leaves you feeling refreshed.
Regular wet sauna sessions help you flush a wide variety of toxins from your system, and sweating is the best way to eliminate many pollutants from your body, especially heavy metals (4).
Sweating is more effective than other forms of excretion at elimination such toxins as lead, mercury, and arsenic (5), which are some of the most common heavy metals found in today’s water and food.
With our climate-controlled world and lack of manual labor in most people’s lives, very few people sweat regularly anymore, which is why using a sauna regularly is more important than ever before.
Wet Saunas Can Increase Your Longevity
The elevated temperatures of a wet sauna activate your FOXO3 gene, which is connected to aging and influences your longevity.
This gene creates a protein of the same name and can suppress or activate other genes in your body to control cell death, metabolism, and stress resistance.
All of these processes are what keep your cells in working order, and FOXO3 proteins are highly influential to all (6).
The high heat of a wet sauna also causes your body to release what are known as heat shock proteins or HSPs, which have been linked to a host of health benefits, including improved longevity.
HSPs work to repair and recycle damaged cells and promote the formation of new, healthier cells.
In addition, HSPs also help to regulate your antioxidant levels, especially glutathione, an important compound that protects your cells from the damage of disease and aging (7).
HSPs helps your cells resist the ravages of deterioration and disease that lead to an early death.
In a longitudinal study involving 20 years of data from men in Finland, researchers found that regular sauna use was associated with longer lives and less risk of death from all causes.
Those who used their sauna up to three times per week were 24 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular problems as well as all other causes of death, and increasing their use to seven times per week improved their longevity to 40 percent (8).
Wet Saunas Lower Inflammation and Reduce Pain
The use of a sauna to help relieve pain and reduce inflammation is another long-standing tradition.
There are many conditions in which excess inflammation contributes to symptoms, including chronic pain, and wet sauna use can help.
The HSPs released under extreme body temperatures are anti-inflammatory.
They help to reduce the body’s natural inflammatory processes, which can cause problems with joint pain, headaches, back pain, and even digestive issues (9, 10).
Using a wet sauna for heat therapy also improves your antioxidant levels, which helps you fight the oxidative stress that also contributes to inflammation (11).
Wet Saunas Boost Your Heart Health
Your heart also benefits from the use of a wet sauna.
One of the most important benefits is that the elevated temperatures of a sauna help to improve your circulation, which means more parts of your body are getting needed oxygen.
This form of heat therapy also releases important antioxidants which combat oxidative stress, a significant contributor to the formation of arterial plaque that causes heart disease (12).
Using a wet sauna can also reduce blood pressure over time, which improves your heart health, as well.
In one research study, participants with hypertension saw a 50 percent reduction in their blood pressure levels when using a sauna up to seven times per week (13).
Those who use a sauna on a regular basis are much less likely to suffer from both coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease.
In one study, researchers saw that two to three sauna sessions per week reduced these risks by 23 and 27 percent respectively, and using one up to seven times per week decreased the chance to 40 and 50 percent respectively (14).
Those are astounding results from a natural, alternative treatment.
Wet Saunas Improve Disease-Fighting Capabilities
The release of HSPs and FOXO3 proteins that are triggered by sauna use can also help you to fight off many diseases and disorders.
For example, sauna use is associated with a decrease in respiratory illnesses, such as asthma (15) because the high temperatures and moist air help to reduce congestion while improving overall lung function.
Certain types of cells are more likely to die under high temperatures, while others remain healthy.
Cancer cells cannot adapt to high heat, so they have higher rates of cell death than the surrounding, healthy cells (16).
Using a sauna can be combined with other forms of treatment in the fight against certain types of cancer (17).
HSPs and FOXO3 proteins also help to prevent neurodegeneration.
These proteins can help prevent the misfolding of tau proteins in the brain that can lead to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Sauna use is linked to a reduction in the risk of developing neurodegenerative disorders, with some studies showing a 64 percent decrease with regular sauna use (18).
Wet Saunas Improve Brain Power and Influence Mood
The hot temperatures of a wet sauna also encourage the production of BDNF or brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
This compound signals to your brain to produce new neurons while also maintaining the health of your existing nerve cells.
BDNF is vital for the formation of neural connections, which is how we learn new things and store memories (19).
By promoting the release of endorphins, sweat bathing also can help boost your mood.
These neurotransmitters help reduce stress and leave you feeling more positive (20).
Those who use a sauna regularly also experience more relaxation, giving them more strength to cope with the everyday difficulties of life (21).
Wet Saunas Improve Athletic Performance and Help Build Muscle Strength
For anyone who is an athlete, enjoys working out, or is looking to improve their muscle strength, using a wet sauna can help.
When you expose your body to the elevated temperatures of a sauna, your endocrine system produces human growth hormone or HGH.
Increased sauna use correlates to higher levels of HGH (22), which helps you grow stronger muscles while resisting muscle breakdown from strenuous activity.
In addition to producing more HGH, sauna use also causes the production of IGF1, which improves the insulin sensitivity of your cells (23).
IGF1 and HGH combined can lead to better protein synthesis and amino acid absorption in your muscle tissues as well as less protein breakdown.
Take all of these together, and you can see how sauna use can help you recover more quickly after activity, which will leave your muscles feeling fitter and with less pain (24).
Final Thoughts
Using a wet sauna regularly is a wonderful way to relax but it also can help to improve your health significantly.
Sauna use is linked to improvements in immune system function, lower levels of pain and inflammation, improvements in mood, enhanced mitochondrial health, and better muscle function and repair.
You may be surprised at all the things that using a wet sauna can do for your health, so why not try it today?