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Mikrodermabrazja kontra sauna - Która metoda pielęgnacji skóry jest lepsza?
I Felt More Calm Than Usual
Despite being in such a hot room and sweating profusely, I felt extremely relaxed and calm during each sauna session. Those feelings continued even after I left the sauna. On multiple occasions during my sauna use, I was able to sit in silence and just focus on my breathing.
There’s a reason why people feel relaxed and calm after using a sauna, Mikhael said. It’s because as the body and muscles loosen up, heart rate and blood pressure go down.
Hydration Tip
I found I had to drink more water than usual because of how much I sweat in the sauna—at least 2 glasses more than usual each day. Because you can lose up to a pint of water from your body after a sauna session, experts say you should drink at least 2 to 4 glasses of water after you step out.
Cool off with a Cold Shower or Cold Plunge
Your post-sauna routine is all about transitioning from the intense heat of the sauna to a cooler environment. Saunas change the activity in your body, so when you step out you need to cool off and recover to return your body to its normal functioning.
Cooling off with a cold shower or cold plunge is important for a number of reasons and processes, including lowering your skin temperature, closing your pores, cooling airways and lungs, stabilizing your blood pressure and circulation, redirecting blood flow to your core organs, as well as the stimulation of muscles.
As your body heats inside the sauna, your heart beats faster and your blood pressure rises in order to divert blood flow away from internal organs and to your skin. Your pores then dilate so you perspire efficiently, flushing your body of toxins.
While this process brings many health benefits, it’s unhealthy to keep your body in this heat-activated state for a long period of time. It’s crucial that you cool off before resuming normal activity after a sauna session.
Some people enjoy more extreme cooling techniques after leaving the sauna. Unless you have underlying medical conditions, such as heart or respiratory problems, anemia, Raynaud’s syndrome, kidney disease, or infections, cryotherapy can quickly help your body cool off after sauna use (see our article about cryotherapy for more information about this cooling method).
Eat Nutritious Food to Replenish Minerals and Vitamins Like Sodium
The best way to replace lost electrolytes and other nutrients are not just by drinking plenty of nourishing fluids but also by eating nutritious foods. It’s important to eat a healthy snack as part of your post-sauna routine. You might notice that you crave salt when you leave the sauna.
That’s because of the lost electrolytes, especially sodium. While it’s tempting to grab a bag of chips or other high-sodium junk food, doing so is unhealthy and doesn’t add the right amount of sodium back into your system. Remember why you are embracing the sauna life in the first place.
Quite likely, you are doing it for positive health benefits. Enhance the benefits with the right foods to replace lost minerals the good way. Among foods that can replace water and nutrients lost to sauna sweating are green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale, watercress, and collard greens, beets, nuts, bananas as well as foods that are high in water like melon and pineapple.
Because your body’s circulation hasn’t fully returned to normal and your digestive system isn’t experiencing adequate blood supply, avoid eating large and/or heavy meals. Stick to a small snack instead. This is where drinking beverages with electrolytes can be very helpful because it supplies your body with the minerals it lost without requiring intense digestion and can speed your recovery time.
Adding electrolytes to your water can be as easy as adding Hi-Lyte Sugar-Free Electrolyte Powder (on Amazon). A convenient way to snack and hydrate after the sauna is to make a smoothie (you can even add electrolytes to it) ahead of time. Step out of the sauna, keep sipping water, cool off in the shower, and then grab your smoothie out of the fridge and relax.
Types of Saunas
Sauna bathing is known as whole-body thermotherapy or heat therapy. It is used in different forms in different parts of the world.
What Is Thermotherapy?
Thermotherapy, or "heat therapy," uses heat to treat symptoms.
Throughout time, saunas have been used for hygiene, health, social, and spiritual purposes. There are a couple of different types of saunas.
Modern-Day Sauna
The modern-day sauna follows the traditional Finnish-style sauna. These saunas have dry air with humidity ranging from 10% to 20%.
There are increased periods of humidity, where the temperature ranges between 176 and a maximum of 212 degrees. Other styles include the Turkish-style Hammam and Russian Banya.
Infrared Sauna
The infrared sauna is a dry heat sauna. It has a temperature range between 113 and 140 degrees.
Different types of saunas can be distinguished by their level of humidity, heating source, and construction style.
Saunas and Lung Health
A 2018 review of several studies, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, suggests that sauna usage may improve lung function. The review found saunas may improve breathing, forced expiratory volume (how much air you can let out during a forced breath), and vital capacity (the maximum air that can be exhaled after maximal air has been inhaled).
In the review, one study of 12 male participants with obstructive pulmonary disease concluded that sauna use created a temporary improvement in lung function. Another study found that sauna exposure created breathing improvements in patients with asthma or chronic bronchitis. Other studies showed that frequent sauna use was associated with a reduced risk of pneumonia.
Studies to date examining the use of saunas in lung disease have very low numbers of patients studied, and therefore the data is considered inconclusive.
Acute Respiratory Symptoms
Though not conclusive, some studies have suggested that saunas can help relieve symptoms of allergic rhinitis (hay fever) and mild upper respiratory tract infections.
In one study, people who had been diagnosed with allergic rhinitis were randomly assigned to two groups. One group received education about their condition but otherwise lived as they normally would. Another received 30 minutes of sauna treatment three days a week for six weeks.
Both groups were tested at the beginning and again at three weeks and six weeks. The treatment group was found to have much greater improvements in peak nasal inspiratory flow rates (a measurement of nasal airflow during maximum inhalation) than the education group.
Studies have also looked at the potential for sauna use to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
A brief review published early in the COVID-19 pandemic looked at the effect of heat on other coronaviruses, including the viruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV). In laboratory conditions, even temperatures below those in a traditional-style sauna could reduce coronavirus infectivity by 99.99% or more:
