a quick case for the sauna
It’s 98 degrees, you’re late to work, wearing a suit, and your car is not cooling down as you sit in traffic with a forced grin on your face. How can things get any worse? Well, I am going to challenge you by saying “how can things get any better?” Sure, your suit is marinating in your fluids, and you are angrier than Bob Knight after a blowout against Purdue, but you are forgetting one thing; the heat is your friend, your ally, your savior, I may even argue your healer.
There is plenty of research on sauna usage, so I will inform you on one study that caught my eye. It was completed in 2015 by Laukkanen, T. Et al. They used 2,315 Finnish men, who’s ages ranged from 42-60. The participants used the sauna 1-7 times per week, and data was collected for 20 years. The results were quite remarkable. Those men who used the sauna 4-7 times per week had a 50% reduction in cardiovascular related deaths when compared to men who used the sauna once a week. Moreover, men who used the sauna 4-7 times per week had a 40% reduction in all cause mortality when compared to men who used the sauna once per week.
So next summer when you are late to work, soaking in your suit, screaming at the slow driver in front of you, just remember one thing; just because you have to take that suit to the dry cleaner sooner than you had hoped, doesn’t mean you haven’t reaped the benefits of heat.
Written by Kenneth G. Kells III, DPT
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