We all experience stress. Many of us are constantly looking for ways to de-stress to find peace, calm, and overall health. If you have a sauna routine, then you are already ahead of the game and, hopefully, experiencing many of the benefits that come with sauna bathing. If you haven’t started a sauna routine, it might be just what you need. Here are the top three ways that sauna bathing can help relieve some of the everyday stress and even long-term stress of life:

 

1. Improved Mental Health 

 

Studies are showing that full body heating can be beneficial to mental health and well-being. Heat can boost mood and help alleviate depression. This is holding for both traditional saunas and infrared saunas. When the skin is stimulated by heat, serotonin is activated and released into the brain. Many medicines that are used to treat depression and anxiety increase the level of serotonin in your brain helping you to feel more at ease.  

 

2. Stronger Immune Health

 

It’s stressful to get sick. Finding ways to boost your immune system is going to help you feel better mentally and physically. As your core temperature increases, your body is tricked into believing that you have a fever, so it kicks up its production of white blood cells. White blood cells = immune strength. Any type of exercise or boost in core temperature is going to increase the body’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can boost your immune system and help with inflammation. For those with allergies or respiratory discomfort, the steam of a traditional sauna can clear up and ease symptoms. 

 

3. Relaxation

 

The heat from the sauna relaxes the body's muscles, improves circulation, and stimulates the release of endorphins. The release of endorphins relieves pain, helps your body to relax, and improves your overall sense of well-being. 

 

An article written by U.S.News Health says this about sauna: “The greatest mental health benefit of a sauna is the act of just sitting still for a defined period, says New York City-based psychotherapist Paul Hokemeyer. "In this time, we connect with our bodies intensely and intimately. In addition, the heat of the sauna quiets the mind by bringing our awareness into the immediacy of the moment and away from the chaos of the outside world," he says. "For anyone who suffers from a mood disorder such as anxiety and depression, it’s a wonderful way to self-soothe and changes the emotional and cognitive state in a relatively short period.”

 

Taking time away in your sauna is like a mini vacation, even if you are just changing perspective by leaving one room of the house and entering another. In the case of a sauna, you are entering a clean, uncluttered, always welcoming, quiet space. The sauna allows you to leave the chaos of the day and find sanctuary within your own home.