Should I assume a steam room has the same effect? I prefer it over sauna
Sauna effect on heart rate
161–170 of 244 posts
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are clearly not Finn (/s)
lol, this is true. Wish I could tolerate it longer like a proper Finn. I’ll go 25 mins occasionally but mostly I do 15 mins, break, another 5-10 mins..
Finns don't do it that long. It's typically 5-15 minutes per sitting, with 2-4 sittings per session.
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#163Author here. Methodology upfront because I'd ask the same things: Data: daily records from wearable users who logged sauna sessions via connected apps. Within-person design — each user is their own control, comparing their own sauna-day nights against their own non-sauna-day nights. No cross-user comparisons. Stats: paired t-tests, FDR-corrected p 0.2 threshold for "meaningful effect." Anything below d=0.2 we don't r…
The most important thing you didn't measure: does this affect long term health in the same way exercise it known to. That is can I put a TV in my sauna and watch that for an hour every day instead of getting out and exercising - yet get the same better long term health outcomes? My current guess is no. That is this improves a marker for good health without improving health. However this is a guess by someone who isn'…
If you're watching TV in a sauna you haven't turned the sauna on.
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zero shot you'd make it an hour in a proper sauna for an hour. People have this idea that saunas are always enjoyable. I sauna daily, and its nice up to a point. For me thats like 10-12mins in. From then on, its tough.
I generally make it about 30 seconds in a sauna (I rarely even bother trying when I have access). Should I tough it out for 10-12 like you? Should you be toughing it out for the full hour I suggested (a random time I pulled out of my head)? Or is this all nonsense and I'm just fine ignoring the whole thing?
30 seconds? What kind of torture room of a sauna are you going in?
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#165Author here. Methodology upfront because I'd ask the same things: Data: daily records from wearable users who logged sauna sessions via connected apps. Within-person design — each user is their own control, comparing their own sauna-day nights against their own non-sauna-day nights. No cross-user comparisons. Stats: paired t-tests, FDR-corrected p 0.2 threshold for "meaningful effect." Anything below d=0.2 we don't r…
The most important thing you didn't measure: does this affect long term health in the same way exercise it known to. That is can I put a TV in my sauna and watch that for an hour every day instead of getting out and exercising - yet get the same better long term health outcomes? My current guess is no. That is this improves a marker for good health without improving health. However this is a guess by someone who isn'…
Even more likely is those using saunas and tracking metrics with wearables are self-selected to be healthier/more active/etc. Correlation and causation...
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Athletes already know the answer from years of cultural knowledge, research, and firsthand experience. No, it doesn't make your cardio fitness meaningfully better. If you did sauna training for years and then tried to ramp up for a marathon, you'd be hopelessly out of shape. Endurance athletes obsessively track VO2 max, basically your body's ability to consume oxygen during workouts, and it certainly doesn't improve…
You’ve honed in specifically on VO2 but what about cardio health in general? Like light treadmill, not like a demanding marathon.
A light treadmill session won't do much to improve your cardiovascular system health either. I mean it's better than nothing but don't expect too much.
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Increasing skin temperature is known to induce sleep (can't find a source currently, sorry). Something about your skin being warmer allowing your body to cool more effectively, I think. So a hot shower before bed is actually great for sleep, because you get the increased skin temp, relaxed muscles from the warm water, and general relaxation because showers are (for many people) relaxing.
That's funny, I find it much easier to fall asleep in a cold environment. Then again, I also like to use a heavy blanket, so maybe it's the weight more than the cold that's helping me.
I think that's also consistent with the idea behind a hot shower. The shower doesn't help by increasing your body temperature, in fact it does the opposite. The hot shower induces the body to try to cool down, so near-skin blood vessels swell, and that dumps heat into the cold air, which reduces your core temperature, and a reduced core temperature helps you fall asleep.
I think where I read about this was Why We Sleep from Matthew Walker. But he suggests just washing your face with warm water, as opposed to a shower.
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
A sauna will do nothing for muscular-skeletal health.
That seems like a very strong statement. Isn’t there evidence that Heat Shock Proteins are produced in response to time in the sauna, which have beneficial effects on muscle growth and repair?
>which have beneficial effects on muscle growth and repair?
Repair from what?
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally make it about 30 seconds in a sauna (I rarely even bother trying when I have access). Should I tough it out for 10-12 like you? Should you be toughing it out for the full hour I suggested (a random time I pulled out of my head)? Or is this all nonsense and I'm just fine ignoring the whole thing?
30 seconds? What kind of torture room of a sauna are you going in?
Heat tolerance varies. For some of us, all saunas feel like torture rooms!
Re: Sauna effect on heart rate
#170Can anyone suggest why after covid I can't do Finnish sauna anymore? Prior to that I used to do 1-2x a week a sequence of 5x(10 minutes in sauna + 5 minutes cold water immersion + 10 minutes rest) which was absolutely great for both stress reduction and blood flow. Now if I do 5 minutes in sauna I feel like my skin was burning and I am about to die, and I need to recover for 1 hour from that to be able to just walk a…
Did it happen suddenly? Or did you go for a long time without using a sauna, and noticed the change only when you resumed? Did anything else about your body change, such as weight loss (perhaps from a GLP-1)?
It's possible that Covid had nothing to do with it, and your body is simply changing with age. It's depressing, but it happens!