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Sauna effect on heart rate

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Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#171

Post by jrussino »

eggy wrote: post #112

A delta of 3 bpm on sauna days corresponds to around 4% delta if the baseline is 72 bpm. I've gone from a resting heart rate over a 7-day average of 64 bpm to 58 bpm by jumping 15 min. of rope a day, 4 times a week. I've lost weight, body fat, and I feel like my body is more efficient with corresponding lower heart rates throughout my active day. I like saunas for recovery and aches, they put me in a relaxed state af…

> I've gone from a resting heart rate over a 7-day average of 64 bpm to 58 bpm by jumping 15 min. of rope a day, 4 times a week.

Over how long of a time period?

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#172

Post by groundzeros2015 »

robrenaud wrote: post #107
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I hate health science. Informed people can have the same information and come to opposite conclusions. The entire field is made up of contradictory explanations and principles, to the extent that it’s unknowable what’s true or not.

The flat earthers are why I hate astronomy. Afaict, the grand parent poster is just very wrong. You do want to cause acute stresses to your heart (cardiovascular exercise) to get it work better.

Claims about flat earth are falsifiable with at-home experiment.

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#173

Post by kyriakosel »

cpncrunch wrote: post #145
kyriakosel wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it works for me - what browser are you using?

Its a cloudflare gateway timeout, so not working for anyone on any browser right now. Seems like a contradiction if cloudflare cant cache what is presumably a static site.

indeed - fixed now, let me know if you can see it!

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#174

Post by pawelduda »

Arch485 wrote: post #80
strangescript wrote: post #51

Anecdotal, of course, but the biggest change I ever made in my life was right before bed: take a screaming hot shower with dim lighting. I'd say 95% of the time, I get in bed and just pass out and have no real memory of time passing before falling asleep.

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.

Hot shower heats up your body, which causes it to direct blood away from the core to cool it down so it doesn't overheat. Dropping core temp triggers the brain to ramp up melatonin production. Or so I heard.

Conversely, when the temperature drops, your body directs blood away from your hands and legs because core has higher priority for survival

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#175

Post by originalvichy »

storus wrote: post #97

Can 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…

Shot in the dark, but has your actual stove changed? When have you last changed the stones? Is the circulation of air worse?

If your skin feels hot my guess would be that the steaming effect might be disrupted by the water getting evaporated faster than before, and the circulation of air also affects the skin feel (that’s why a certain seating position can make sauna unbearable). You could also try to just turn it on at the lowest setting and see if it changes anything. Maybe the stones have gotten so old that old heat settings have sneakily turned unbearable.

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#176

Post by kyriakosel »

storus wrote: post #97

Can 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…

anecdotal -but- it took me 6 months after covid for my breathing rate to go back to normal, and to be able to do consistent max our efforts of >190BPM for >5 seconds like previously

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#177

Post by nyjah »

jampekka wrote: post #162
nyjah wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My answer was sarcastic back, fwiw, I follow the 'proper' finnish ritual or similar...

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#178

Post by HelloMcFly »

gjulianm wrote: post #71
HelloMcFly wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is this improves a marker for good health without improving health There is a substantial body of existing research to peruse about the impact of regular sauna use on health outcomes, much of it from Finland given the prevalence of sauna usage there allowing for larger sample sizes. It's a body of evidence rather than one knock-out experimental design.

Much of that body of evidence relies on self-reported and self-assigned sauna usage rather than actual randomized trials, and also the papers show massive risk reductions that do not really fit with the country-level data (e.g., if saunas are that good for cardiovascular health and finns use them that much, why do they have similar rates of CV disease as neighboring countries that don't use that much sauna?)

Much of it is, sure, but certainly not all of it! On your comparison to Sweden, be cautious! Finns generally have a higher risk and incidence of cardiovascular disease compared to native Swedes - in fact, they have some of the highest risk in the world!

Research from Earric Lee and/or Jari Laukkanen from this past decade will have clinical trials with controlled groups rather than just long-term population tracking. There are within-Finland studies comparing high-risk Finns who use the sauna 4 to 7 times a week against high-risk Finns who use it only once a week, showing a clear effect (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25705824/). Here is a non-randomized experiment showing a dose-response (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29048215/).

Those are just indications of information available. I would also argue that while of course randomized experiments are ideal, it is a mistake to dismiss all other forms of evidence so readily, especially with such preponderance of it.

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#179

Post by mcv »

jampekka wrote: post #137
storus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

95 is normal where I live for Finnish saunas. Then there are other types of saunas that start lower, but Finnish are always around 95.

95 is high for Finnish saunas in Finland at least. Public saunas are very rarely so hot here, and few like it that hot. Edit: to put it into some numbers, per one study[1] Finnish sauna sessions were on average at 75.9°C with SD 9.9°C. If we assume normal distribution, that means that more than 97 % of sauna sessions are at [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6262976/

I actually like them that hot. I look for 90+ saunas, and once was in one that claimed to be over 100. Although I have no idea how accurate that is. They're very bearable to me. But if they're not bearable, of course you should look for a sauna that's not quite as hot. Or at least stay low; the higher you sit, the hotter it is.

Re: Sauna effect on heart rate

#180

Post by dtran »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #139

I try to do 180 minutes a week of cardio. Mostly Zone 2. Biking, elliptical, tKD. But once in a while my legs feel too tired, so I complete my weekly minutes going to the steam room. It makes sense to me since it raises your heart rate. Also, my samsung watch can measure stress (whatever it means). It always shows the very, very minimal stress for me. The only time that I have been stressed was the day that I spent a…

FWIW, most of the studies on improvements in blood plasma volume from passive heat are usually done on saunas with temperatures > 150 degrees F (60 C). Steam rooms usually only get up to 120F (~49C) even though the humidity probably makes it feel warmer.
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