Amazing New Big Performance-Enhancing Discoveries
Here is a Peek at What You Will Learn in this Book…
Brain and Mood Benefits by Increasing New Brain Cells and Increasing Neurotransmitters
How You Can Get a Runner’s High Without Exercising
Triggers a “Massive” Release in Growth Hormone
Diabetes and Increased Insulin Sensitivity
Rapid Wound Healing
Increased Longevity
A recent Finnish study involving more than 2,000 middle-aged men found that using saunas 4-7 times per week decreased all-cause mortality by 40%! The risk of any form of dementia was 66% lower and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease was 65% lower than among those using saunas just once a week. The findings were published recently in the Age and Aging Journal.
You can get a runner’s high without exercising. Really?
There is a lot of new information that has come out recently demonstrating just how amazing regular sauna use can be. Science is now revealing precisely how some of the incredible benefits are created.
Historically, saunas are common in many countries. In Finland, you can find them in nearly every home, where they’re used for relaxation, detoxification and much more. Archaeological evidence shows that saunas have been used ever since the Stone Age. In Finland, they have been used ever since 5000 – 3000 B.C., where are they were introduced by people who migrated from an area northwest of present-day Tibet.
Now science is showing us why they have been valued for such an incredibly long time all over the world.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Traditional Saunas Compared to Far Infrared Saunas
Chapter 2 Benefits of Heat Acclimation
Chapter 3 How Sauna Use Can Benefit Your Brain and Mood
Chapter 4 Infrared Saunas versus Wooden Saunas
Chapter 5 Endurance, Neurons and Muscle Repair
Chapter 6 Focus, Attention and Faster Brain Function
Chapter 7 Growth Hormones
Chapter 8 Stress Resistance and Protein Repair
Chapter 9 Diabetes and Increased Insulin Sensitivity
Chapter 10 Heat Shock Proteins to the Rescue Again
Traditional Saunas Compared to Far Infrared Saunas
There are two types of Finnish saunas, the wet Finnish sauna, where steam is created by throwing water on hot rocks, where the heat can be generated by either wood burning or electricity and the dry Finnish sauna which uses electrical heating,
The application of infrared began in the early to mid 20th century in Germany and has been actively developed by Japanese doctors and therapists for the last 40 years Infrared saunas can significantly expedite the detoxification process, in fact…
Improvements Have Been Made
The difference between an infrared sauna and the traditional saunas is that the latter heats you like an oven, from the outside in. Infrared saunas heat you from the inside out.
According to the Mayo Clinic, this makes them much safer for heart patients who are warned against using traditional saunas. Because the core temperature of the body is equalized with the temperature of the skin, the heart does not have to race to equalize the temperatures.
While increasing the heart rate benefits circulation, it’s safer and not necessary to overdo it, as can happen in a traditional sauna. There are many benefits to enhanced circulation such as helping to oxygenate your tissues, carrying nutrients to your cells and releasing toxins from the body. FIR saunas don’t raise blood pressure, but rather, lower it.
Because far infrared saunas heat you from the inside out the heat penetrates deeper, so the effects reach deeper and you sweat much more heavily, 2-3 times more than in a traditional sauna during the same amount time and at a lower temperature, 165 degrees in a Relax Sauna rather than the 160-200 degrees commonly seen in a traditional sauna. Many people, myself included, take towels into the sauna to wipe down and the towels get soaked through.
And, also, since infrared saunas heat you from the inside out, the composition of your sweat is different from that produced in a traditional Finnish-style sauna. The sweat produced is loaded more with toxins, including fat, unwanted chemicals and heavy metals. See more toxins in sweat when using the Relax Sauna These particular saunas are so efficient because they are the only ones that generate 98% far infrared energy (patented) and their reflective inner silver lining assures you receive the energy from all directions as the far-infrared rays bounce around inside.
Because far infrared saunas heat your tissues several inches deep, they can enhance your natural metabolic processes. In addition, viruses and toxin-laden cells are weaker than normal cells. They tolerate heat poorly, so by raising your body temperature, this can help ward off colds and help heal infections quicker.
Tiny Professional Grade Relax Sauna
Benefits of Heat Acclimation
In this article, you will learn how heat acclimation through sauna use…
…can promote physiological adaptations that result in increased endurance, easier acquisition of muscle mass, and a generally increased capacity for stress tolerance.
• This hyperthermic conditioning (heat acclimation) has positive effects on the brain, including the growth of new brain cells, improvement in focus, learning and memory, and alleviating depression and anxiety.
• It can prevent atrophy during muscle disuse, such as after an injury and aid in muscle regrowth.
• It can increase a neurotransmitter in the brain associated with focus and attention and it is associated with longevity due to the activation of the longevity gene, FOXO3.
• Heat stress also activates the master gene, FOXO3, which activates many other genes that protect against the stress of aging including DNA damage, damage to proteins and lipids, loss of stem cell function, loss of immune function, cellular senescence and more.
• FOXO3 activates many of the other genes that happen to decrease with age, turning on genes such as stress-resistant antioxidant genes, DNA repair and genes that kill tumor cells.
• Heat stress increases the production of heat shock proteins, which protect against cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases and prevent protein aggregation (which, in the brain, is the molecular basis for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s).
• That wonderful feeling, called “Runner’s High,” is even generated by the modulation of core temperature via an interaction between the dynorphin/beta-endorphin opioid systems.
Much of this research has been reported by :
Dr. Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science and is an expert in nutrition, metabolism, and aging. She has done extensive research on aging, metabolism, nutrition, and cancer. She currently conducts clinical trials examining the positive effects of vitamin and mineral supplementation on metabolism, inflammation, and aging. She is a post-doctorate fellow at UCSF-Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute.
Sauna Benefits
Skin is a major organ of elimination, but most people’s skin is very inactive because many people simply do not sweat enough. Because repeated use of a sauna slowly restores skin elimination, this allows toxic chemicals and metals to be removed. This is a daily habit that pays off in many ways, not only for detoxification but for muscle health, brain health, endurance, relaxation, feelings of well-being and much more.
I bet you didn’t know this…
Our palms emit infrared energy between 8 and 14 microns and you can experience this heat by holding your palms near each other without touching. With practice, you can feel it at ever increasing distances as you widen the gap between your palms. Palm healing has a 3000-year history in China and is based on the natural healing properties of far infrared energy.
Here is something that illustrates how sweating and sauna use can have so much influence in how you feel, not only physically, but mentally, as well.
How Sauna Use Can Benefit Your Brain and Mood
New research shows how hyperthermic conditioning has robust positive effects on the brain:
• It improves attention and focus by increasing the storage and release of norepinephrine.It causes your brain to function faster by enhancing myelination and helps to repair damaged neurons by Increasing prolactin,
• It causes the growth of new brain cells, improves the ability for you to learn and retain new information, and reduces certain types of depression and anxiety by Increasing brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) more than exercise alone when used in conjunction with exercise. This is important because BDNF increases the growth of new brain cells as well as the survival of existing neurons.
• It causes a robust increase in dynorphin and this results in your body becoming more sensitive to the ensuing endorphins.
(More on all this to follow)
Runner’s High and The Role of Dynorphin
The so-called “runner’s high,” which is the boost in endorphins and well-being that’s often felt after exercise, has been found to be related to heat stress, Studies revealed that heat stress from exposure to a sauna increases endorphins significantly. As your body is subjected to reasonable amounts of heat stress, on a regular basis, it gradually becomes acclimated to the heat, prompting a number of beneficial changes to occur in your body. These effects build over time with repeated sauna use.
Have you ever wondered what is responsible for the “runner’s high” or post-exercise highs, in general?
If you’ve heard that it’s due to endorphins, just know that’s not the whole story. Here’s how that works:
Beta-endorphins are endogenous (natural) opioids that are a part of the body’s natural painkiller system. This is known as the mu opioid system, which blocks pain messages from spreading from the body to the brain in a process called antinociception.
What is lesser known is that the body also produces a peptide known as dynorphin (a “kappa opioid”). The release of dynorphin is generally responsible for the sensation of discomfort (dysphoria), experienced during intense exercise, exposure to extreme heat (such as in a sauna), or eating spicy food (capsaicin).
The release of dynorphin causes an upregulation and sensitization of mu opioid receptors, which interact with beta-endorphin. This process is what underlies the “runner’s high” and is directly initiated by the discomfort of sweating or physical exercise. So to translate, the greater the discomfort experienced during your workout or in the sauna when you stay in long enough to sweat profusely, the better the endorphin high will be afterward. Now you understand the underlying biological mechanism that explains this pumping-up process.
When you sweat, dynorphin binds to your capiod receptor. Then the body thinks it is getting too much activation of those capiod receptors and it causes the body to make more new feel-good opiod receptors to compensate. So the next time you sweat it feels even better and this has been found to have long lasting effects, as well.
Here’s something from Dr. Rhonda Patrick, that illustrates how that process works in terms of addiction.
Certain drugs, which are used to treat opiod addiction, activate the capiod receptor pathways since anything that will help with dynorphin creation will be of benefit. Addiction has to do with the increasing depletion of receptor sites so that ever increasing amounts of a drug are required in order to feel good. When people are addicted, their nu-opiod receptors are way, way down and they need to be brought back up.
To sum it up, Dynorphin, by activating the capiod receptor, will make more opiod receptors and stimulate more endorphins for feeling great! When people are not addicted, this works even faster.
The more the short-term discomfort of sweating, the more long-term feel-good endorphins in your life. Pretty good results to be had for doing nothing more than just sitting there!
Infrared Saunas versus Wooden Saunas
More Far Infrared Sauna versus Wooden Sauna Benefits
Some people still favor wood-burning saunas, but the more modern electrical versions and the infrared saunas are most common today. Since this has sometimes led to a problem with high electromagnetic radiation, be sure the sauna is not emitting high levels of EMFs.
Here is a video showing the extremely low levels of radiation, as recorded by the use of a Gauss meter, inside of a Relax sauna.
The Relax far infrared sauna has a timer that cannot be set for more than 30 minutes at a time, another feature that makes them very safe. Finnish saunas can be set for as much as eight hours at a time, especially in gyms or spas, It is recommended that people not use Finnish type saunas alone and always have a friend with them. People can use Relax saunas when they are alone and they are very safe.
Another benefit for people is that, because Relax saunas are so small – only a 2’-9” sg. footprint, almost anyone can have one. Given that you are essentially sitting inside of a small tent, with either your head outside or inside as you choose, they are much more affordable than wooden saunas.
And because Relax saunas have a reflective inner lining, the far infrared rays come at you from all directions so you get more bang for your buck. In wooden saunas, the far infrared rays are only projected in one direction, directly from the radiators, so you need to be right in front of them, right where the highest levels of EMF are.
Endurance
Acclimating yourself to heat through sauna use, independent of aerobic physical activity, boosts endurance. This hyperthermic conditioning induces adaptations in your body that make it easier for you to perform when your body temperature is elevated.
Your body gradually becomes acclimated to the heat when it is subjected to reasonable amounts of heat stress. This prompts a number of beneficial changes to occur in your body.
These adaptations include increased plasma volume and blood flow to your heart and muscles. This increases athletic endurance and increases muscle mass due to greater levels of heat-shock proteins and growth hormone.
Intermittent exposure to heat induces a protective stress response (called a hormetic response), which promotes the expression of a gene called heat shock factor 1 and, subsequently, the heat-shock proteins involved in stress resistance. This results in preventing oxidative protein damage and/or repairing damaged proteins, a huge benefit in creating excellent health and endurance.
In one study, those who had a 30-minute sauna session twice a week for three weeks after their workouts increased their time it took to run until exhaustion by more than 30 percent!
Endurance, Neurons and Muscle Repair
Back to Brain Benefits – Neurogenesis
During sauna use, as well as during exercise and fasting, nerve cells release proteins known as neurotrophic factors, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF, which activates brain stem cells to produce new neurons.
Heat stress has been shown to increase the expression of BDNF even more than exercise alone when used in conjunction with exercise. This is important because BDNF increases the growth of new brain cells as well as the survival of existing neurons.
Not only does BDNF cause the growth of new brain cells, improve the ability for you to learn and retain new information, and reduce certain types of depression and anxiety from early-life stressful events but BDNF’s role in the brain is also to modulate neuronal plasticity and long-term memory.
In addition to the function, BDNF plays in the brain, when it’s released as a consequence of exercise BDNF is also secreted by muscle where it plays a role in muscle repair and the growth of new muscle cells.
BDNF expresses itself in the neuro-muscular system where it protects neuro-motors from degradation. The neuromotor is the most critical element in muscle. Your muscle is like an engine without ignition without the neuromotor and is the most critical element in your muscle. Neuro-motor degradation is part of the process that explains age-related muscle atrophy. Here is where sauna use and exercise together really shine.
Focus, Attention and Faster Brain Function
Heat Stress Increases Focus, Attention and Faster Brain Function
(So You Be Sharp and Zippy!)
Norepinephrine helps with focus and attention while prolactin promotes myelin growth, which makes your brain function faster, which is key in repairing nerve cell damage.
Sauna-induced hyperthermia has been shown to induce a robust activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and, also, boost norepinephrine and prolactin production.
One study demonstrated that men who stayed in saunas that were heated to 80°C (176°F) until subjective exhaustion increased norepinephrine by 310%, had a 10-fold increase in prolactin, and actually modestly decreased cortisol. Similarly, in another study, women that spent 20-minute sessions in a dry sauna twice a week had a 86% increase in norepinephrine and a 510% increase in prolactin after the session!
Additionally, heat acclimation has actually been shown to increase the biological capacity to store norepinephrine for later release.
Since the norepinephrine response to exercise has been demonstrated to be blunted in children with ADHD and that norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (NRI) are frequently prescribed to treat ADHD (among other things), it would be wise to test the use of heat stress and subsequent acclimation for its effectiveness as an interesting alternative therapeutic approach.
Children actually enjoy sitting in Relax saunas because they say it feels good. One mother says her children call it “the tent.”
Growth Hormones
Sauna Use Can Trigger a “Massive” Release in Growth Hormone
The serious muscle loss and atrophy that typically occurs with aging is affected by human growth hormone (HGH), a synergistic, foundational biochemical. The higher your levels of HGH, the healthier and stronger you will be.
Once people hit the age of 30, they enter what’s called “somatopause,” at which point their levels of HGH begin to drop off quite dramatically. Maintaining HGH levels gets increasingly important with age, because this decline of HGH is part of what drives the aging process.
Through sauna use, repeated exposure to whole-body intermittent hyperthermia (hyperthermic conditioning) has a profound effect on boosting growth hormone immediately afterward and which generally persists for a couple of hours after that.
Even though it is a banned substance in nearly every professional sport, some athletes choose to inject HGH for its performance-enhancing potential. Injecting HGH is not recommend. however, due to the potential side effects, the cost and, most importantly, its potential to cause more long-term harm than good. Taking such risks is unnecessary because there are ways to naturally optimize your HGH, such as high-intensity exercise, intermittent fasting and sauna use. Increasing your core temperature for short bursts is not only healthful, it can also dramatically improve performance.
And here is where hyperthermic conditioning shines: heat acclimation reduces protein degradation.
Stress Resistance and Protein Repair
What are “Heat Shock Proteins”?
There is a mechanism by which heat stress prevents protein degradation. This is by triggering heat shock proteins (HSPs), which are used by your cells to counteract potentially harmful stimulus. How this works is DNA separates in certain regions and begins to read the genetic code to produce these stress proteins whenever a cell is exposed to an unfriendly environment. HSPs are actually beneficial, helping to both prevent and repair damaged proteins.
As Dr. Patrick explains, ”Heat shock proteins (or HSPs), as the name implies, are induced by heat and are a prime example of hormesis. Intermittent exposure to heat induces a hormetic response (a protective stress response), which promotes the expression of a gene called heat shock factor 1 and subsequently HSPs involved in stress resistance.
HSPs can prevent damage by directly scavenging free radicals and also by supporting cellular antioxidant capacity through its effects on maintaining glutathione. HSPs can repair misfolded, damaged proteins thereby ensuring proteins have their proper structure and function.”
Research has shown that when rats were exposed to intermittent heat sessions, they had a “robust” expression of heat shock proteins. That was associated with 30 percent more muscle regrowth compared to a control group and the expression of HSPs persisted for up to 48 hours after the heat session, actually leading to a higher expression of heat shock proteins, This happens even when you’re not exercising and when you do exercise, heat acclimation may prompt an even greater release of HSPs than normal.
Heat Stress Triggers Heat Shock Proteins That Prevent Protein Degradation
When you exercise, you are increasing the energetic needs of your muscle cells. Your little energy factories, the mitochondria found in each of these cells, kick into gear in order to help meet this demand and start sucking in the oxygen found in your blood in order to produce new energy in the form of ATP. A by-product of this process, however, is the generation of oxygen free radicals like superoxide and hydrogen peroxide, generally referred to simply as “oxidative stress”, a form of free radical damage.
Oxidative stress is a major source of protein degradation. Preventing protein damage and/or repairing damaged proteins is definitely what we want.
Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are induced by heat and are a prime example of hormesis. This hormetic response (a protective stress response) is induced by intermittent exposure to heat. This promotes the expression of a gene called heat shock factor 1 and subsequently the heat shock proteins involved in stress resistance.
- HSPs can prevent damage by directly scavenging free radicals and, by maintaining glutathione, supports cellular antioxidant capacity.
- And to ensure proteins have their proper structure and function, HSPs can repair misfolded, damaged proteins.
Here are your proteins, folding and unfolding – bet you didn’t know you had such a party going on inside did you?!
Diabetes and Increased Insulin Sensitivity
Sauna use is also known to help improve insulin sensitivity. One animal study even found that 30 minutes of hyperthermic treatment, three times a week for 12 weeks, resulted in a 31 percent decrease in insulin levels and a significant reduction in blood sugar levels. This has implications for many chronic diseases that are driven by insulin resistance, such as Type 2 Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome, among others.
Oxidative stress and toxic irritation damages cells and microbes feed on this damaged cell tissue. This triggers the production of cytokines to create inflammation and bring in more infection-fighting white blood cells, nutrients and other healing factors into the area to clean up the mess.
After studying the blood samples of thousands of diabetics, it has been found that diabetic sufferers were inflamed because their body fluids were rife with inflammatory chemicals. These chemicals are called Cytokines and are the key indicator of how much inflammation a person’s body has.
That’s because their main role within your body is to trigger inflammation so the more cytokines in you, the more inflammation you have, whether you realize it’s going on or not.
The big problem is that cytokines trigger other cytokines to activate and inflame your cells. Then a constant chain reaction occurs and self-perpetuates, thus making you a slave to diabetic treatment.
Therefore, the inflammation triggered by cytokines makes the human body less responsive to insulin and this increases the risk for insulin resistance.
There is another mechanism that leads to insulin resistance and that is decreased glucose uptake by skeletal muscle.
The hyperthermic treatment in the study specifically targeted the skeletal muscle by increasing the expression of a type of transporter known as GLUT 4. This is responsible for the transporting of glucose into skeletal muscle from the bloodstream.
After an injury, muscle regrowth (reloading) must occur. Muscle reloading induces oxidative stress particularly after periods of disuse, which slows the rate of muscle regrowth. A 30-minute hyperthermic treatment at 41°C (105.8°F) increased soleus muscle regrowth by 30% after reloading as compared to non-hyperthermic treatment in rats.
Heat Shock Proteins to the Rescue Again
The effects of whole body hyperthermia in preventing muscle atrophy and increasing muscle regrowth after immobilization were shown to occur as a consequence elevated HSP levels.
If you’ve had a muscle injury, you may be immobilized for lengthy periods and this will generally will cause your muscles to begin to atrophy. Hyperthermic conditioning has been shown to slow muscle atrophy during disuse by up to 32% in one animal study. Courtesy of elevated HSP levels, whole-body heat treatment both prevents muscle atrophy and increases muscle regrowth.
Dr. Patrick explained: “During injury, you may be immobilized but you don’t have to be very mobile to sit in the sauna a few times a week to boost your HSPs! This is a clear win in the injury and recovery department.”
Athletes, In particular, really value sauna use for this reason.
Health is Wealth.
Health and vitality are our birthrights, which we all deserve as we become the best expression of who we’re meant to be in order to create a better world!
Creating a better world starts with a healthy and happy you so you can enjoy yourself as you go off and contribute in your own unique way.
Here’s wishing you robust health, clarity, vitality and joy.
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