sauna

A Cellular Workout Without Hitting The Gym

Last week we touched on cold plunges and cold therapy; this week, we are diving into hot therapy through saunas

 

A sauna session is like a cellular workout without having to move. Most of the health benefits derived from saunas result from the body’s response to heat: sweating. Most people do not sweat enough. Saunas are fantastic ways to detoxify your body through the expulsion of toxins through perspiration. 

 

Your skin is your largest organ of detoxification. Many people have toxins in their system from a poor diet and physiologic metabolic residue from pharmaceuticals. In addition, many of us are constantly bombarded with a 1000-fold increase in environmental toxicity versus what our ancestors experienced just 100 years ago. When you use a sauna actively and sweat out a toxic metabolic profile, you are cleansing your system of these toxins. 

 

Though cold plunges and saunas are polar opposites, they complement each other extremely well. The marriage of these therapies is called contrast therapy or hydrotherapy: the application of hot air or exposure to a sauna, paired with cold water. 

 

Our ancestors used contrast therapy for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Contrast therapy has immense scientific and health benefits.

 

Hydrotherapy and contrast therapy can mean similar things. Both therapies stimulate what’s known as heat shock proteins or cold shock proteins. Basically, this stimulation freaks your system out into thinking it’s going to die for a very short window of time. As a result, your system jumps into action. 

 

Sauna therapy helps you sweat things out and wake things up. 

 

When we talk about the hero or the heroine’s journey, we’re building something internally: psychological resilience. Hot and cold therapy, both separate and when paired together, build physiologic and cellular resilience.

 

These therapies specifically help to increase and optimize your level of resiliency psychologically because they train you to be okay in the midst of discomfort, and sauna therapy has the added benefit of detoxification. 

 

I look forward to diving into more alternative therapies next week. 

 

Until then, wishing you a beautiful, happy, and healthy week ahead!

 

To your health,

Dr. Dan

 

Get healthy.  Stay present.  Help out.

 

P.S. Thank you so much for all your support of A Dose of Hope! The reviews I have received are a constant reminder of how much this conversation needs to be shared. If you have a moment and have finished reading your copy, please leave a review

 

What I appreciated most about A Dose of Hope was that it’s a book with a message relevant to everyone today. We are inundated with trauma, and it touches everyone, not just the soldiers or the frontline workers. Knowing that a trauma survivor can heal from the negative effects on his or her mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being and knowing how promising this approach can be using MDMA-assisted psychotherapy might just be the hope humanity needs most in these challenging times. ~Sergio 

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