Stone Wellness Integrative Therapies 

Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Acupuncture Physician. DOM, AP, CRYT, LMT

There is nothing quite like a 20-minute sweat session in a sauna. You feel more relaxed and rested after you are done, and the heat helps relieve sore muscles and improves your overall health and well-being, but if the high temperatures of a traditional sauna are just too much for you to handle, an infrared sauna may offer the benefits of a sauna without the extreme heat. Unlike a traditional sauna, infrared saunas do not heat the air around you. Instead, they use infrared lamps (that use electromagnetic radiation) to warm your body directly. These types of saunas use infrared panels instead of conventional heat to easily penetrate human tissue, heating up your body before heating up the air. An infrared sauna can operate at a lower temperature (usually between 120˚F and 140˚F) than a traditional sauna, which is typically between 150˚F and 180˚F. In doing this it allows the heat to penetrate more deeply than warmed air. This allows you to experience a more intense sweat at a lower temperature. The infrared Sauna environment could be found to be more tolerable, which allows you to stay in the sauna longer while increasing your core body temperature by two to three degrees.