Going To The Sauna: How Your Heart Health Can Be Helped
A sauna is the best place to relax and calm down your nerves after a long and hectic routine. Giving time to yourself and prioritizing your body is a necessity that everyone must acknowledge. Thus, going to the sauna twice or thrice a week and rejuvenating your body and mind is one of the best therapies known to mankind. Saunas have shown to boost skin clearance, wound healing, and muscle relaxations as well. But what’s the twist here? Can saunas help you in more ways? Can a sauna be much more than just relaxing in a hot room?
The answer might just come as a shock. According to recent studies, it is proven that saunas can benefit you far more than what you’ve been thinking. It is because saunas have confirmed to be an excellent treatment for heart patients. You heard us right; a sauna can improve heart health greatly and can save you from many cardiovascular diseases in the long run.
What Is a Sauna?
A sauna is basically a dry heated wooden room with relative moisture in the air. The temperature is normally adjusted around 70-100 degree Celsius or 150-200 Fahrenheit. Finnish saunas use dry heat with little humidity so that the heating process can be carried out effectively. Some saunas also use wood burning techniques, electrical heating systems, steam or infrared source of energy to heat up the atmosphere. This increased heat raises the skin temperature and promotes sweating which is good for the body. It relaxes the muscles and clears the skin too, but most people have always used saunas for the sole purpose of stress-relieving.
Research and Experimentations
Finnish lifestyle is particularly famous for its everyday use of saunas. Steam baths are increasingly common in Finland where people spend a major part of their everyday routine relaxing in a heated room. This not only relieves stress but comes as a great means to cherish time with family and friends. In a new study, Finnish researchers came up with an innovative finding that saunas improve your heart health, depending on the time you spend in a sauna each week. It was observed that people who visited Finnish saunas frequently were at a lesser risk of having cardiovascular diseases. The sauna’s heat speeds up the heart rate as much as reasonable exercising, which is why it boosts cardiac activity. Moreover, a drop in the blood pressure and increased elasticity of arteries was also observed after coming out of a heat bath.
Benefits for Heart Health
When it comes to heart health, no compromise should be made because health is the greatest blessing one can ever have. However, the number of people suffering from cardiac abnormalities has multiplied, extending from heart failures to stroke and angina. A sedentary lifestyle without exercise is the foremost cause that surges the risk of a heart attack.
If you’re someone who is not accustomed to exercise, then visiting a sauna would be a great remedy for avoiding and treating heart problems. The heat bath will alleviate major risk factors hence, increasing your lifespan. It is important to know that Finnish saunas show maximum positive results which are beneficial for those suffering from mild heart diseases.
Read below to find out how a traditional, wood-paneled room can be your getaway from a heart attack.
1. Improved Endothelium
The endothelium is the narrow, innermost layer of cells lining the heart and the blood vessels of your body. This layer is concerned with the release of anti-clotting proteins and interleukins. It also monitors the relaxation and contraction of blood vessels, which indirectly controls the blood pressure. Moreover, the deposition of cholesterol in the endothelium leads to hardening and thickening of vessels called arteriosclerosis. A study in Japan has shown that sauna therapy boosts vascular endothelial functioning and prevents the risk of arteriosclerosis in patients. Positive alterations in artery stiffness were seen because arteries tend to restore their elasticity after a sauna bath.
2. Lowered Cholesterol Levels
The heart is greatly affected by the body’s cholesterol levels. An increased level of LDL and VLDL results from eating fatty and processed foods. This is termed as bad cholesterol which is deposited in your blood vessels during its circulation in the body. The cholesterol can cause the lining of the blood vessels to thicken, hence narrowing the lumen of the arteries. A narrowed lumen increases blood pressure, and this makes a person susceptible to heart diseases by burdening the heart. However, it was found out that after a single visit to the sauna, the overall cholesterol level in the body lowered greatly. Also, there was a diminished level of LDL (bad cholesterol) in the body as compared to the level measured before taking a heat bath.
3. Drop in Blood Pressure
Increased blood pressure or hypertension shows early onset of heart diseases. Having four to seven trips to the sauna per week is bound to reduce your blood pressure level and workload on the heart. This is because the heat of the sauna increases sweating. When the blood vessels of the body dilate to promote sweating, there is a sudden drop in blood pressure. Moreover, profuse sweating gets rid of excess fluids which will mark the decrease in overall BP. A sauna guarantees relaxation when you sit in a classic wooden room, a quiet atmosphere, with your eyes closed and breathing hot air, your mind calms down, and blood pressure gets back to normal.
However, people with low BP should avoid saunas because their blood pressure can fall considerably low, causing them to faint.
4. Rise in Heart Rate
Habitual sauna therapy promises the same results as moderate exercise. Bearing the hot atmosphere in the room for 25-30 minutes will cause enough sweating that the heart will be triggered to pump blood faster in the body. Hence this ensures a rise in heart rate because the overall cardiac output is increased. As the heart pumps blood faster, the heart muscles begin working efficiently, therefore ensuring safety from the risk of heart attacks, cardiac failures, or anginas. Even though it is true that exercise is a better way of improving heart function, but if you’re someone who just cannot exercise, then a sauna is your possible savior.
