For all you people who think sweating is gross, sit tf down.
The Swedes have been sauna-ing for bajillions of years and it’s not a trend, it’s part of their lexicon. Us Americans did that thing we do and took an age-old practice and yacked it out as a trend.
And with trend comes conversation. Saunas are good, saunas are bad, blah blah. everyone relax. like anything else, they’re neither. If you sweat too much, you can dehydrate yourself, simple. Happens to athletes all the time, hence gatorade. Drink some coconut water and get your electrolytes back, hyponatremia ain’t cute.
I didn’t title this the benefits of sauna’s because it’s not sauna’s we’re talking about, it’s why we’re doing it.
Sweating is your body regulating its temperature, it cools us down when we get too hot and prevents us from overheating our insides. Our body temp should ideally be 98.6 degrees F, and as our body temp increases, our sweat glands excrete sweat to bring it down. When it’s released through our pores, it evaporates when it contacts outside air, which is when the body begins to cool down.
Some people aren’t big sweaters (not the clothes dumbass). I see some people in my barre class looking like they just came out of the pool, completely drenched by their sweat. Then there’s me, who’s doing the same thing, with only a subtle dew on my chest. Not my fault, DNA and genetic make-up determine how sweaty I’ll be, and I need a little help.
Why I do it:
- detox excess hormones/support estrogen metabolism:
Fun fact: sweat allows the body to rid itself of built-up toxins, include metals like cadmium, arsenic, mercury, etc. When we’re exposed to long bouts of heat, our body is able to reduce its stores of trace minerals (fucking sick), as well as, “induced sweating in saunas can mobilize BPA in adipose tissue thus leading to enhanced excretion in sweat.”
- reduce inflammation/pain:
If you experience muscle pain, cardiovascular issues, or chronic back pain, this has been shown to help. A study on inflammation-induced pain in fibromylagia patients found that their pain was reduced by half woahhhh.
- reduce water retention:
Some of retain water like an unsqueezed beauty blender, and it’s annoying and uncomfortable. If you ever have an abnormal reaction to super salty foods or have serious water bloat, all you need to do is find 30 minutes in your week. Sauna’s can also burn around up to 600 calories a session because of your intense, heightened heart rate, which gets the blood flowing. you won’t gain any muscle mass, but your cardiovascular system doesn’t know you’re being totally sedentary.
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