Good morning and happy Peanut Butter Day! Dig in, friends. But check the serving size, because “heaping tablespoons” probably aren’t on the nutrition label. 😭🥜 

Last week, we learned about ice and cold therapy in what may be the coldest week of the year for most Americans.

This week, we’re warming it up a bit a lot. Bring a towel, cuz it’s gettin hot in here. Time to cozy up by the fire.

We’re talkin heat therapy, baby 🔥

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Heat Therapy

Cold therapy’s benefits revolved primarily around mental health, energy, resilience, and acute inflammation reduction. Benefits of heat therapy, on the other hand, include cardiovascular health, longevity, toxin removal, brain health, stress reduction, and skin health, to name the primary ones.

If I’m at a 5/10 on whether cold therapy is worth it, I’m at about an 8.5/10 on heat therapy. It’s more well studied and seems to have stronger, more reliable benefits in the areas I value most.

What is heat therapy?

Heat therapy involves immersing one’s body in an abnormally hot environment for a relatively short period of time to reap the benefits that this eustress has on the body. There aren’t as many forms of heat therapy; it’s mostly limited to sauna and steam room use. A hot shower, while nice, probably isn’t effective enough to reap major benefits. A hot bath or hot tub may be effective as well, though.

• Quick sauna lesson: There are regular, dry heat saunas, which usually fall somewhere in the 160–200+ degree F range.

• There are also infrared saunas, which operate at less hot temperatures.

• Then there are steam rooms. If a sauna is very dry, a steam room is… very humid. Also doesn’t require as high of a temperature.

• Some saunas have an option to increase the humidity (like throwing water on the hot rocks), which makes it feel hotter than it is.

By spending time in an ultra-hot environment, your body uses extra energy to dispel heat. Your heart rate rises and you sweat (a lot). It’s almost as if you’re doing cardiovascular exercise just sitting there!

What are the benefits of sauna and heat therapy?

The benefits are many! In Nordic/Scandinavian countries, sauna use is far more common than most other places. (It’s cold and dark much of the year—can you blame them?) Researchers have conducted numerous studies on the health benefits of sauna in Finland alone. Many families have their own sauna, and it’s common for people to sauna 5–7 days a week.

What are the outcomes of those studies? Robust cardiovascular health. The more people saunaed, the lower their chance of death and cardiovascular disease in the coming years, basically in a linear relationship. 

As your body temperature rises, the blood vessels near your skin dilate to help dissipate heat, and your heart starts pumping blood at a higher rate. Since sauna elevates the heart rate similarly to cardiovascular exercise, it’s thought to have many of the same benefits. This is probably the strongest case for incorporating regular heat therapy in your life!

Speaking of increased circulation, there’s almost no ailment or injury that can’t benefit from increased blood flow. Blood carries the oxygen and nutrients our bodies need to heal, repair, and rebuild—whether that’s from an actual injury or just after a workout. Improving circulation system-wide has healing effects. 

The benefits don’t stop there. Heat therapy makes you sweat—a lot. Sweat is one of the major ways that we clear toxins, including heavy metals, from our bodies. While a regular exerciser may be used to sweating, many people haven’t exercised to the point of significant sweating in many years. Sauna is a fantastic way to help your body release built-up toxins. Just remember to rehydrate and replenish the fluid and electrolytes you lost!

Toxins aren’t the only thing that comes out in sweat. As we sweat, our skin flushes out dead cells, bacteria, and other matter that was clogging our pores. This results in fresher, newer, plumper, fuller skin.

Heat therapy releases endorphins, or the feel-good chemicals that are often associated with making something sucky (like running) feel less sucky. Odds are, despite your sweating and panting, you’ll soon feel better when you leave the sauna than you did going in.

Regular sauna use has also been shown to improve brain health by reducing risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease!

In another win for saunas, regular use can lead to improved sleep! Particularly, evening sauna has been shown to improve sleep quality.

• Part of our bodies’ natural rhythm as we wind down for sleep includes a drop in core body temperature. Paradoxically, by increasing our body temperature shortly prior to sleep (like via sauna or even a hot shower/bath), our body then cools off significantly after the heat exposure, signaling to our body and brain that it’s time for a good sleep.

Potential drawbacks of sauna:

There aren’t many! The primary precaution is prolonged heat exposure and dehydration. If you have any health risks, it’s a good idea to get sauna use cleared with your doctor before starting the practice. 

• You’ll likely sweat a lot during heat therapy, and you may not necessarily feel it, especially in a steam room or bath/hot tub. Be sure to not only replenish with water, but with electrolytes you lost in sweat: that’s sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

Another drawback of heat therapy is a probable decrease in male fertility. While not known to affect testosterone, regular extreme heat exposure has been shown to reduce sperm health and overall count. Those little swimmers are pretty particular about temperature. So if you’re attempting to conceive, maybe take a hiatus from heat therapy for a bit.

Those with known cardiovascular or neurological conditions, anyone who is pregnant, and people who are on medications that affect body temperature regulation or sweating should refrain or use extreme caution (and obtain medical clearance) before engaging in heat therapy. [Here’s a friendly reminder to read my disclaimer at the bottom of every email :)]

What heat therapy protocol should I follow?

There’s a bit more flexibility with heat therapy than with cold! We can typically tolerate it in an order of double-digit minutes, rather than seconds or a few minutes max with cold. 

Finnish studies have found benefits for sauna use up to a daily frequency. Once a week is great. Twice or three times is probably better, and 4–7 days a week can have even further benefits!

Most people cap sauna sessions around 20 minutes at a time. That’s where benefits start to plateau and risks of overheating, exhaustion, or dehydration start to creep up. But even 5–10 minutes can be beneficial, especially when you’re just getting started. 

As for temperature, you may or may not have control over this. For a regular sauna, 170–180 degrees seems to be a great range, with up to 190 or 200 being fine once you’re adapted. The higher the relative humidity, the lower temperature that is required.

• Hot baths and hot tubs, for example, may be just barely over 100 degrees but are effective because water conducts the heat much more effectively.

If I were to set up a sauna protocol for myself, I’d aim for 3–5 days a week, 170–190 degrees, ~15–20 minute sessions, probably after a resistance training workout.

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: This may be the easiest action step ever: Take a hot bath! Run it hot, relax, and enjoyyy 🧖 

Level 2: Tiptoe into some sauna use. Find a local one and give it a try, just for 5-10 minutes at a time.

Level 3: Optimize by enjoying a sauna 4+ days a week for 15+ minutes at a time. Watch your health improve and your disease risk fall!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

Interested in becoming a sponsor? Know someone else who might be? I’d love to get to know you and/or your business and see how we can partner together. Reply to this email!

✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Read: Why incorporating more nuts and seeds in your diet is so beneficial.

• Listen: “Debunking Netflix’s new ‘You Are What You Eat’ vegan documentary.”

• Listen: The podcast I shared last week about benefits of both heat and cold therapy.

• Read: One of my primary sources for this week’s newsletter.

That’s it for today! I hope you learned something about heat therapy and are encouraged to give it a try for yourself.

As always, if you liked this article, please forward it or click and copy the link below to share with a friend and grow our community!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).