The theme for the beginning of the new year is detoxification. I wrote about many simple ways to engage detoxification two weeks ago using diet. I wanted to make sure everyone had time to get rid of all the junk food in the house and to stock up on plenty of leafy green vegetables and low carb root vegetables. Any change of routine flows more easily if you have a little time to prepare. For me the old saying “out of sight is out of mind” works very well. Getting any possible thing to eat that does not support my detox process out of the house helps tremendously.
In this letter I want to discuss another traditional method for stimulating detoxification – passive sweating. The most common way to do this is with a sauna. Wait, what was that phrase I used – passive sweating? Isn’t sweating just sweating? I am glad you asked. No it isn’t.
Your body has two basic speeds or modes of operation. There is the fight for survival mode and there is the relax and heal mode. These are controlled by the two halves of your systemic nervous system – the sympathetic nerves and the parasympathetic nerves. In this culture today we are driven to live in a state of sympathetic dominance most of the time. Everything is about go, go, go, and win, win, win. We spend little or no time in the parasympathetic relax and heal mode. Consequently we do not get the necessary time spent healing our bodies. One of the fundamental processes that occurs in the healing state is detoxification.
What does this have to do with sweating? If we are sweating because we are working hard or playing hard, we are in a major sympathetic state. Our organs of elimination and detoxification are turned off in favor of muscular activity. The sweat we produce when we are working contains almost no toxins for elimination. On the other hand, when we sweat while completely relaxed the sweat is full of toxic waste our body is excreting out through the skin. Our skin acts like a third kidney. The main job of the kidneys is to eliminate water soluble toxic wastes from the body. The liver eliminates the fat soluble toxic wastes out through the bile into the intestines and eventually out in the feces.
So whether we are talking about sweat lodges, saunas, steam baths, or just laying poolside in the hot sun, relaxed sweating is good for us on many levels. The simple level of effects include:
Inhibiting the fight-or -flight nervous systemic
Inducing relaxed sweating
Relieving pain
Reducing heat production
Improving oxygenation
Dilating peripheral blood vessel
Relieving internal organ congestion
Relaxing muscles
Increasing flexibility of tendons & ligaments
When we move up to actual sauna use, additional positive effects can be obtained. After 10 to 30 minutes your body is no longer able to dissipate the heat, so heart rate and sweating increases. Your core temperature actually starts to rise inducing a mild fever. You can check this by taking your temperature while in the sauna. Fevers are used by your body to inhibit pathogenic microorganisms, support killing off of old weak “zombie” cells in the body, and increase biologic enzyme activity. With certain wavelengths of red light in a near infrared sauna, you even increase cellular energy production for improved healing and tissue regeneration. Because of the mild fever induced, it is advisable to rest and cool down for 15 minutes after the sauna session while the body returns to its normal temperature.
So what type of sauna is best? You have old school wooden saunas with hot rocks from a little electric heater onto which you sprinkle water to produce steam. These will produce many good effects as we mentioned above. The trouble is that these saunas are large and expensive and yet do not provide all the benefits possible from a sauna. Similarly designed modern saunas now use electric heating panels built into the walls that emit invisible far infrared rays to heat your body. For the inexpensive option there are little body tents with the same type of panels in them that cover just your body and leave your head sticking out the top. Both of these options have another major drawback. Most of them produce large amounts of harmful EMF radiation. Some people seem to be OK with this in the short run, but long term usage may have unfortunate consequences.
It appears the best option is near infrared saunas made with good old fashion red heat lamps. These saunas appear to have additional benefits not available in the other options –
Improved elimination of many gaseous toxins
Speeding up wound healing
Decreasing oxidation of cell membranes
Better pain reduction
Deeper penetration – up to 3 inches
The best bonus of all is that creating a home sauna with red heat lamps is much less expensive than all the other options. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a free standing enclosed sauna, you can just set up three 250 watt heat lamps in an enclosed space and sit in front of them for a half hour.
If you would like an in-depth resource on the sauna and how to make the type I made, I recommend Sauna Therapy for Detoxification and Healing by Dr. Lawrence Wilson. He gives you plans for building a heat lamp sauna using some fabric attached to a PVC frame in order to create an enclosure that should cost about $250. For a few dollars more I figured out an even simpler way to create the red heat lamp set up by simply borrowing technology from the hair salon industry. You can buy ready made heat lamp set ups they use for heating hair during coloring. The purpose of an enclosure is to contain the heat and prevent drafts. Dr. Wilson suggests a closet as an alternative as long as it’s big enough for you to turn around while sitting as you want to get the light to hit different sides of you. I also want to figure out a way to use these heat lamps while laying down.
So I am using my new sauna each day to enhance my
detoxification process as I start 2019. As of this newsletterrelease, I should be finishing my second week of green fasting. I have been starting the morning with a cup of avocado milk loaded with activated charcoal and other toxin removal things. Around lunch time I will have a green salad with a vinegar, water, stevia, and fish sauce salad dressing. And after work I will have some cabbage or cauliflower or Konjak zero calorie noodles. I may possibly go for a complete water fast for the third week if I feel I have eliminated enough toxic stuff from my system.
Here’s to a healthy 2019.