Video Transcript (AI Generated)
All right, little bonus question for today.
Just came in, infrared saunas versus traditional saunas.
What do you think?
Hi Matt, what are your thoughts on an infrared saunas versus traditional steam saunas?
A lot of companies sent me information on their saunas and they say infrared makes you sweat out more toxins.
I think you may have mentioned it a long time ago before too but wondering what your thoughts are and if they’ve changed.
We’re looking at maybe adding a steam sauna to our basement but maybe infrared would be better.
What would you do if it were your house?
Thanks.
Yeah, I may have been misinformed in older videos.
As always, I may have misquoted stuff too.
If it was in the early days when I was still learning or before I changed my opinions based on a lot of experience, take that stuff with a grain of salt.
As always, watch the most up-to-date videos for the most up-to-date information.
Some of the sauna videos are a year old and I’m still doing this stuff day in and day out for myself.
So things are always evolving, always learning.
Things are changing and improving at all times.
You know, there’s a lot that can be said about this.
My official stance is just be sweating, period.
I don’t care how you do it.
I don’t care which brand of sauna you wanna use.
Whatever works for you, just be sweating.
You know, what are my thoughts on infrared versus traditional steam?
Well, I like infrared but it’s probably for reasons that you’re not familiar with or that I don’t really mention it too much.
In Florida, you know, I don’t like the idea of introducing a steam sauna into a house that isn’t having an addition built or that isn’t built out to accommodate the additional moisture.
It’s just not a good idea.
I like that infrared is usually faster to use.
You know, I don’t wanna wait an hour.
I used to live in a high-rise condo, our condo, downtown Orlando.
We had a built-in steam sauna.
That thing took forever to heat up.
I mean, it would be preheating for an hour and then you would sit in it for another hour.
So I just don’t like that.
I don’t have that kind of time.
I prefer infrared because it heats up quicker.
Preheat times are shorter.
Yeah, it doesn’t get hot, but it’s also, it does some other things that I really like as opposed to the steam.
Let’s see, they both work though.
I mean, the whole idea is for you to be sweating.
So whatever makes that happen, that’s successful.
Some of the smaller steam saunas have higher EMFs than some of the infrared.
And that’s because if you’re in a tiny, tiny one person, there’s really only like two person, one to two persons for steam that are that small.
The giant electrical heater that’s sitting right next to you has a pretty big magnetic field on it usually.
In some cases, you know, some of the crappy infrared saunas have higher EMFs in them than that.
But in most cases, if you sit really close to that thing, you’re also exposed to a decent amount of EMF.
So there’s pros and cons to both.
For me, most of my liking the infrared is just the way that it works.
I’m not bringing in additional moisture into the house.
I’m not doing an addition or a renovation where I would have a built-in sauna, which then you would probably look at maybe a steam or something else.
And for most people, it doesn’t usually work as well for their application.
Like you’re not gonna wanna stick a steam sauna in your master bedroom over in the corner.
Even if it’s big.
I mean, it’s just not necessarily the best idea.
You could probably get away with it in your basement if you wanted to add a ventilation system.
But again, let’s see.
You know, I’ve used both.
I don’t know if I buy the part where, I think what you were asking too is, does infrared make you sweat out more toxins?
I may have said that or bought into that idea in the past, but really, you know, I think other things would influence how much your body emits toxins.
I think some of it will be, you know, how well your lymphatic system is working, how stressed you are, whether or not you’re able to, you know, I don’t wanna speak out of turn or basically say things that I don’t know are tried and true.
All I can tell you is that from my own experience, I feel like I’m able to get a better detox at a lower temperature.
For a longer duration in a more relaxed state when the body stays in parasympathetic for a longer time.
And what that means is, and why I like infrared to do that in, is that I won’t really preheat the sauna.
It’s almost like the frog jumping out of boiling water thing.
If you put him in boiling water and he jumps right out versus, I don’t know where that comes from, by the way.
That’s pretty weird.
Who the hell puts frogs in boiling water?
Versus if you put them in cold water and put them on the stove top and it heats up slowly, doesn’t really feel it.
Same idea.
So now what I do is I don’t preheat the sauna.
This is infrared, by the way, not steam.
And I slowly let my body heat up.
And I find that when it pops, I just pour sweat and my heart isn’t racing yet.
My heart rate hasn’t reached its peak yet.
And so what I’m able to do is stay in longer, sweat for a longer period of time.
And my guess, I don’t have anything to substantiate this.
So it’s all anecdotal or all my opinion at this point.
Excuse me.
My guess is that that doesn’t tax the adrenals so hard if you’re already kind of fatigued.
My guess is that it’s a little easier on all those systems that are probably already stressed.
At least that’s what I feel for myself and trying it a bunch of different ways.
And I used to go in there like he-man and try to use it at its max temperature and force myself to stay in there for as long as possible because I thought the hotter, the better, the longer, the better.
Bro, I can do this.
You get to the point where you feel like you’re gonna pass out and I just think that experiencing both, there’s gotta be a switching mechanism in the body when you switch into a stress state that’s more constricting.
And if you think about, I don’t know.
We’ll have to wait for some research and some stuff that I’ve been waiting to come out.
But I’ve used both and I think more people are getting more benefits in the infrared simply because of what I just described.
Usually, the majority of people turn to infrared saunas because they’re not healthy or they’re not doing well or they wanna improve something or they wanna maintain longevity or this, that, and the other and so typically, they’re not athletes.
There’s a small percentage that are athletes that are looking to achieve faster workout recoveries.
They’re looking to increase endurance performance and get all kinds of other boosts doing saunas after their workouts.
I think, I may be butchering this, but I think it’s you get a boost in growth hormone or something like that.
If you do your cardio and then do 20 minutes of sauna after your workout.
But I think most people are getting results with infrared because it’s more easily tolerable at lower temperatures and they still sweat.
So people that are out of shape, people that are fatigued, people that have anxiety or brain fog like I did and just generally aren’t functioning well in day-to-day life, it’s easier to get started with infrared than it is with something that’s 180 degrees and it’s not that shock.
It’s kinda like if you haven’t worked out for five years.
I’ve said this for months and months now.
If you haven’t worked out for five years and your body is not heat adapted and you haven’t really adjusted to having any heat tolerance, it would be like not working out for five years and going to the gym and thinking that you’re gonna compete with an ultra marathoner for a workout.
It’s just not gonna happen.
So it takes time.
I think infrared can be a little bit more gentle for cases like that.
And it was for my case too.
I wasn’t doing necessarily well when I got into saunas.
And if I didn’t need them, I would have never gotten into it.
It was health troubles that kinda drove me to it.
So what else do we have?
Yeah, so I mean, both of them work.
You can get great results in either one.
The whole point is to be sweating.
I like infrared.
I think it’s easier to adapt to most households.
I think I like the idea of not introducing excess moisture.
The only moisture that you get out of an infrared sauna comes out of your own body, which evaporates pretty well if you’re toweling up like you’re supposed to.
It’s easy to keep the sauna clean.
You don’t have to carry water and do all this other stuff.
And a lot of steam saunas are 220.
So almost all of them require you to run some type of line.
There are some 15 amp models, but they’re kind of few and far between ’cause you’ve got that giant steam heater in the front.
So infrared just is easier to get going on a bunch of fronts.
You don’t have to hire an electrician.
If it’s a 15 amp model, there is no water, no additional moisture, no chance of all that stuff causing any type of mold or anything like that.
It’s just I like it better, but that doesn’t mean that it is better necessarily.
It’s better for, I think that I can’t say this too many more times, right?
It’s just better for residential use.
It’s easier for people to set up and get going and blah, blah, blah.
So hope that helps.
If there’s something that I missed there for the steam saunas, ’cause I have used them.
I just don’t use them anymore.
Just let me know and I can make you another video.