One of the most exciting new options for the health/fitness club is the personal sauna – a sauna built for use by a single person. Most people, when they think of sauna, think of a room with a hot air or steam source that heats the air to temperatures as high as 220 degrees Fahrenheit. Some find breathing very hot air to be intolerable or annoying and will avoid such a sauna. Even if the sauna room is of the infrared variety, and therefore the air (100- to 140-degrees Fahrenheit) is more comfortable to breathe, some will still avoid it because they prefer not to be seen naked or nearly so. The personal infrared sauna addresses both of these concerns. Additionally, a personal sauna can be designed so that your head is outside the sweating area, eliminating the concern of breathing in the toxins you just sweated out! The head-outside feature enables the user to watch TV, listen to music, or take in the scenery at the gym or spa. Picture also the convenience and versatility of a sauna that can be rolled from place to place as needed and plugged into any normal outlet. A sauna designed to be both personal and portable clearly has advantages worth considering.
What about the type of heating a sauna employs? Infrared heating is an option with advantages in comfort, safety, and effectiveness compared to hot air or steam saunas. Since infrared (think: sun) radiation penetrates the skin to heat you inside, it is more effective at releasing toxins stored in fatty tissue – as it causes greater sweat volume for a given temperature. So, with infrared, you get both the greater comfort of lower temperatures and the more effective detoxification on which more and more people place importance.
Sweating for health, an ancient tradition, is a great membership selling point for health and fitness clubs. But there is more to sauna than that. For ever greater numbers of health-conscious people, concerns about poisons in the environment, and in their bodies, are driving them to investigate the sauna as a route to better health through “detoxification” – the removal of toxins stored in the body.
Well-known holistic health expert Paavo Airola, Ph. D., ND, writes in his book, How to Get Well, “It is generally considered that the skin should eliminate 30 percent of the body wastes by way of perspiration. Due to lack of physical work and overly sedentary life, the skin of most people today has degenerated as an eliminative organ, since it is hardly ever subjected to sweating. If health is to be restored, it is of vital importance that the eliminative activity of the skin is revitalized.”
One of our foremost researchers and practitioners in the field of detoxification is Dr. Sherry Rogers, M.D. She is a strong proponent of infrared sauna’s ability to initiate the mobilization and elimination of toxins stored in the fatty tissue of the body. In the following quote she talks about why sauna is so desirable for detoxification: “The far infrared sauna pulls otherwise permanent toxins out of the body by causing a molecular dance with molecules of water and xenobiotics stored in the surface fat. In this way it does not drag chemicals out of safe storage and into the bloodstream where they could cause exacerbation of symptoms. Instead, it causes a resonance between the water and chemical molecules, enabling topical excretion via sweat where they can be wiped and showered away forever (Inoue). This is the only known and proven mechanism for getting rid of the vast diverse array of disease-producing toxins/environmental chemicals. Medicine has no other option for lowering the body burden of chemicals that underlie all disease.” (Detoxify or Die, pg. 227, by Sherry Rogers)
With regard to removal of toxins: In one study, the sweat of people using a conventional sauna was found to be 95 to 97 percent water while the sweat of those using an infrared thermal system was 80 to 85 percent water with the non-water portion principally consisting of cholesterol, fat-soluble toxins, toxic heavy metals, sulfuric acid, sodium, ammonia and uric acid. This unusually high concentration of heavy metals and other fat-soluble toxins is not found in the sweat from normal exercise. The point? Sauna, in particular, infrared sauna, is superior to exercise in initiating body cleansing.
Clearly, a personal sauna approach – using multiple units depending on demand – can satisfy club owner needs for fast warm-up times, modularity, flexibility and energy conservation. Club members can get a private and enjoyable sauna experience, being able to watch TV and breathe cool room air – if the sauna cabinet has the “head outside” feature. The club owner can improve loyalty to the club, and the bottom line, by thinking ahead of the curve and providing state-of-the-art equipment capable of making a real impact on the health of club members.
James Schaeffer is the Engineering/ Sales Manager of U. S. Health Equipment Co. Inc. He can be contacted at 877.772.8639, or by email at jschaeffer@saunex.com, or visit www.saunex.com
