Sauna To Lose Weight: 6 Tips To Use Sauna Effectively In 2024

When it comes to losing weight, there are a plethora of different ways to do it, and what is going to work for one person may be completely different from another. If you love sweating it up in the sauna, keep on reading to find out 6 helpful tips that can aid in your weight loss journey. 

Saunas originated in Northern Europe (most probably Finland) around 2000 BC and they became a large part of their cultural life. In the very beginning, they functioned as kitchens, washrooms, and hospitals, and sometimes, during very harsh winters, they were literally the only place to live in.

They even became holy places that were intertwined with spiritual beliefs and therefore became places where people were born, laid out after their death, and where all sorts of important ceremonies took place. 

Today, we use saunas to unwind and relax, mostly as a part of spa treatments or after a good workout in the gym. The heat is great for muscle relaxation and increased blood circulation,^[1] bringing fresh oxygen into all areas of the human body more efficiently, which is why they are nowadays being used as part of many rehabilitation and therapeutic treatments.

6 Helpful Tips To Take A Sauna For Weight Loss

Try Different Types Of Sauna

Depending on how the room is actually heated, there are several types of sauna. These include:

• Wood burning sauna: Usually high in temperature and low in humidity, in these types of saunas, wood is used to heat the sauna room and sauna rocks.
• Electrically heated sauna: Similar to the wood-burning sauna,^[2] an electrically-heated sauna has high temperatures and low humidity, and the room is heated by an electrical heater, usually attached to the floor.
• Infrared sauna: In an infrared sauna, the room is not heated. Instead, special, infrared waves heat a person’s body.^[3] The temperature is typically lower than other saunas, but the person still sweats in a similar way, getting heated inside out instead of the other way around. 
• Steam room: High in humidity as well as temperature,^[4] steam rooms are heated with steam generators, with studies showing its benefits on the cardiovascular system.^[5] 

All of these types can help you enjoy sauna weight loss benefits and below are some more helpful tips to achieve that. 

Do Not Overdo It

Always make sure you are not overstaying your time in the sauna. Even if you are regularly enjoying your self-care sweating sessions, anything over 20 min is not recommended as you risk severe dehydration. 

If, on the other hand, you have never used a sauna before or you are just starting out, it is always better to start small and avoid using it for more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time. Also, if you have exercised beforehand, wait for at least 10-15 minutes before you enter the hot room. You do not know how your body will respond to the high heat and you might get dehydrated way sooner than you think, which can wreak havoc on your body.^[6]

The initial temporary weight loss will mostly be because you just lose water weight, so it might be tempting to indulge in longer sessions. This is where most people have it wrong. Keep it simple and avoid dehydration by staying under 20 minutes per session.

Allow It To Cleanse Out Toxins

Sweating in general is the body’s way to: 

• Maintain an optimal body temperature by cooling it down in hot conditions
• React to stress and exercise
• Get rid of toxins accumulated in your body 

When you are trying to lose weight, you are working on lowering your body’s inflammation and getting rid of toxins in the most natural way possible. Hot air conditions in the sauna will make your body sweat, and therefore help flush toxins out.^[7]

Although we should be able to detoxify on our own every single day, it is genuinely hard to do so without a little push. Sauna sessions can definitely help. 

When your inflammation is reduced, your body can function better, faster, stronger, and overall healthier. This is how you will be more efficient in losing the excess weight that is being retained. 

Let It Help Increase Your Metabolism

When your body is exposed to intense heat or cold, it has to work much harder and your heart rate can increase by up to 30%. This boosts your metabolism and helps you burn more calories.^[8] That’s why working out in cold conditions may help you lose weight as much as doing it in extreme heat. Depending on your body’s preferences, you might respond better one way or another, but taking some “me time” in the sauna bath will definitely be more enjoyable than sitting out in the cold. 

In order to burn calories, heat must be released.^[9] So when your body is working hard to either warm up your body or cool it down, more heat gets released, resulting in more calories burned. This speeds up your metabolism, leading to increased calorie burn at a faster and much more efficient rate. 

Use It For Stress Release

Spending some time in a sauna session can be a real therapeutic experience, helping you relax and reduce stress from your everyday life. The majority of people who are struggling with losing weight are under tremendous amounts of stress which keeps them in constant “fight or flight” mode,^[10] creating a false sense of danger that makes their bodies hold on to every little ounce of fat in order to protect themselves. 

It is also stimulating highly inflammatory responses in many different areas of the body which turn on light little lightbulbs and communicate amongst each other to prevent you from turning them off quite as easily. 

That is where regularly closing your eyes and sweating it up in the sauna bath can come in quite handy. Let yourself breathe in that hot air and use it to release all tension that is building up on the daily. You can even include some relaxing music, essential oils, or even CBD oils which are known to aid body mass loss. 

Creating relaxing rituals and making them a part of your regular routine can do wonders for your overall health and wellness, helping you not only counteract unwanted weight gain but also maintain a healthy weight long-term. 

In addition to sweaty sessions, it is important to implement other healthy habits such as adding exercise prior to your self-care time, lots and lots of fluids and hydrating foods for a healthy diet, prioritizing sleep, as well as getting lymphatic drainage massage^[11] to help speed up the process. 

Be Consistent

Nothing in life works unless you stay consistent with it. Eating nutritious food, getting enough sleep, moving your body – in order to get results, none of these things can be done for a few weeks and then stopped. The same works with sauna treatments. 

You cannot do one or two and expect magical results overnight. Instead, implement them into your regular weekly schedule (2-4 times per week) and you will be amazed at what your body can do when it adapts to sweating on demand and how much weight you can actually lose by that. Sauna aids weight loss by reducing your inflammation and flushing toxins at a more efficient rate as well as allowing you to fully reap the health benefits from the moment you enter the hot room. 

Conclusion

All in all, sauna use is a great tool that can aid in weight loss as well as your overall wellness. All that is left to do is give these sweaty sessions a try.

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