All About Infrared Saunas

The difference between infrared saunas and Finnish saunas

Infrared saunas have received a great deal of publicity in recent years, and numerous claims have been made about the increased health benefits they provide in comparison to traditional Finnish-style saunas. Many of these claims have come from the infrared sauna industry itself, and some from the promoters and practitioners of alternative medicines. So are these claims true? Here's our objective opinion.

How an infrared sauna works

An infrared sauna works under the same basic principle as a space heater. When infrared radiation is emitted, it travels through the air until it strikes an absorbent surface and is converted to heat. In the case of infrared saunas, this absorbent surface is the human body. Because of this directional property of infrared radiation, infrared saunas do not need to be enclosed like traditional saunas. Enclosure is common, however, as suggested by the European name for infrared saunas, "health cabins."

Unlike the sun's heat, which contains both infrared radiation and damaging ultraviolet radiation, the heat produced by infrared saunas is devoid of solar radiation.

Infrared saunas vs. Finnish saunas

In the debate over the comparative strengths of infrared saunas vs. Finnish saunas, there are several assertions that supporters of infrared saunas make:

Argument #1: Infrared saunas are more efficient

Supporters of infrared saunas claim that human skin absorbs infrared heat deeper than convection heat - i.e. saunas in which air heated by conduction transfers heat to the body - and that infrared saunas are therefore better for you than Finnish-style saunas.

Opponents of this argument claim that Finnish saunas offer the added advantage of humidity. Humid heat is much more likely to induce sweat than dry heat, and sweat is one of the body's primary means of releasing toxins. In addition, the directional quality of the heat produced by infrared saunas is more likely to result in an uneven heating effect than the ambient heat of an enclosed Finnish sauna.

Argument #2: Infrared saunas are cheaper to operate

There's really no evidence for this statement. Because infrared saunas heat the body rather than the air, their heaters must operate continually. In Finnish saunas, the temperature is regulated via a thermostat, and the sauna heater cycles off once the desired temperature is reached.

Argument #3: Infrared saunas are safer

This argument depends on the assertion that infrared saunas produce a lower intensity heat than Finnish saunas, and that the enclosure required for Finnish saunas is inherently unsafe. The problem with this argument is that both the temperature and humidity levels of traditional saunas can be set as low as those of an infrared sauna. Finnish saunas are vented, and no less safe than other saunas when used responsibly.

Argument #4: Infrared saunas are more holistic

This is the weightiest argument that supporters of infrared saunas make, and many strange, alarmist, and untrue statements have been made to defend it. In her book Detoxify or Die, for example, Sherry Rogers claims that FIR saunas (FIR is the acronym for far-infrared radiant heat) are the only means of removing man-made toxins from your body. A holistic physician, Dr. Lawrence Wilson, warns that trace remnants of LSD present in the body during infrared sauna therapy have caused "full-blown LSD trips."

But the greatest medical proponent of infrared saunas is Dr. Aaron M. Flickstein. Whether attributed to him or not, much of the medical information found online in support of infrared saunas was originally written by him. Infrared saunas were invented in Japan in the 1960s. Finnish saunas have been around since before the medieval era. Yet in an attempt to incorporate Finnish saunas into Asian holistic medicine, Dr. Flickstein has made the following assertion: "This [sauna] religion came with the Finns when they migrated from an area northwest of present day Tibet, between 5,000 and 3,000 B.C.E., to their present location in Finland." Qualified anthropologists using genetic research found nearly 50 years ago that the Finnish population is 3/4 European and 1/4 Uralian or Siberian. In other words, there's a reason they're not called Tibetan saunas.

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