When I was growing up, we had a beautiful sauna in my parent’s bedroom. But, since no one in our home was accustomed to sauna bathing, we simply used the space for storage. Looking back on it now, I wish we had put that “storage room” to better use! These days, I would love to have a sauna at home. What’s more, Mrs. Healthy Fellow grew up using saunas, so we would certainly put it to good use. Unfortunately, the probability of adding a sauna to our home is about as likely as the addition of an elevator. On the other hand, our local gym has a sauna that we can and should utilize more often. In fact, saunas are readily available in most communities. This is great news because there’s more reason than ever to use saunas on a regular basis.

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Back in the 1980’s, my childhood home came equipped with a sauna in the master bedroom. At the time, my parents didn’t consider sauna bathing to be a particularly healthful practice. In their minds, it was more of an elective activity from which some people derived pleasure and/or relaxation. As such, the wood lined sauna in our home was used exclusively as a make shift storage unit. However, over the past few decades a great deal of scientific research has been conducted on the health effects and risks associated with carefully controlled sauna exposure. A specific form, known as Waon Therapy, has recently been the subject of a considerable amount of positive attention.

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Recently I was flipping through the channels on my TV and spotted a segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show that featured Dr. Mehmet Oz. He was discussing all sorts of unconventional medical treatments and natural therapies that he felt were legitimate. One of the items on his radar was an infrared sauna. He cited benefits ranging from lowering blood pressure to increasing metabolism (calorie burning), and even eliminating toxins through the skin. Oprah conducted part of the interview with Oz in the sauna itself. They got out just prior to breaking a sweat.
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