Outdoor infrared sauna
What are Outdoor Saunas?
If you’ve ever left the gym wishing you could have your own sauna in the comfort of your home, now you can. An outdoor sauna can be added to nearly any backyard. Before you decide to make the jump from gym to backyard, understanding a little bit more about saunas and how they work might be a good idea.
The Sauna Concept
Most people don’t realize that saunas were first created and widely used in Finland. The Finnish already recognized the potential health benefits of being exposed to high levels of heat, especially in such a relatively cold environment. In fact, the tradition was to follow a sauna session with a beer for an extra bit of refreshment.
Today, the use of saunas has spread all over the world. Most gyms and spas have indoor saunas which are built to house a larger number of people and which have built in climate controls. The main idea of these controls is to make the temperature very warm to inspire the body to begin sweating. However, those extremely hot temperatures are bearable in the sauna when they would be life-threatening outside the structure because the humidity levels are tightly controlled.
Why Do Humidity Levels Matter?
To understand why low humidity levels are critical inside a sauna, you need to understand a little bit about human biology. You already know that the purpose of the high heat in the outdoor sauna is to cause our bodies to sweat. Sweating is credited with all types of health benefits, including releasing toxins from our bodies and helping us drop weight. However, the one thing it absolutely does without question is to help us cool off.
Sweat beads on our skin when we’re hot but when it evaporates we are able to lower our body temperature. The problem with high humidity is that it makes evaporation difficult. Basically, humidity means the air is saturated with wetness, therefore, there’s just no more room for your sweat. As a result, we’re less effective at cooling our bodies down and can suffer heat-related health problems much easier.
By keeping the humidity levels very low in the sauna, you will be able to sweat and that sweat can evaporate so you are less likely to become overheated.
Infrared Sauna Technology
Now if you’re interested in creating your own outdoor sauna then you may want to explore infrared technology which is one of the latest advances for saunas being constructed today. These types of saunas are different in several ways from the traditional saunas very created in Finland.
For one, they don’t rely on steam to create the heat. With Finnish saunas, steam is created and trapped in the room or building. That steam ends up heating the air which indirectly warms up the person sitting in the sauna.
With infrared saunas, however, the process is a little different. Instead, these saunas use special heating devices that rely on infrared light to heat the individual directly. That creates a more efficient heating system and generates results much more quickly. Because most of us don’t have a long time to sit in our saunas and relax or reap health benefits, we need a faster solution.
Another benefit of the infrared cabin is that infrared light does not pose any type of health risk to people. You’re probably well aware that the ultraviolet light from the sun can cause skin cancer and other problems but this type of light falls at the other end of the spectrum and is considered harmless. However, some researchers do believe that this heat source can provide some health benefits for users. Infrared saunas are believed to kill the bacteria which can cause acne so one way to improve the health of your skin is by sitting in this type of sauna.
Tags: infrared sauna | infrared sauna | infrared cabin | infrared cabin | sauna
September 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Im not too sure about these new infrared saunas, what happend to the good old days of 10 guys naked in a steam room. Ha, only kidding. I do prefer the steam Saunas though, it seems they have much less of the dry heat the Infrared ones do.