In any athletic club or spa you visit today, it is highly likely that you will find a sauna of some sort.
What is it with saunas that makes them so attractive to people? What is it about saunas that make them so indispensable to health centers? Well, it's because you can gain a lot of health benefits if you use a sauna. Here are some of them:
1) Improves Cardiovascular health - Staying inside a sauna for 10 to twenty minutes can actually cause the same effect on the cardiovascular system as a brisk walk or even a jog. The breathing conditions inside the sauna make your lungs work harder and for your heart to pump blood faster. This strengthens your heart and improves blood circulation.
2) Helps in Weight Loss - The ultimate effect of a sauna to the cardiovascular system lies in the effect it has on the body metabolism. Since your blood flows faster through your veins, it also follows that you burn energy faster. Not many people know this, but your body actually keeps burning calories long after you've gone out of the sauna.
3) Good Skin health - As mentioned before, a sauna session helps speed up your blood flow. One benefit of this is to the skin. Increased blood flow will cause blood vessels in the skin to expand making the skin taut and young-looking. Good blood circulation will give your skin that rosy-pink tinge that people associate with great health and beauty.
Another way that a sauna session can help your skin health is by actually reviving it. With the existence of a lot of pollutants in the air today, people's skin are being poisoned and end up looking dull. A sauna session can help revitalize your skin. It helps you sweat more and thus get rid of the dead skin cell easier. A sauna session also helps in moisturizing your skin making it smooth and soft to touch.
3) Helps Get rid of toxins and fat - Did you know that 30 percent of the body's wastes are excreted out of the skin through sweat? By inducing a good sweat, most of the harmful toxins inside your body are excreted making you feel fresh and clean.
Of course, toxins are not the only problems we have in our bodies. We also have the problem of fat. A good sauna session, together with a massage, can actually help break down fatty deposits under the skin and helps your body use them up or excrete them through sweat. For a lot of people, this means less fat and maybe a farewell to your cellulites if done regularly.
These are just some of the health benefits of using a sauna. It's not just about relaxation and socialization - it's also about becoming healthy and good looking too.
By: Mike Hirn
