How Sauna Cold Plunge Can Transform Your Health gutcheckpodcast Ep06 with sunhom
00:00when you would think of the sauna you would think of it's something you use in the spa just for a few minutes to relax or some people like warm up before exercise nobody was thinking around you know preventing cognitive diseases or inflammation reduction they did the study around I think it was like 200 people so it was a massive study over the course of like 20 years and using the sauna four to seven times per week translated to a 66% reduction in risk of Alzheimer's and Dementia son um you know they don't just make you feel good they can like save your life or at least save your mind mental health is such a huge topic right now what I love about coal plunging and contrast therapy how it's really just a natural nonivasive non-pill yes treatment for a lot of that you know um and when you get into a cal plunge you know there's science and studies that show that you get a massive surge of endorphins and in dopamine and or per nephrine right do you agree with the idea that you can just sit in a sauna and then you don't
01:00need cardio exercise it's going to be better than nothing it it is it truly is passive cardio when you can get your heart rate up you're burning calories I wanted to bring us shots to loosen us up I make the world's best wellness shots is that what you do before the uh cold plunge that plus my like I have a ritual dance I do that scares my neighbors but it gets me hyped for it hey we are here today in San Diego California I'm going to pick up Tyler fish who is the co-founder of sun home saunas Sun home is the fastest growing sauna infrared cold plunge company in the US so we're going to talk all about contrast therapy the benefits of sauna therapy and much more here we go
02:00push push it push push the there we go cool there you go that's a good blooper to start that every s don't tell me I'm the first person to do that no every single guest that was my fault cuz I wasn't in park uh but every single guest has done that okay good I don't feel stupid thanks thanks for doing this yeah I wanted to bring a I wanted to bring a shots to loosen us up I make the world's best wellness shots is is that what you do before the uh cold plune to get stoked yeah that plus my like I have little ritual dance I do that scares my neighbors but that gets me hyped for it that's great well thanks for being here yeah of course another another gorgeous day in San Diego has the uh company always been based here uh we started it actually in Santa Barbara oh cool yeah we were there for about two years and then moved everything to San Diego um what
03:00inspired the move so Adam my co-founder and I we actually met at our previous company okay selling software okay and uh Sun home was basically our side hustle for like cool three years cool uh and I was at that software company for 10 years and I went to UCSB in Santa Barbara before that cool so okay what years were was that when you were up in Santa Barbara o uh that was let's see 2011 to 2019 okay so would you say the company was founded in 2011 uh around then a little after that um we didn't really go public uh until around like 2018 2019 okay so yeah we we launched we we we went public with that um and what really inspired it was Adam and I became best friends fast friends like within six months we hanging out every sing SLE day uh and summer was coming up and we have
04:00a good friend from college that lived in Sweden okay and we were like all right well let's just go hang out with him for a week and then kind of mob around to some of the other countries surrounding him uh and then we stopped at Finland and we stayed at an Airbnb where it was basically a compound where this nice older couple and their family lived there and then they had like a guest house that was like a few hundred yards away yeah and then we noticed they had a huge uh traditional wooden sauna and it was like a daily practice where they invite their their guests to come sauna with them before they made dinner cool and what we found out that it wasn't just a practice that they did it was everyone right um you know having a sauna we found out quickly was as common as having like a household appliance like an oven right and so you really get an amazing sense of like community building and that's where they do like their dinner table talk from the day they do that in the Sun prior to dinner wow um and then you know I'm not sure if you noce but Finland has
05:00one of the highest blue zones folks that lived to past 100 and so we know that you know saunas can activate longevity genes in the genetic Pathways there yes and then they are rated I think in 2022 like the happiest country in the world and they have the most saunas per capita and so I was like I don't think there's a coincidence here we were just like super fascinated by that data uh and then just how we felt after the sauna ad don't are both Wellness junkies and so we wanted to be able to make that more accessible in the states yeah you know back then if you wanted to use a sauna it's a stinky old gym sauna or you're like at the Four Seasons and having to use it there or it's and it's mostly steam instead of like traditional or infrared so um it wasn't very uh accessible to to the public um and so we wanted to make it a lot easier but then also those that you could buy for like your private home the manufacturers at the time it was really just outdated designs
06:00yeah it wasn't something that you wanted to like it wasn't a Marvel of the home or the centerpiece it was like an ugly wooden box in the corner next to Rusty weights a lot of questions to dig into here but let's start with design actually because I think that's you know interesting and I'm glad you brought that up that's one thing that you notice with your product design is that they're great looking I mean they're you know something that you would be proud to have in your house and how do you guys think about that I mean is that something that you know I mean there's only so much I'm sure complexity right you can do a barrel design or just kind of the standard you know Square design but how much of that has been a part of your product plan and and you know the priority for you guys yeah it's been it's been a huge priority we want to be able to balance like marrying the best technology and feature set with really Innovative Forward Thinking designs and so when it comes to like the color palette from even details like you know the glass or the type of
07:00controller interface that we're using there's a lot of customizations that we can do when it comes to the design and feature but the overall structure typically remains pretty uniform um we also felt that like if we veered too far away from that of it looking like a sauna um I don't know just make create some resistance um we have this new this new pod um that is on pre-order it's releasing in June where it looks like a cylinder look like a spaceship um and it's a single person like pod cylinder that looks really really cool so we are like experimenting what I what i' say like different shapes and Concepts around that but having like a really showstopping modern aesthetic that you're really proud to show off when your friends come over um I think is really vital and like the backbone of of sun home in addition to our focus on like performance and safety and is there difference in the type of wood that you use like was that anything that you learned through whatever they're using in the Nordic countries or does it not really matter I
08:00mean is there a difference in obviously I'm sure there's a difference in the quality of wood but how much is how much of that is important it's massive um a few things there so we get all of our wood actually from Canada interesting we use like grade A Western Canadian Cedar cool and that is just like the golden standard for a premium sauna um it's antimicrobial yeah and it has that like really soothing Aroma to it that that everyone knows that that cedar smell if you get it thick enough it's really durable and resistant against warping what we're seeing with a lot of the lower cost saunas in the US now they're made with uh with wood like Hemlock yes which doesn't last very long again doesn't have that Aroma doesn't have the durability or performance and retaining heat so I think Cedar is hands down the best but it's the most expensive I was just gonna say yeah but that's I mean what are they using in in like a Finland because those saunas for the most part
09:00the ones that I've been in over there are not the newest and they age well yeah they they use cedar or Spruce but I think they have a surplus of those wood types compared to to North America yeah so it may be a little a little easier for them what we found and and we learned the hard way is uh wood exterior and in interior is great for an inside sauna right one that's not exposed to elements right but like any outdoor furniture and you'll see these like outdoor Barrel saunas after a few years especially if you live outside of California and it gets a lot of rain or snow um humidity it'll start warping it'll start cracking degrading CH discoloring forming mold yeah and our luminar sauna was our first like outdoor infrared sauna that we launched a few years ago that was built to be um resistant to all the elements but we used carbonized Cedar which is basically heat treated Cedar okay um which we thought would be more resistant to just classic untreated um you know
10:00basic wood it's still after about 6 months we we saw warping in the paneling and so we went back to the drawing board uh like four to 6 months ago and we're like all right we need to make this thing more like like a cyber Tru like a tank um and so we re-engineered it now where the exterior is uh Aerospace grade aluminum cool cool and the roof is pitch stainless steel cool so that thing can withstand like Armageddon basically and um and it won't face any any wear tear like nowhere near to the level of of wood because people are spending a lot this this is an investment for life and we want to ensure that people are able to enjoy it and it maintains that really nice aesthetic for years to come and so the new materials that we're using on the exterior are really helping fortify that and then for the interior we still use Western Canadian cedar because it's protected and um it has all the additional benefits for it what do you think the percent of users that
11:00are using the sauna indoor versus outdoor of us um I would say 50/50 okay um in terms of volume of units um but we're seeing I think the outdoor sauna the luminar is going to quickly surpass that because there's nothing else really like it of like a true outdoor sauna that has infrared in it um and so and everyone just loves if they have the space enjoying a sauna outside being able to see like have the scenery or the backyard or whatever um it's it's a whole another experience but obviously like a lot of Americans don't have that luxury of a backyard or a puler or whatever so which is why by volume we're still doing you know around more Victoria for a indoor that's cool and I mean this is just I mean it's so interesting to even be talking about this and the growth because these are not cheap right they're pretty you know significant Investments for an average America average American and yet your your business is booming you know and and the we see it on on our products and within what we're working on there's just an incredible demand that continues
12:00to increase and yet you know as we started I mean this this particular sauna therapy I mean you can look at different research but there's some there's some research that shows that this dates all the way back to like 2000 BC or 10,000 years ago depending on what you look at and you know it was something that people actually dug caves Dug Dug into the ground for and then use you know um wood fires and rocks and thing so this is not new to your point um you know the countries that are using this this particular sauna therapy are blue zones people are living longer why do you think and you've been in this now for you know a decade working in and around this why do you think that your business is growing so much right now and over the last few years what do you really think is happening in America yeah I think the the wellness category in like preventative most modalities um are exploding and are showing no signs of stopping for a few different reasons one
13:00I think there's just scientific validation now yes around the benefits short and long term of thermal therapy for both saunas and cold plunges I feel like back when I was a kid uh when you would think of the sauna you would think of it something you use in the spa just for a few minutes to relax or some people even like warm up before exercise yeah nobody was thinking around you know preventing cognitive diseases or inflammation reduction um or any of those types of benefits and in with coal Coal plunges you know that's a rather recent um modality that's being popularized here you know I feel like that wasn't even a discussion 10 15 15 years ago um but all these studies now that are coming out I think are really reinforcing the the power and reasons as to why every American should be indulging in these type of activities I know we talked about it earlier but the studies that
14:00they're doing out of the nordics like in Finland um are making their way here specifically around preventing um cognitive decline in disease and you know uh ensuring you know strong cognitive function uh they did the study around I think it was like 200 people so it was a massive study over a course of like 20 years yes and using the sauna four to seven times per week translated to a 66% reduction in risk of Alzheimer's and Dementia and then a 77% risk uh decrease in risk of developing psychotic disorders in general so saunas um you know they don't just make you feel good they can like save your life or at least save your mind and so I think that particular those others is leading to the widespread adoption that is one of I think the best studies that has been published because to your point it was over 20 years just to reiterate that's massive that you see four to six times a week so it's you know using it just think about Monday
15:00through Friday use a 66% reduction in Alzheimer's I mean again there is no cure for Alzheimer's there's no drug that works for Alzheimer's there's there's so much of this and I think that you're right my view on this is that it's kind of a combination of multiple things it's there's better and better research that is taken seriously by our generation and the generation that's coming up below us they're taking this seriously you can bind that with a sicker population than ever and that fear in you know in people whether it's their parents their grandparents a family member who's been sick or isn't healthy and you're living with that so this is a real problem to everyone right now and then you combine that with the increase in communication and Technology right where you can jump on your Instagram page and put yourself in front of a reel that walks through that study in 30 to 60 seconds later you're educated about something that you didn't know before
16:00yeah you make a good point in addition to you know helping with with mental health but you know 25% of Americans have chronic disease specifically cardiovascular disease and Saun has help mitigate cardiovascular disease in general yes um so that's huge uh and then yeah you know we're we're now seeing you know like HSA and FSA yes eligible you guys working with true Med yeah yeah I think they're they've hit up everybody in the world Wellness space now um but no it's amazing I mean we're seeing a lot of increased customer acquisition from that and a lot of people that we can funnel to that um and I think it's just a matter of time I'm sure it's an uphill battle but before these are covered by you know insurance I think right now saunas and coal plunges even though we know that you know these are you know massively important uh and integral tools for for helping disease prevention and and and extend longevity they're still considered as Wellness treatments yeah and I think they need to be class ified as Medical Treatments um to
17:00you to to be uh you know covered by insurance which I think is going to be a matter of time and I think that just going to be you know pushed further and uh inspired by demand so I think the more demand there is yeah um you know it's going to push insurance companies to to have to cover these things and I and and hopefully the new Administration you know can can help push that along do you think that that's possible in the next few years are you optimistic about that I think the next 5 to 10 years sure the next one one to three might be a little tough but I think you know year-over year there's going to be compound benefits in in acceleration in that for sure and then with social media I think as well it it's helping a lot in terms of the adoption of of these tools especially coal plunges too right feel like across Instagram and and Tik Tok these like wellness enthusiasts or practitioners or even just general celebrities are really documenting their cold pledging experience and then also how it's it's impacted them too and so though I think social media has a lot of drawbacks many many drawbacks I do think it's helped
18:00really democratize um you know really important things like like contrast therapy I agree with that okay so we'll get into this so you start with the saunas how many units or models did you start with when you launched the company we started with four okay um four four indoor indoor types uh and then now we have about 20 different SKS and we've expanded Beyond just the the sauna cabins we noticed a lot of Americans um you don't have space for even a oneperson sauna or they don't have the funds for them Y and so we develop these infrared blankets that I'm sure you're familiar with what's unique about ours is we've integrated Faraday technology which cancels EMF and elf readings to it so super safe especially for those that are really sensitive to you know electromagnetic fields yes um and then we got into red light therapy we have um our LED masks that have like not just red but blue orange like various different uh uh lights
19:00in the Spectrum there and then there's some other new products that we're testing as well um like hyperbaric oxygen Chambers cool that we've just started an initial design for and so yeah we're kind of uh you know running this land and expand approach and taking Market feedback and um and uh trying to accelerate from there and then you guys entered into cold plunges yeah so we um you know with with our units the amount of time and and resources that that we invest into our R&D and the designs um you know we sell to I would say like a more fluent demographic that just wants the best of every category Y and oftentimes they would call us and ask for recommendations for coal plunge Brands because they know they would they they would trust the quality that we recommend yep and so we thought I just it just fit like a glove and it was a natural kind of evolution of sun home and so uh this was pretty recent two years ago we launched our initial uh like v1s and concepts of our cold plun tubs cool we wanted to do things a little little bit different it's so funny my co-founder lives two doors down from here that's awesome that's awesome we should pick
20:00him up that would be funny maybe on the way back yeah that's funny okay so the cold plunges two years ago so would you say that you guys were one of the first movers in saunas like in home saunas I don't think we were one of the first movers in home saunas I think we were one of the first innovators in doing something different and really disrupting the space even just from um you know like our marketing strategy as well um you know back then you weren't able to buy a sauna online you know U you had to go into like a physical dealership or you would to submit a lead form and so we wanted to just reduce that friction and streamline the process of ordering manufacturing ordering delivering setting up so that's that's that's kind of the Avenue that that we took um and then you know we we wanted to really uh amplify the adoption and so we have a lot of uh we're
21:00known for like these Instagram giveaways okay so is that something I was going to talk about that what's really helped get the word out because it is a pretty competitive market just like ours I mean it's fiercely competitive but okay so you guys have done giveaways and of course a sauna or a cold plunge is significant enough right thousands of dollars that you think that helps with a lot of traction yeah I mean it definitely helps with or our organic presence across social media as well as just more legitimacy because you know we work with world-renown health practitioners and various celebrities and personalities you know that breathe and speak on home and you know use our products every day yeah um and so I feel like that was the easiest way for us to go to market and just gain a lot of validation is by having like the best truly trust Sun home and recommend our products um and so we've had a lot of organic growth now I think we're like the most followed sauna Instagram account by like 300% um and we're using that as a tool not just obviously for you know awareness and acquisition for our own products but really to
22:00help Revitalize and democratize the awareness um uh in knowledge about saunas and cold plungers in general if you go on our we or on our website our Instagram you'll notice that there's besides like the the the collabs that we do yeah there's very few just product son home product posts and images that we try to get in your face it's more General sauna benefits cold plunge benefits new studies that come out that we want to just just get the general population to be aware about and we're blessed that we have such a following and that the algorithm favors Sun home that a lot of these end up just going viral and getting on explore pages and you know it's just it's really rewarding to see some of these um again even they're more generic and talking about you know like the the study that that we referenced or top 10 benefits you know so get like sometimes millions of views and those are customers that or or just people in America that weren't aware of the benefits of of saunas and so I feel like it's a little a little piece of us doing our part as well absolutely I mean education is is the the key um and and I think to your point of how do you turn
23:00the dial on insurance companies starting to cover things like son theapy or contrast therapy its Demand right so the more education the more great science and research that's out there and then the more just demand um all of those things together and you create the demand and the awareness with socials for sure do you guys do you guys deal with any type of regulatory of what you can say and what you can't say about the benefits or how does this category um fall under any type of Regulation it's still pretty it's it's somewhat of a it's regulated but I would say more of a gray space than that of like I imagine nutritional supplements are pretty strict right well it's interesting so we have the FDA and the FTC we have a legal team that reviews everything that we say but right now the FDA does not regulate supplements um and so that actually causes you know I think more issues than not in a lot of ways so sometimes it plays to your benefit sometimes
24:00it doesn't but there's a lot of um players on the market that are either foreign right other foreign countries or just kind of malicious cheap crappy products that are us made even but the problem with that is that they can actually be harmful to the consumer and then the entire category gets a bad wrap right so it's kind of like what you were saying about like some of the bad saunas and stuff I mean I think that because the nature of supplements being by and large $100 are less you have a lot more um malicious players and bad products on the market it is harder to have a terrible sauna because they are more expensive even though I mean I know there's probably some and they're really cheap um but you know it's a lot easier to have you know someone create a probiotic that sells for $5 on Amazon and then someone say I took probiotics and it was awful for me well you know I mean that's because that's sawdust that's coming from foreign countries most likely so yeah yeah I mean we're seeing the same thing especially in the cold plunge space yes um
25:00where they'll you know the business will launch six months ago and they the website looks like all of the other premium cold plunge sonor Brands out there so to the consumer that's first starting their Shopper journey and don't have loyalty or Affinity to a specific brand or or maybe Word of Mouth recommendations it's really deceiving right like these websites look badass they make the same you know claims and benefits and product specs as as all of us yeah everyone's saying the same thing but all they're doing is it's you know some kids that will just maybe go on like a tool like Alibaba yep find a cal plune manufacturer um with just has a standardized design yep slap their logo on it yep and then drop ship them across the states and then they end up breaking in three months and like to your point and somebody has a horrible experience with the product and thus thinks the category itself doesn't doesn't doesn't work uh and it gives everybody a bad rap and so the past few years um especially in the c plune
26:00space it's been extremely saturated if you type in cold plunge bu cold plunge you're inundated with all these shopping ads um and Tik Tok ads and everything for it but we've noticed a lot of these'll just drop like flies after a year because those products only last like 3 to six months Max yeah um and then they have to you know uphold their warranty um yes handle you know it's it's expensive to ship these things back to the warehouse they don't have it's somebody in their apartment yes um and so all the all these brands are going under and so I think this year is really the year of of consolidation where there's going to be a select few that are going to be resilient that are real companies that you know have trust in themselves and the consumers and make high quality products so okay so speaking of which I mean manufacturing's hard obviously now we've got like some tariff pressure that may or may not really impact us let's just see what happens with it but how do you guys think about manufacturing and controlling you know quality Manufacturing and make sure that the products are great and that they you know can with stain the years and
27:00years of use is it something that you're hands on with is it something that you know has been difficult yeah well for me uh I feel like it's a it's a balance it's it's a yin and yang because I I'm not like an analytical person or or um or necessarily like attached to the finance team as much as I should be so my whole ethos and like the way my brain works I'm always like how can we make how how can reiterate and make it better more resilient more features how can we stack more Technologies together just improve the customer experience to make people more in love with the solutions yes but that costs more money right and uh so we just invest so much in R&D and testing new tech um and exploring new vendors um but we have to strike this balance because there's a certain cap in which a customer will pay you know if I'm like oh like we can switch to this new insulation vendor that I think will reduce the heatup time by let's say 5 minutes but it
28:00increased our cogs by x% it's like we don't know if the customer will necessarily value that as much so I think it's playing with that and trying to trying to create this this this perfect balance um between Quality quality and cost I think QC is just is is very very important especially with a product like ours when you know someone's let's say paying over $10,000 for a sauna exactly what do they expect yeah you know they expect Perfection yeah and and incredible customer service I'm sure it's huge I mean I feel like our our our journey as a company with the customer starts as soon as it's delivered not after they make a purchase on our website yeah um and so we have probably a higher ratio of headcount of customer service to other employees in our business than many other companies out there yeah because we want to handhold our customer you know we'll do you know even though we have high volumes of orders you know we'll take the time for a tech to do a 30-minute FaceTime demo with somebody around how to use all the functionality of the
29:00sauna what the maintenance protocol is um and you know we want to make sure that we maintain positive reviews and you know we're you know for still you know we're we're pretty big in the space you know but we're a smallish business and you know we really rely on on Word of Mouth to help fuel our growth so we want to make sure that every customer just has a really positive experience and we want to have we'd rather have 10 people that are ecstatic about our product that call all their friends up to have sauna parties than you know 100 people rated a seven out of 10 you know has that been most of the growth has been word of mouth I mean is it a lot of that or what would you say it's more just digital marketing I would say a lot of Word of Mouth um we also we get picked up by a lot of these editorial driven media Publications we'll have like Forbes reach out okay and they'll say hey we're we're conducting thorough indepth product testing okay and we're going to be you know running um a best let's say say cold plunge of 2025 article okay so we're surveying all of the
30:00top brands in the space and then we are going to um un be unbiased and have our editors test every single one um and then pick the best and then we've been rated number one in market leader by by all of them so by Forbes wire Business Insider and so those are non-incentivized Publications y um and it's not like a sponsor by sunone Sun home or anything like that and so people can people can recognize that and we just have gotten a lot of traffic and Trust from that but yeah it's crazy like we'll see in like Ranch Santa Fe yeah we'll get a few orders from there and then a few months after those orders deliver 10 more orders within like the same few blocks and so I feel like uh it's a it's a it's a community thing I'm going to do a loop around the block oh wait is that a spot it's oh it's 30 minutes I feel like 30 minutes here we're just GNA go
31:00literally right here so I'm just in the fire Lan and just we're going to go quick this kind of looks like a fire truck so I don't think anybody will mess with this yeah exactly just kind of kind of looks like a fire truck way cooler how's your Biz going that I like the website a lot looks you guys are doing a lot of cool things yeah our business is going very well we are so our the top products for us right now are um our hormone balance product for women so that product we just launched late last year and then we are also investing pretty heavily into weight metabolic health so we're launching a product and
32:00it's called fuel full Works kind of like a natural glp1 drug but it works acutely so for like 3 to four hours with natural fibers prebiotics and a mineral called chromium and the product helps to satiate and helps promote a feeling of fullness so got back when I was cutting yeah exactly so that's really what we're that's really what we're focused on is how do we start to from a gut microbiome standpoint tackle these huge issues that our country is facing like obesity and metabolic disorders dysfunctions and then you know hormone imbalances for women so that's what we're really into so I I have two probiotic questions yes one um I was doing some chat gbt and trying to figure out the best time to take your probiotic it's a great question and so I read that you should take it on an empty stomach so it can like pass through and not get unadultered by food yeah is
33:00that true or would you recommend I've seen studies both ways and it totally depends on the type of probiotic that you're taking I think that for most people and unfortunately most people you know that have may have an issue with taking supplements I recommend to take it with a meal it doesn't really matter if you take it morning or night uh the main thing is the consistency the only time that that matters is if you are on an antibiotic so so when you're on an antibiotic it completely wipes out the good bacteria in your body right and so it wipes out the bad bacteria that's causing you issues which is why antibiotics are important when you're sick but it also just destroys the gut microbiome and that's why things like overuse of antibiotics is really really bad for our health and so if you're on an antibiotic a lot of doctors now which is great have started to say you should also take a probiotic and so when you're doing that don't take those two things at the same time right so take your antibiotic at night or in the morning and your probiotic vice versa 12 hours
34:00later that's the really only clear Direction um that I've seen otherwise you know depending on the product that you're taking I would just recommend we always recommend take it with you know full glass of water and then take it with with a meal um you don't have to but for most people if they're sensitive you know it's best to recommend that they take it with a meal our probiotics we use what's called a capsule and capsule so that the probiotic on the inside of the capsule is actually surrounded by this plant-based Omega oil which helps deliver it further into the body and is a lot smoother over delivery and slower release and it can you have too many probiotics like as an example if I already eat a lot of like sauerkraut and kimchi and like naturally fermented foods does that just compound the benefits or do you not need the probiotic then or how how does that kind of yeah so it's very subjective but there is a diminishing return if there's not high quality right so one thing that I think we're going to see a lot more of that I'm actually a fan of and was talking to someone about this morning is actually cycling
35:00through different probiotics and a couple of companies have tried to do this it's obviously complex and is detrimental to some of the margin right and and the business model if you're if you're trying to cycle through different products right versus getting someone on a subscription and keeping them on the same product for years and years which obviously every business you know minded person loves but I think the best thing might be actually as we find out more and more is to cycle through different products that you might need at different times and that way you have diversity of bacteria there's nothing that will ever replace what you just mentioned which is diet and so the best thing that you can do is get probiotics and prebiotics from your diet period there is no magic pill there's no magic bullet um you know I feel the same way about like red light therapy which I think is awesome and I want to talk to you about that in the benefits but uh I think that you know there's no supplement for just being out in the sunshine and you need that every single day ands that so yeah but it's a great question yeah and I think it's the same thing with with all of these uh Tools in modalities like saunas and coal
36:00punches you know if you don't have at a baseline a healthy lifestyle if you're not getting good sleep yes if you don't have a balanced nutritious diet if you're not getting sunlight all of these like Staples then you're not going to see much of an effect from all the other like Technologies you're using but if you do have that as your base line then you're I think you're going to get a lot more out of out of all the tools I think it's just super important to be just healthy in in in general and uh I think it's important to to kind of educate people around that too because I feel like people use sometimes Cal plungers or saunas just as like a a quick fix yeah or um kind of reactively like oh like I'm hung over so I'm going to go on a cold plunge and snap me out of it right versus changing actual lifestyle factors well and that's that was actually one of my questions for you so that's great great segue we we believe the same thing I mean you can't
37:00just take a supplement and expect everything to get better there's different things that we can claim based on science and published research just like you guys can and you can talk about um but nothing will replace lifestyle change so a question for you on that which I think is kind of interesting because this is different obviously with different Generations too and and so much of what you guys are doing in other companies are doing with social media education but do you do you think that most of your users are coming to to the brand for a sauna or a cold plunge red light are they coming proactively or do you think they're coming reactively like are they coming when they have active problems to solve whatever that may be or do you think that most of your users are just using these tools now proactively in their lives yeah I think traditionally it's been reactive right especially like in the cold plun space where maybe athletes are are injured or somebody already has chronic inflammation or somebody has lime like disease or some type of ailment and you know they've been you know told by their doctor practitioner friend and this will
38:00help with that in in Alleviate the symptoms now we're seeing our customers gear towards using our products as a more you know proactive measure to help prevent things like disease and and aging and and injury and things like that and so yeah we're lucky to see that shift for it's a little bit more of a of an even balance now you know what is the coolest or most profound study that you think these products are beneficial for what is what is the standout right now that you think everyone should know as far as top benefit yeah I think just mental health is such a huge topic right now yeah and especially when it comes to things like depression um and so many friends and and family members that I know are just prescribed anti depressants by their therapists or or doctors
39:00as a means of kind of just like numbing the pain and kind of stuffing it away and we all know that those types of drugs are you know they're pretty hardcore and not the best for for the brain or the body um and so what I love about coal plunging and contrast therapy how it's really just a natural nonivasive non-pill yes treatment for a lot of that you know um and when you get into a coal plunge you know there's science and studies that show that you get a m massive surge of endorphins and and dopamine and or per nephrine right it's like these these happy CH chemicals and you know a lot of people think of saunas and they want or and they want cold plunges let's say for like the recovery or reducing inflammation or improve sleep like sure you're going to get all of that but for me and where I see the profound benefit is like this kind of I don't know like neuro cocktail that you get and The Surge of just happy F inducing chemicals um that that can help mitigate uh and
40:00and lessen symptoms like like depression or it can boost focus and things of that nature right it's like before the gym now you know I don't need to uh just slam a bunch of pre-workout yes I was going to make that parallel because yeah I'll just I'll just go in like a 36 degree cold plunge for 3 minutes before yeah um and I'll have like improved focus and this kind of like runner's high that last hours and then for guys you know I get like a huge boost in testosterone that obviously like benefits you performance- wise throughout the exercise as well the interesting thing I saw something the other day that this was something that stood out to me and it was you know someone comparing you know as a cold plunge like drinking a cup of coffee and what the results were showing of this particular study was it's like no doing a cold plunge is not like drinking a cup of coffee it's more like the power of taking an adderal I mean it's way more powerful than just a 50 milligrams or 100 Mig grams of caffeine it's something that is your body's you know natural
41:00way of really releasing the endorphins and getting the neurotransmitters working yeah like you uh you don't get a crash from it like caffeine and when you take a sip sip of coffee you might get like a serotonin release because everyone loves this the whole Act of it and in in feeling buzz and maybe a minor you know dopamine release but like like twofold dopamine increase in neurop nephrine like that combination um you can't get from caffeine and caffeine you're kind of just numbing I would say like your your ability to you know your natural like energy receptors and so I think it's it's really powerful for for that reason and you mentioned sleep yes I do like to there's a few things there especially with saunas how um if you sauna like within 2 hours of of going to bed there's science that it increases and improves deep sleep um in restfulness and you can use your aura ring and track that too and I think it has to do with you know you're you're you're in
42:00a more relaxed parasympathetic state right and so you just naturally you you you want to go to bed but your body temperature your internal body temperature is a lot cooler because it's fighting to cool itself down from the sauna heat as well and your body sleeps a lot better when uh when it's in in a cooled State as well interesting so okay so let's go some of just like the overall kind of tips and tricks some of the key benefits of you know contrast therapy and if it's just specific you know Sona therapy or cold plunge that's fine too I think that would be awesome you know kind of the most commonly asked questions or benefits that you guys are going through yeah um and I'll I'll actually flip it on its head and you know there's there's amazing and complimentary benefits for for both yeah but I think when you when you Silo them as well um you can get different types of value from it cool so for me I'll always do Cal plunging earlier in the day
43:00because I find that if I do it late at night or within 3 hours of bedtime it's kind of like having caffeine before in in the way that it provides like a stimulating effect yep right and when you have a bunch of neurop nephrine release and adrenaline you don't necessarily think of all right it's time to like relax and rest and digest and go to bed and you want to make sure that your body can heat itself up naturally there's a lot of like just natural biological benefits with being able to do that and not having an assist from a heat therapy tool right including calorie burn right Your Body Works super hard to warm itself back up yes um after being submerged in in in cold water for a period of time and same thing with with saunas and so if I do a heavy sauna session earlier in the day I get like pretty sleepy and so I tend to do those later in the day and I don't Cal plunge after or do cold shower after because it prevents the release and and build of
44:00heat shock proteins yeah and heat shock proteins are basically you know these like Fighters that go and they remove the the plaque from your brain yes that is what causes dementia and Alzheimer's right and so you want to when you go into cold obviously it it uh it prevents that so I like to space that out um as much as possible even though I think there's a lot of benefit to to going back and forth back and forth in like a true like contrast therapy protocol yes um especially when it comes to just like convenience you know if you're going to like a remedy place or another ship or a contrast therapy Studio you're not going to go twice in one day and space it out so it makes sense from a from a convenience factor um but personally I I like to I like to space it out and then for saas um I always do that before I have dinner as well interesting and that's what you were saying at the beginning of the the interview when you were in Sweden right yeah is that that's
45:00what they do before dinner yeah exactly I mean imagine like having you know a big meal and your body needs to like process and digest that and then you go into you know basically a stressful State it's heat stress yes and so that can disrupt the whole like metabolism and process of digesting it and you would just feel super gross and like yucky afterwards yes uh and so when you when you saw her before you kind of get the body prep for consuming and you activate your metabolism and so you can digest actually way better um if you if you sa it before a big meal like that so that's what the kind of traditional at least in the Nordic countries that's what you find the traditional way to sauna is yeah and you know I don't know if that's just the traditional way they they they've always done it um or if that was their thought process right um and I I personally get um hungry after a sauna because your body is working right and you're burning calories and it's like stationary cardio yes and after a big I'm always like damn like that's grub
46:00grub so it makes sense physiologically is there good science or do you agree with the idea that you can just sit in a sauna for whether it's 45 minutes or however long and then you don't need cardio exercise it depends on what your goals are right if you're if you're stationary and let's say you have a broken leg yes it's going to be better than nothing it it is it truly is passive cardio when you can get your heart rate up you're burning calories and you're getting similar cardiovascular effects to that of like a light jog or or um or a fast walk yes there is a hack there like you want to keep your heart rate elevated for as long as possible where if I go into a sauna if let's say it's preheated at 150 or 160 and I go in um without prior exercise it takes me a while before my heart rate readings are elevated you know beyond like 120 or 130 and that's where you're getting a lot of like the passive cardio benefits in so what I would do um if you're at a gym go on
47:00the stair Master for 10 minutes if you're at home I don't know do some jumping jacks or run around your living room or whatever get your heart rate elevated go into preheated sauna and then your heart rate is going to remain at that State and so now you're basically doing pre-ex exercise and you're going to get more calorie burn and more cardiovascular benefits from doing uh doing that beforehand and by the way the cardio that Tyler is talking about is insanely important for preventing cardio I vascular disease which is the number one killer of Americans exactly yeah and and that's why this is such a great tool for it because a lot of people it's it's tough it's tough to convince somebody in Americans that aren't used to getting exercise to going in a gym to you know going on exercise bike to lift weights but when you can say go into this sauna with some eucalyptus oils and put on this awesome podcast here it's a little bit more enticing I would say um and you know again for people that are you know forcefully stationary whether that's from injury or or whatever right it's a great tool um to to help him out that way well and part of the problem is that
48:00our culture is so comfortable we love Comfort we love easy Comfort we have every tool in our toolbox to make us more comfortable the reality is that everything that's good for us physically does require some sort of discomfort or break from the mold so what is your take and what would you say is just encouragement to you know a user who might not be healthy and is trying to really turn things around from a health perspective about doing things that are uncomfortable yeah well first of all I think it's important for everybody to seek discomfort right I think that's where where growth happens and you're building resilience um and it you just become more comfortable with doing things and doing hard things you don't want to do right like Marcus aurelus it's like ancient philosopher says we we treat the the body rigor rigorously so it is not disobedient to the mind
49:00right and I think that's just so true you know for me getting into cold water especially when it's not a sunny San Diego day yes and it's on my rooftop and it's something I really don't want to do for me is getting into that 3 minutes of usually 32 Fahrenheit um for not necessarily the physical benefits uh but for knowing that I'm just doing something that you know is against my my own like natural will for me that's that's the benefit if you can really if you can conquer that concept about easy easily switch flipping a switch and and doing something that you know you don't want to do innately then I think you're you're golden and I think we need to convince and make sure it's more common place for you know for everybody to do that yeah and it's a concept that you know philosophically you know there's there's hours of discussion of how we got here into the the level of comfortability a lot of it is just technology but the other thing is it's a concept that extends into the rest of your life whether that be relationships or family
50:00uh raising children obviously running businesses I mean it it totally extends into a confidence really throughout the day of yep I can do this yes this is difficult but yes I can do this and by the way I can do this and I don't need the help of a a drug right uh or or or the next easy fix so I think I think that what you just tapped on I think is the kind of theme that I'm very hopeful because of leaders because of businesses like yours these conversations I'm very hopeful the Next Generation really Embraces even more than our generation has for sure yeah I I think everyone is just too comfortable with being comfortable and having everything easily accessible and they don't want to be inconvenienced yep and yeah I think the like the ice bath or a hot sauna is just one little lever that you can pull that can help you be more resilient and uh yeah and and that's why it just creates so much purpose for me running a business like this is that you know that it's truly helping people live a more confident better life and improving their day-to-day yep what are
51:00some of the other things that just kind of tips or things that you think would be helpful for users to know about either of these either of these therapies and also red light and how you you know might be combining those into into one solution there's some supplements that I love to take um in combination with sauna that I think improve the the detoxification pathway I usually start with Downing 16 oz of electrolytes to preh hydrate yourself and then you basically water fast through the entire duration of your sauna you know contrary to popular belief um you want a mild dehydration um because that activate activates a certain hormone called EPO which increases blood plasma basically just it drastically increases the amount of blood flow to your muscles your kidney your heart your liver and you need a mild dehydration effect for that to
52:00take place and so even though it obviously makes it maybe less enjoyable of experience during your sauna session highly recommend hydrating before and after but but not during interesting yeah and and do you need to eat beforehand I don't think that you should be jumping in a sauna the morning after 16 to 18 hour fast that's for sure but I don't think that you know you need to have a meal right before especially not a heavy meal I don't think that's a requirement at all you know I I do think you want to eat at least like a few hours afterwards right so you don't get lie headed and and you get nutrients in the body I take activated charcoal yep um usually like 30 to 60 minutes before you know which helps bind the toxins and then right after I'll take like two capsules of glutathione which helps mop up the additional toxins and so I actually always sauna before or sorry I shower before the sauna okay um especially if it's later in the day which I do um your body like it opens up your pores and you're exposed to heavy heat and um so you're absorbing all of the
53:00oils all of the dur all of the toxins that you've just naturally built up throughout the day on your skin yes and so I think it's important to to wash up and shower before the sun and obviously after okay talk about dry brushing the benefits of dry brushing what someone should know about that yeah I think dry brushing as well as uh I always mess the name up but using the gouache on in uh in the sauna as well those are two really good good tools to help with lymphatic drainage and Aid in the detox process yes the dry brush you can get this online you just want to make sure that it's like organic high quality bristles right cuz that's like anything could kind of brush off and like get absorbed in during the SAA but you want to do that as a practice like 10 minutes before you're going in the sauna and you're not sweating yet okay um and the guaw is something that you can use in the sauna I have it you can get like an extra large one um like on Amazon or whatever uh and then just do slow movements around your lift notes and that can really help move things along and help
54:00with detox and lymphatic drainage so those are two really cool tools and then I'll get like organic essential oils and kind of drip that across the wood just to create like a really nice experience as well yeah then the layer on top of that we recently released the new Sun home mobile app you can control all of your sun Home Products through it so let's say you're on the way home from work or whatever and you want to activate your your luminar sauna to get it preheated and make sure your cold plch is set at 32° tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. you can have that control but what I love about it is the access to all the pre-built in guided meditation and and breath work sessions awesome so we have um really amazing professional um like breath work coaches that have basically like these like recordings that go along with your session um and that's all included natively in the app that you get when you buy one of our saunas and so I I think that is the trend that we're moving in is is how can we integrate various Technologies and practices into our products um and how can we make things more stackable right so we want to um build in Integrations with like your whoop or
55:00your aura ring so it can start sensing all of your Biometrics and kind of reading your body and then identify all right based on you know what we're seeing now you should you know do a son or a cold Plunge at this temperature for this duration yeah right and just getting smarter with data in real time and having these kind of preset but customized programs that's awesome I really wanted to get to the point of doing hard things because I think that's is something that is uh one of the most important aspects that you know threads the needle between all of these therapies for sure and when you think about doing hard things nothing gives you more anxiety in in conquering a hard thing then our coal plune pro has this capability to make ice and so basically it's these copper coils that freeze this stainless steel tub and it creates like thick floating glaciers like literally this thick that floats across the entire surface of the water and so when you look at like
56:00a classic like 38 39° cold plunge it looks cold you know and you know it's going to be cold but when you just see like it looks like you're in a frozen lake it's a whole another level of anxiety you have to conquer and it's just it's just a a bigger dose of of cold and so looking at that I think I think I know the answer to this but do you think that most consumers have a harder time with the cold plunge or the sauna yeah absolutely nobody likes being cold water it's the cold plunge yeah everybody loves the effects of the cold plunge but I don't care who you are yeah you don't we've been trained innately to not like freezing cold water you know so no one likes it but um if you think about the benefits or the feeling like I really enjoy the feeling even though I typically space the modalities apart I love doing a cold plunge before a sauna and then going into the sauna and feel my body gradually warming up it feels like I'm in a cozy blanket I can stay in the sauna for longer yes you know oh that's great any type of of sauna is great I think people um
57:00should understand and you know be educated on the differences between a traditional sauna and an infrared SAA can you walk through that that was one of the questions I was going to ask actually a traditional sauna is what has been used you know for centuries where basically it's it's a wooden cabin with an electric stove in it with hot rocks and the easiest way it gets you hot is it just creates heated air basically it heats the air to like 180 to 200° and when you're in a hot environment your body sweats as a natural you know physiological response right and that induces the sweating and that's basically it right and infared was was actually developed by NASA a few decades ago and it actually uses infrared light so it's a particular wavelength that you can even like get from the Sun to penetrate the body directly and heat your body from the core up and so instead of just heating the air these infrared wavelengths especially our is where they're wrapped around the entire cabin so you get like 360° of infrared penetration yeah it it Heats your body up directly
58:00and so it penetrates your muscle tissues so it's more effective for reducing inflammation um because that's basically what it does um and you can get you basically can sweat more at lower temperatures we call it low heat therapy yeah so you'll sweat more at 130° typically through 130 to 150 then you would at like 180° traditional and it's been proven that it's more effective for detox and I saw this happen firsthand because there was a there was a fire station and they did the study where these firefighters were in the field fighting fire exposed to airbone airborn pathogens and smoke and they put half the group in a traditional sauna for 20 minutes and then half a group in the infrared sauna for 20 minutes and the group that was in the traditional sauna you could still spill the smoke after in the aroma of the fire infrared you couldn't smell it after
59:00wow and so it just shows you that infrared is great at just like removing those non-native pathogens and and and toxins from the body which is why we donate infrared saas to fire stations especially in La after after the big fires because awesome it's such a profound impact on detox in in firefighters 13% more likely to develop cancer and a lot of that is from absorbing these toxins and so infrared is a is a really amazing tool for for detox and inflammation if those are the two certain areas that you're that you're looking to Target that's awesome really cool and and well done that's awesome and the cool thing with infrared too is because it's lower heat that's when you can start stacking Technologies with it right if you bring your phone into a traditional like hot rock gym sauna that's overheating in 185 I'm not saying that you should be taking your phone in the SAA I a question about that yeah because I mean it's we're so connected to our phones and I'll be really honest when I'm in the sauna often times like I'm on my phone texting or email maing which isn't great I try and read most of the time that I'm in the sauna however I will say like for 5 or 10 minutes of the sauna session sometimes I'm on my phone which isn't great is
1:00there I mean what's your perspective of having a phone and a sauna I mean is it bad for the phone bad for you I'm sure it's not the healthiest thing yeah well I think it depends who you're looking to get out of the sauna for me it's a place to disconnect where I'm not getting slacks emails shop notifications every two seconds yes um what I do love about bringing your phone in the sauna integrating with their Bluetooth speakers is how you can access your guided meditation yeah and so I'll throw up on like a a 10-minute guided meditation um recording and integrate that as a part of my practice yeah or sometimes I'll put on a podcast I would not recommend just deep scrolling on on Instagram you're that's creating the opposite effect that you want but I do think technology can provide a value um in your sauna session and then because infrared is lower heat than traditionals we can also bring in like we have a red light therapy device and a tower that integrates with the door of our luminar so you can start using red light and infrared at the
1:01same time so from like a convenience factor you don't have to in the morning spend 20 minutes in front of your red light and then do 20 30 minutes in your sauna right you can get a lot of those benefits at the exact same time that's awesome cool okay well this has been an awesome episode we are uh here wrapping up an Obi uh Sunset Cliffs in San Diego not not uh not a bad view so awesome thank you Tyler yeah thanks for having me this is great