00:00using a sauna can benefit your muscles it can help improve your blood flow and even though it may be uncomfortable sitting in a sauna provides a ton of health benefits for your body and many of these benefits carry over to your workouts and can even help improve your body composition for example one thing that you'll experience if you use the sauna consistently is faster recovery from your workouts and there are a number of reasons for this one of them i already mentioned saunas improved blood flow and this helps deliver nutrients to the cells and tissues that need those nutrients to recover the way that saunas improve blood flow is by heating the body the heat relaxes and dilates blood vessels making it easier for your cardiovascular system to pump blood throughout the entire body studies also show that regular sauna use improves endothelial function which is the function of the thin inner layer membrane that lines your heart and blood vessels now on top of all that studies show that sauna use increases igf-1 which is a vital hormone for growth and
01:00recovery one of these studies found a 142 increase in this igf-1 hormone during sauna use now it's still debatable how much of an increase in igf-1 would be required to speed up recovery but between the improved blood flow and the boost to igf-1 it's no wonder why people claim to recover faster after using a sauna another big benefit from the sauna can be felt in your mood if you suffer from depression or just want to improve your mood the sauna might actually be able to help that's because sauna use increases beta endorphins in the blood which produces feelings of euphoria in fact whole body heat therapy has been shown to improve symptoms of depression in cancer patients through this same process also we have a randomized controlled double-blind study on depression that shows that a single session of elevating your core body temperature to 101.3 degrees fahrenheit or about 38.5 degrees celsius led to an acute antidepressant effect that lasted for six weeks that's obviously a really powerful effect on
02:00your mind and it can be noticed right away especially if you use asana consistently now in addition to muscle recovery i kind of alluded earlier to the fact that asana can relieve pain as well it does this by increasing the release of anti-inflammatory hormones like adrenaline noradrenaline cortisol and igf-1 for example one study found that combining sauna use with other therapeutics assisted in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and another study found sauna therapy reduced pain from fibromyalgia in regard to working out and delayed onset muscle soreness even though there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that heat therapy helps reduce post-workout soreness we don't have enough solid evidence to say conclusively that it does but most likely saunas do reduce muscle soreness thanks to the improved blood flow and the release of endorphins which are opiate-like chemicals that act like natural painkillers next let's go back to another cognitive benefit which is the fact that it can help improve your mental performance you see the stress from heat increases the expression of brain-derived nootropic
03:00factor also known as bdnf which is a crucial protein for cognitive health bdnf helps regulate synaptic plasticity which essentially helps neurons communicate and that assists with learning and memory formation research also shows that bdnf is involved in muscle repair and it's even involved in the growth and development of new muscle tissue on top of that it can help combat the cognitive decline associated with aging in a study on men from finland researchers found that those who use the sauna four to seven times per week had a 65 reduced risk of developing alzheimer's disease compared to those who use the sauna only once per week in addition to this study there's another one where men were instructed to stay in a sauna that was heated to 176 degrees fahrenheit or about 80 degrees celsius until they felt totally exhausted and felt like they had to leave to take a break from the heat and the results showed that there was a 310 percent increase in norepinephrine and a 10-fold increase in prolactin these things
04:00benefit your cognitive health because norepinephrine enhances focus and attention while prolactin promotes myelin growth which makes the brain function faster similar results were found in women the participants that completed 20-minute sessions in a dry sauna twice a week experienced an 86 percent increase in norepinephrine and a 510 increase in prolactin another inner benefit that you'll experience is your stress levels will go down it's well known that chronic stress is terrible for your health it's linked to things like cardiovascular disease alzheimer's disease diabetes depression asthma gastrointestinal problems and much more luckily the sauna might offer some help research shows that sauna use can reduce levels of cortisol which is your body's primary stress hormone also i already mentioned earlier that sauna use can increase bdnf this is beneficial not only for learning and memory but also for your stress levels research shows that reduced levels of bdnf can play a role in depression and anxiety so by boosting this unique protein in your brain you could reduce your stress to
05:00reap the maximum benefits try to focus on your breath while you're using the sauna that way you'll also experience the benefits that deep breathing exercises can have on reducing stress now aside from the internal effects asana can provide many benefits externally as well for example a sauna can improve the health and the appearance of your skin we have studies showing that regular sauna use has a positive effect on skin health especially surface ph levels and hydration one of these studies showed that sauna use led to less oil being present on the forehead of participants that's why it might be a good idea for oily acne-prone skin but it's important to keep in mind that sweating causes your body to secrete zinc and sweating is one reason why 21 to 43 percent of athletes have low levels of zinc so if you're an athlete or you use saunas regularly or especially if you do both it's important to get enough zinc because other than the many important functions that zinc has inside your body it's also crucial for your skin health you can take a zinc supplement if you
06:00use a sauna every day or better than a supplement is real food examples of foods that score high in zinc are oysters beef chicken firm tofu lean pork chops hemp seeds and lentils the next potential benefit that you'll get is more weight loss of course make no mistake a lot of this weight loss will be in the form of water weight this is actually why the sauna is used by athletes that want to lose weight boxers and wrestlers for example will use a sauna to drop weight to a lower weight class but these effects are only temporary when you rehydrate yourself after sweating the lost water weight will be reabsorbed now another way that people have suggested that a sauna could potentially benefit weight loss is by elevating your heart rate but the fact of the matter is that you'll only burn slightly more calories in a sauna compared to just sitting in a room at regular room temperature the difference is as small as instead of burning 40 calories after 30 minutes of sitting at room temperature you'll boost the number of calories burnt to a whopping 60 calories in a hot sauna that's not going
07:00to make too much of a difference you'd burn much more calories by hitting the gym or performing almost any kind of a workout with all that said there still is one more way that sauna use may help benefit weight loss other than assisting with recovery and performance and that's through molecules known as heat shock proteins heat shock proteins are present in all cells they're essential for basic cellular maintenance and they play an essential role in many processes including immune function cell signaling and cell cycle regulation using a sauna can elevate these levels of heat shock proteins and according to animal studies those proteins may help reduce fat mass however this effect needs more research because there's a lack of evidence that shows that similar benefits apply to people also even if the effect did apply it wouldn't be huge like dieting or exercising so weight loss will mostly be limited to water weight which can help reduce bloat and temporarily make you appear more vascular with thinner looking skin but a major health benefit that can't be
08:00overlooked when it comes to regular sauna use is the impact that it can have on your heart there are many ways that sauna use can benefit your heart for example it can reduce the stiffness of your arteries it can improve your blood lipid profiles and it can help reduce your blood pressure studies also support the heart benefits associated with heat therapy for example in a 2015 study involving finnish men researchers looked at the link between sauna use and fatal cardiovascular events the results showed that the participants that used the 48 reduced risk of heart disease or heart attack compared to those who only used it once a week the researchers mentioned that more studies are necessary to establish the mechanism behind the link between sauna use and improved cardiovascular health and we did get more of an understanding of this link in a later 2018 study that found that the benefits could likely be due to improved heart muscle contractions reduced arterial stiffness and blood lipids and lowered blood pressure with
09:00the potential benefit for your heart it's easy to see how another benefit of consistent sauna use is increased longevity which means that it may help you live longer not only did the 2015 study that i just mentioned find a reduction in cardiovascular disease events but the participants who used the sauna more often also had a reduced rate of all-cause mortality the researchers even mentioned that this reduced risk of all-cause mortality was present even independently from conventional risk factors the exact mechanism that's associated with increased longevity is still unknown but one way that heat therapy may lead to an increase in longevity is by stimulating heat shock proteins like we talked about earlier we actually have evidence that shows that flies that are repeatedly exposed to heat stress experience much higher levels of heat shock proteins and a significant increase in lifespan of course once again data on flies may not translate over to humans and there is a limited amount of quality data on how heat shock proteins impact longevity in
10:00men and women but just because we're not sure of the mechanism doesn't change the fact that the sauna benefits your heart blood vessels and even your nervous system in a way that can improve longevity finally last but not least the sauna can help benefit your athletic performance using asana regularly can give you a boost with endurance based activities in a high heat environment like a sauna or steam room you can train your body to become accustomed to the high temperature and to function optimally this is actually called hyperthermic conditioning and it works especially well for endurance athletes to give an example let's say that an athlete lives in an area with low to moderate temperatures but they're training to compete in a place where the weather is much hotter they could use a sauna regularly in preparation for this competition that can actually help improve their ability to cope with the heat which benefits performance this same idea can be applied to other endurance activities and this theme room especially can help your respiratory system function optimally since oxygen is the primary
11:00energy pathway for many endurance based activities it's easy to see how optimizing your cardiorespiratory system can lead to benefits in the realm of exercise and performance so those are 10 major benefits that you can expect from using a sauna consistently as mentioned weight loss is something that can be temporarily accelerated with sauna use but it will most likely be in the form of water weight to truly benefit your body composition and your health sauna use should be combined with a solid diet and workout plan you can even use a sauna directly before your workout to warm up your body and get the blood flowing or you can use it after your workout to relax your muscles and help speed up recovery regardless of how you position your sauna sessions if your main goal is fat loss or improving your body composition with more muscle mass you will need to adjust your diet and training regimen so if you need any extra help head on over to my website where we have everything from done for you programs that are helping my clients lose twenty pounds or five percent of their body fat in just six weeks to
12:00one-on-one coaching and custom-made plans to find out more click the link below in the description or you can head on over to my site directly at gravitytransformation.com i'll see you guys soon [Applause] you