Is this the BEST Infrared Sauna Blanket (Sun Home Saunas Review)
00:00Hey guys, and welcome back to the channel. In today's video, I wanna talk about an Infrared Sauna Blanket from Sun Home Saunas that I've been using since December of 2022 to improve muscle recovery after intense workouts, and we've also used it when the kids were sick to help support their immune system. Now, before we get started, couple of things I want to mention is one I'm not a medical doctor, so nothing in this video should be considered medical advice, and I also have affiliated links down in the description if you use them, I might get a commission. That doesn't change my editorial integrity, but it helps make this channel happen. Speaking of supporting this channel, please subscribe, click on the alert button to get notified when I publish more videos like this. And if you like this video at the end, give it a thumbs up, please. Now, let's talk about the benefits of infrared saunas and Infrared Sauna Blankets and how they can be different and offer different benefits. Generally speaking, infrared saunas are great
01:00to help improve recovery, reduce pain, increase blood flow, activate the immune system, and a host of other benefits that you can get from them. And some of the benefits are related to the heat stress that saunas induce. Meaning that saunas can increase your core temperature, and that leads to the release of so-called heat shock proteins that activate the immune system to learn more about all of those benefits and how you can leverage them. Check out the blog post that I'm linking down below in the description goes into all the scientific evidence and links to studies, so check that out. I'm not gonna have time to talk about all of that in detail. So let's talk really briefly about the differences between traditional infrared sauna cabins, and Infrared Sauna Blanket s because they use different mechanisms of transferring heat and energy into your tissue, and those influence the benefits
02:00those different types of saunas can provide. Now, with traditional infrared sauna cabins, the heaters they contain radiate heat, so the infrared radiation basically through the air delivers the heat into your tissue. And the amount of energy transmitted into your tissue is called emissivity, and so the higher the emissivity of a heater or of a sauna cabin, the more effective it is. And some of the premium sauna infrared saunas, like the Sunlight mPulse that we have in our backyard, have heaters with an emissivity of between 95 to 99%. So almost all of the infrared radiation gets into your tissue to provide the benefits that infrared saunas can provide. Heating blankets or sauna blankets, on the other hand, use conductive heat, meaning they include heat-coated wires throughout the fabric that are sewn into the fabric, and those heat up the fabric and transmit the heat via conduction to your clothing
03:00and to your skin and into your tissue. The emissivity of those heaters in the sauna blankets is usually between 86 to 88%. The Sun Home Saunas Infrared Blankets that is the subject of this review have an emissivity of, I think it's between 86 to 88% roughly. And so that means not all of the energy from that infrared radiation gets into your tissue, and it relies more on conductive heat, meaning that you need to have that blanket on your skin so that heat can transfer into your tissue. And that means with traditional sauna cabins, you can get the same benefit at lower temperatures because more of the energy gets into your tissue. Whereas with sauna blankets or lower quality sauna cabins that also have a low emissivity, you need higher heat to get the same benefits, and that's just an important aspect to consider.
04:00When we talk about the benefits of, you know, infrared saunas and Infrared Sauna Blankets, the pros obviously of a sauna blanket are that they're fairly inexpensive. The one from Sun Home Saunas that we have at home costs $500, and that's a lot of money, of course. But it is significantly less than any walk-in sauna cabin, you might see on the market even the least expensive ones. The lower quality ones typically run in the thousands of dollars, and so significantly more than what you pay for a sauna blanket. The other factor is obviously size and the space required to have a sauna cabin with a sauna blanket, when it's not in use, you can fold it up put it under your bed, stick it into a closet, or, you know, even put it into a corner. It folds up the blanket we have, it folds up to the size of a small carry-on luggage. Very easy to store and has very little footprint. And of course, when you want to use the sauna blanket, you can do it in your bed, on your couch, on the floor, basically anywhere in your house where
05:00you can sit and stretch out your legs. You can use a sauna blanket. So it's very convenient to use and it heats up very quickly as well, The blanket from Sun Home Saunas that we use heats up in approximately 15 minutes, you know, and it reaches temperatures of up to 75 degrees Celsius ... I think close to 170 degrees Fahrenheit so it gets fairly warm. In particular, because the blanket is so close to your skin, it, it gets really hot, but it needs that heat to deliver its benefits. And speaking of benefits, what can you expect from a Infrared Sauna Blanket? Well, the one thing it does very well is it can heat up your muscle tissue. So if you have sore muscles, if you wanna improve blood, to speed up the recovery from intense workouts, maybe then the sauna blanket is a great option. You just slide in, crank it up, and let the blanket do its thing to get more blood flow and come out more recovered on the other end.
06:00It's also great for helping you sleep better and fall asleep quicker. Because if you go in, if you use the sauna blanket before bedtime, then you increase your core temperature temporarily, which leads to a cool-off period where your core temperature actually goes below baseline. And that's one of the key requirements to fall asleep. So naturally, before you fall asleep, your core temperature needs to drop. And by using a sauna or a sauna blanket right before bedtime, you can support that process, and that might help you fall asleep quicker. If you want to use the sauna blanket as a method to support your immune system, then you need to use high temperatures, and that's because the release of heat shock proteins that support the immune system are only triggered if your body's under heat stress. And the only way to get under heat stress is to crank up the temperature and make it feel a little bit uncomfortable. So you really need to sweat, you need to crank up the heat and stay in
07:00there for at least 30 minutes to release those heat shock proteins and to support your immune system. And the good news is, the sauna blanket gets hot enough close to 170 degrees Fahrenheit, or 70-75 degrees Celsius, so you just need to stay in there or bundled up and have a good sweat, basically. If you sweat a lot in the blanket, you can also mimic a light cardiovascular workout, so it's kind of akin to going for a run or a jog by increasing your heart rate by sweating and that might help you lose weight, drop some body fat and work your heart muscle in your cardiovascular system. Now that we've talked about the benefits of sauna blankets in general a little bit, let's dive into the actual review of the Sun Home Saunas Infrared Sauna Blanket, and I'm gonna tell you what I like about it, what I don't like about it, and how we've used it in the last couple of months. So one thing that stands out immediately when you, when you grab that sauna blanket is that it's very well-made from the stitching to the commercial-grade Velcro straps. Everything seems
08:00to be incredibly well-made, and I expect that sauna blanket to last for a very long time. Speaking of those Velcro straps it's important that, you know, you get high-quality Velcro straps in your sauna blanket, so the heat stays in. So when you're in the blanket and you wanna close those straps, you wanna make sure that nothing escapes, there are no holes and et cetera for the heat to stay in, to deliver all of the benefits. And the Sun Home Sauna Sauna Blanket has high-quality Velcro straps that stay shut if you want them to. But you can obviously then also open them up for cleaning the blanket to make it easier to get in. You know, it's kind of like a sleeping bag, if you will, but instead of a zipper on the side, you have those Velcro straps on the side and on the bottom you can open it all the way up to get in, close it or just, you know, open it up a little bit and, and slide in. That's typically what, what we have done, the material, the surface material on the outset and on the inside is a waterproof polyurethane coating that makes sure that you know, when you sweat. The electronics inside and the heating
09:00wires. Don't get damaged. If you know polyurethane from maybe from your last building science class or from, you know, building a house, then you know that polyurethane foam can release VOCs, volatile organic compounds that might irritate your respiratory system or even be toxic. Now, the good news is, Sun Home Saunas use a low VOC version of that coating, so there shouldn't be any concern about off-gassing. Speaking of, you know, cleaning and the waterproof fabric, once you're done sauna bathing, you can open up the blanket and just wipe it clean. We use a non-toxic cleaner from Hypo-Air. I'm gonna link it down below. It's called Total Clean. It's zero VOC. No toxins in there, but it's very effective with cleaning and killing, you know, any bacteria that might cause bad odor, et cetera if you don't get them. So I recommend, you know, wiping the blanket clean after every use. I also recommend maybe using
10:00sweatpants in the shirt that helps with keeping some of the sweat in the fabric. And it makes the cleaning job even easier and you don't have to wipe as much to keep the blanket clean. The other thing that a lot of people are concerned about, specifically with infrared saunas and with sauna blankets in particular are electromagnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation. The good news is that the Sun Home Saunas Infrared Sauna Blanket emits very few EMFs. They claim already so, but I measured with a Tri-Field EMF meter. And I could not notice any significant difference between having the blanket turned on and off. So there isn't, it's not zero emf, but it's very low EMF and nothing that you should be concerned about in my opinion. The only thing that emits a little bit of electric radiation, so to say, is the control unit, obviously. Because there is, you know, power in the unit, it's plugged into the wall. However, when you use the sauna, just don't lie it on your chest, put it to the side, and you're perfectly fine. Speaking of the control unit, that makes it very easy to turn this sauna on. Set a timer. You can go up to 60 minutes and set your desired
11:00temperature. It goes anywhere from, I think 95 to 167 degrees Fahrenheit or so. You can ease it in, obviously, over a couple of days to get used to the heat, et cetera. But at some point, I would recommend going on the highest setting, on the highest temperature, and staying there for about 30 minutes to get the most benefits from your sauna sessions. As I mentioned before, it takes about 15 minutes or so to heat up. What I would we typically do is we turn it on, go inside immediately, and stay inside during the warmup period or total sauna session time is approximately 45 minutes. If you want to, you can let it heat up and then get in, and only spend 30 minutes on a blanket. But if you have nothing else to do, you know, just get in immediately. It heats up fairly quickly and you start getting those benefits even before the final temperature has been reached. Speaking of pricing, the Sun Home Saunas Blanket costs about $500, and I have a discount code that I'm gonna link down below or show down below in the description. That gives you a discount. I think it's $50 off, but that might change over time. Always check the description. That's
12:00fairly reasonably priced for a product like that. It's obviously not exactly the same as a walk-in sauna cabin, especially if you have a full-spectrum sauna cabin that might also have near and mid-infrared radiation. The sauna blanket only does far infrared, but for $500 or even less, you get an excellent alternative to regular sauna cabins, especially if you don't have the space or the budget for anything bigger. We have used the Sun Home Sauna Sauna Blanket a couple of times specifically when someone was sick. Our seven-year-old recently had a respiratory infection and he just didn't feel well. He was on the couch and he happens to absolutely love heated blankets, so it didn't take much convincing to get him into this sauna blanket and spend 45 minutes in the blanket at high heat to trigger a little bit of a mild heat stress,
13:00at least to support his immune system. He did that for two days, and he felt significantly better afterward. Once he was completely fine. My wife, unfortunately, you know, caught the virus and felt low energy and fatigued and, you know, down for a couple of days. And she also used the sauna blanket so she didn't have to move from the couch and go downstairs into our, you know, regular sauna cabin. She did it from the comfort of the couch. Just go in there, spend 30 minutes in there on high heat. She absolutely loved it, helped her recover quicker. And I've also used it several times to improve muscle recovery. And for that you don't necessarily have to sweat a whole lot, you just want to get it hot enough so that a lot of that heat transfers into your muscle tissue. And especially, you know, if on days where I did deadlifts or squats or make glutes and my lower back were all lit up, or maybe my quads. Going into that blanket, sliding into that blanket, and just spending 30-, 45- minutes in there at moderately high heat to get some blood flowing
14:00was an absolute game changer. It helped me recover quicker, and that's one of the reasons why I continue using the sauna blanket. You know, especially on days where I don't feel like, you know, I, I don't want to sweat and, and having to take a shower. I can just use the sauna blanket in the evening while watching TV and quick, painless, and it absolutely helps speed up recovery. So with that, we're gonna wrap it up. As I've mentioned before, I have a fairly in-depth review of the Sun Home Saunas Blanket on my blog, so check that out. I'm gonna link it down below. Overall, I think the Sun Home Saunas Infrared Blanket is a great alternative to regular saunas if you don't have the space for one or the budget. It doesn't provide exactly the same benefits as a full-spectrum infrared sauna that has, you know, a high emissivity and provides a greater spectrum of infrared radiation. But for the price and combined with the convenience and the small footprint and the small space
15:00requirements. I think sauna blankets are an excellent way to make sauna bathing and heat treatments part of a regular wellness routine. And in particular, the Sun Home Saunas blanket is a great option. It's reasonably priced, very good build quality. The only thing that might be a little flimsy is the control unit, as I've mentioned in my blog post, so you probably don't wanna drop that a couple of times on hard surfaces. But beyond that, the blanket is very well-made. Stitching is great. The Velcro straps are great. The material itself is excellent water repellent, waterproof, in fact, and so I expect the blanket to last a very long time. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. If you have any questions about the blanket, let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks for watching. See you next time.