The Benefits Of Infrared Sauna Use And How To Find The Best Sauna For Your Health with Andrea Duffy

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Content By: Ari Whitten & Andrea Duffy

The benefits of infrared sauna use and how to find the best sauna for your health, www.theenergyblueprint.comDo infrared saunas have any benefit or is it simply a luxurious spa treatment that feels nice? And do infrared saunas have special benefits of infrared sauna over traditional heated rock-style saunas?

This week, I am talking to Andrea Duffy from Sunlighten, who is an expert on how saunas affect our bodies. In this episode, we discuss the amazing science around how sauna use benefits our health and energy (and protects us from numerous kinds of diseases).

As you will learn more about in the podcast, I have my own infrared sauna which I use on a near daily basis, and I’m a HUGE advocate of sauna use.

Why?

Simple: Because the science shows that saunas are literally one of the most powerful medicines in existence. And so few people are actually aware of that science and are regularly using a sauna!

As you’ll hear from me in this episode, I believe that if the benefits of saunas could be encapsulated in a prescription drug, it would be the most impressive drug ever created, and that it would be the biggest blockbuster drug in the history of prescription drugs. Literally. You’ll hear why I say that in this podcast.

In this podcast, you’ll learn:

  • The science that shows that using a sauna is shown to reduce risk of dying from numerous diseases, and even your risk of dying from ANY cause (yes, seriously, there is actually research on this)
  • How saunas can help your body recover from injuries faster
  • How saunas lower blood pressure and dramatically reduce rates of heart disease
  • How saunas can help you overcome chronic infections (which are a major contributor to chronic fatigue for many people)
  • How infrared saunas dramatically boost detoxification (and why the detoxification benefits of infrared sauna are greater than the ones from rock saunas)
  • What you need to look for when you purchase a sauna (and why choosing the right one is critically important)
  • Why I recommend infrared saunas so strongly to everyone with fatigue

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The Benefits Of Infrared Sauna Use And How To Find The Best Sauna For Your Health – Transcript

Ari Whitten: Hey guys, this is Ari Witten, and welcome back to the Energy Blueprint Podcast.

Today I have with me Andrea Duffy, who is a representative of Sunlighten saunas, and she’s here to talk all about the science around the health benefits of infrared sauna use, especially. What does the science actually say about the benefits of these kinds of saunas. There are all kinds of hype and lots of different claims around this, but I wanted to have a conversation really grounded in science around what the science actually says about the real benefits of these kinds of saunas.

Now I personally have a Sunlighten sauna myself. I’m a huge advocate of sauna use in general, whether Sunlighten or any brand, but certainly there are big differences in the quality of different brands.

There is a mountain of science showing profound, absolutely amazing health benefits of infrared sauna use. Some of it is actually mind-blowing, and we’ll get into that in this interview. Andrea is an expert on this and she has studied the science around the health effects of infrared saunas very, very intensively. It’s absolutely a fascinating interview and I hope you guys enjoy it.

Welcome Andrea, thank you so much for joining me.

Andrea Duffy: Thanks for having me.

 

What the differences between convection and infrared saunas are

Ari Whitten: Let’s get more broad for a second, and you mentioned a second ago that there’s a difference between convection heating style saunas and an infrared sauna. For people who are unfamiliar with that, what are the differences between these two styles of saunas? And what are the benefits of infrared sauna?

Andrea Duffy: The conventional heat is going to be something similar to what you’re used to, that old hot rock sauna where you might even pour the water on it and it operates anywhere from 220 degrees to 280 degrees, depending on the style of the heater that’s placed inside of that sauna.

When you’re heating the air, then obviously your skin is getting hot or first where, in a far infrared unit, that sauna is going to range from anywhere from 120 degrees to 150 degrees. What they do that’s very different where in that convectional heat sauna, you’re not controlling the surface of that temperature. You’re allowing it to get hotter and hotter and hotter the better. You’re not able to have far infrared in that environment because it’s just too hot.

Where an infrared sauna if it’s done right, it should be controlled by the surface temperature. It has nothing to do with the ambient temperature at all. Sometimes people get really wrapped up in that ambient temperature because they’re thinking I’m in a sauna and I should be on fire while I’m in here.

That’s true of some technologies and it is still warm because you’re in a box with heater, so it still can get up to 150 degrees, which is much hotter than you. You’re still going to sweat a lot, but you’re getting that penetrating heat at a sweet spot that your body absorbs. That sweet spot is at 9.4 microns where it’s compatible with the human body, and really the reason that number is so important because that’s how much you’re going to get to absorption.

The more you get, the faster you’re going to raise your core temperature and the more vibration that you’re going to receive to the body, which is going to disrupt hard toxins, which is in addition to raising the lattes core temperature.

Ari Whitten: Now explain that a little deeper, this whole 9.4 microns?

Andrea Duffy: Yes.

Ari Whitten: Okay.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

Ari Whitten: What’s the significance of that? I know you just said a little bit, but explain a little bit deeper around that and the benefits of infrared sauna. . Why does it matter, what specific frequency the heaters are emitting?

Andrea Duffy: The frequency, it’s really important because at 9.4 microns, so well just, for instance, we’ll say that you could see the wavelength’s coming off of the heater is just for conversation’s sake. If you had the blackbody, the human body in front of the heater at 9.4 microns, you would see straight lines of absorption. If the surface of the temperature of the heater was heating and cooling, the wavelength would look more like a bell curve. You’d be receiving and not receiving, receiving and not receiving because you want it to be at 9.4 body because that’s what’s perfect to the blackbody, the human body. That number is really important because everybody has far infrared, so like you and I have far infrared. That is one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

The far infrared frequency explained and how it affects your body

A blanket can provide far infrared, but it’s just a very low amount, not enough to cause a therapy. Where to receive far infrared that it’s going …

Ari Whitten: Actually let me interrupt you real quick …

Andrea Duffy: Go ahead.

Ari Whitten: Because you said you have far infrared. I just want you to clarify what you mean by that because that will go over the head of a lot of people who are not familiar with that concept.

Andrea Duffy: Sure.

Ari Whitten: Just explain a bit what you mean by that.

Andrea Duffy: Benefit of infrared sauna: Far infrared is a penetrating heat. When I say like you and I have far infrared, if you were cold and say you were on naked and afraid or something crazy like that, you would cuddle up just to receive body heat, that penetrating heat, which is going to in turn keep you warm. Keep you warm even though from where you’re touching, but it also helps with raising your core temperature throughout.

Obviously, that wouldn’t be enough to cause you to sweat and also it wouldn’t raise your core temperature three degrees. When you’re inside of a sauna, first is like that low, low level. I guess the best way to explain it is if you had low levels of far infrared and a lot of convection, you wouldn’t be creating that vibration.

When you’re looking at getting a high level of far infrared, you’re looking to have a vibration to the deep cellular level, which is causing that disruption, but it also is raising the body’s core temperature. At 9.4 microns, that’s where it’s going to be most compatible with you where you’re going to receive it at a complete wavelength that’s compatible with the human body. When you’re in a far infrared, specifically some of the brands out there have tested, you can get at 95% absorption, 99% absorption and that’s where the more you get, the better of a therapy really.

The benefits of infrared sauna from more expensive brands compared to cheap ones

Ari Whitten: Okay, so on this point, I believe this is relevant to the idea of some of these cheaper brands of far infrared saunas versus some of the more expensive brands. It’s possible to get like a cheap fabric box with far infrared emitters for a couple hundred bucks, and it’s also possible to spend many thousands of dollars on a nice wooden sauna.

Now are there differences when it comes to this frequency that’s being emitted by the heaters and the bioavailability of that or the biocompatibility, are there differences between some of these cheaper saunas units than the more expensive ones when it comes to the heater quality itself?

Andrea Duffy: Absolutely.  The biggest difference is that they are measuring the ambient temperature of the cabinet and not the surface temperature. Wayne’s law says the larger the surface temperature, the more controlled the temperature, the better the wavelength is going to be, the more controlled the wavelength is going to be.

When you’re for instance in a tent and you have a space heater in there with you, you’re receiving a lot of convection and it feels very different. If you even jump from one unit to the other, you’d be able to tell okay well, even though I didn’t feel as hot in this one, I was sweating a lot more and if you took your temperature, you would say okay I raise my temperature three degrees.

How to use sweat to decide on the quality of your sauna therapy session

Then you might go into a low-level unit or tent sauna that has a space heater and you’re in there and you’re in there for 10 minutes, and you’re like I’m so much hotter than I wasn’t that other one. Oddly enough, you take your temperature, you’ve barely raised your core temperature at all, and the sweat feels different. The type of sweat is really watery in that one where if you’re getting enough to be a therapy, it’s very oily, very meniscus, it smells differently, there is a lot that goes into it.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, that’s interesting. There are a few different things in there that I think are worth piecing out. One is a person’s subjective sense of how hot it is …

Andrea Duffy: Yes, yeah

Ari Whitten: Given the type of sauna. Another one is how much you sweat in a given type of sauna, and those two things don’t necessarily correlate that well, and then core body temperature, which also doesn’t seem to correlate. Then I guess the fourth thing would be the type of sweat that’s being produced by your body. I guess to phrase this another way, it’s possible to go into a type of sauna feel really hot and feel really uncomfortable, but not necessarily sweat a lot and not necessarily produce that viscous, more oily right sweat. Is that accurate?

Andrea Duffy: That’s accurate. Where you’re in a traditional type sauna hot room, I mean it’s going to be a lot more water just to keep it simple. That heat is causing you to sweat from the surface area, which is a water-based sweat and the difference is, is you’re getting 97% water with a traditional sauna, maybe 3% of that sweat is toxins. With an infrared therapy sauna, you’re receiving 80% of it is water and 20% is toxins, and you can very much tell the difference. It smells different, it feels different. Yeah. Another one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

Ari Whitten: What is actually happening that’s causing that difference? The traditional heaters heating mainly the skin and so it’s affecting that, but how does an infrared sauna actually release more toxins from the body?

Andrea Duffy: In the way that that works is that because it is a deep penetrating heat, it’s penetrating to the deepest level, the cellular level and it’s causing a vibration to the deep cellular level which is disrupting toxins that are stored. Because you’re raising your total body’s core temperature, you’re sweating from the inside out. It takes a little bit longer to get started, but once you get started, it’s just buckets. I mean you’re sweating a ton and then it was actually Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt who did the sweat analysis study through the Klinghardt Academy.

Ari Whitten: Where he found those percentages.

Andrea Duffy: Where he found those percentages. Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Oh, interesting.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Okay. When you say it’s penetrating down deep to the cellular level, just to play a little devil’s advocate here, our skin technically has cells so you could say convection is also like affecting on the cellular level at the skin but is there a difference as how deep the penetration goes of that heat into the body from traditional versus infrared, and how deep does infrared go into the body? Are there more benefits of infrared sauna use?

Andrea Duffy: The depth of infrared is going to be different for everybody because people are different sizes and it’s invisible. There’s not really a measuring tool that’s going to tell you exactly how deep it’s going into your, body but the only way that we’re able to measure it is by measuring the wavelength to which the far infrared is being delivered, knowing that it’s compatible with the human body.

Doing the sweat analysis that shows the environmental toxins, the pollutants, the heavy metals, and those types of things, that’s what has been done. Talking about the surface of the skin, there’s a lot of studies that go along with using different wavelengths that are actually working with the surface of the skin will help with regenerating cells faster, and that’s specific to near-infrared.

Far infrared is 9.5 microns, but near-infrared is best absorbed by the human body at 880 nanometers. Really with the science when you look at it, one can’t be the other. It’s either it’s going to be delivered that wavelength and near infrared is done a different wavelength. Also, near-infrared has best absorbed at very low surface temperatures. The surface of a far infrared heater would be too hot for it to be able to create near infrared because it has to stay very, very low below 110 degrees, which at that point you wouldn’t be receiving far infrared. Yeah. It’s two different things.

The differences between the infrared wavelengths

Ari Whitten: Okay, so let’s go deeper into that, so step back for a minute and I guess do a bit more general explanation of far versus near infrared versus mid-infrared I guess you could also add for people who have never heard of these things before. Please elaborate on more benefits of infrared sauna use.

Andrea Duffy: Sure. The far infrared is the longest wavelength of infrared heat. It provides the deepest penetration and what we were talking about with all of the health benefits associated with it. In addition to raising the total body’s core temperature, you’re getting that deep penetration, which is causing your body to work very hard to cool itself, so you’re going to be burning a lot of calories while you’re in there as well as increasing your heart rate, which is really good for heart health. Somebody who I always like to talk about far infrared and I think this helps if you’re trying to use heat therapy or when you do use heat therapy. I’m sorry. You’re able to increase your endurance and like anything else because your body is getting used to being operating in a warmer level.

Somebody beginning a workout or somebody who’s been working out for a long time and they’re looking to increase your endurance, using far infrared technology, which is going to raise your core temperature, that longest wavelength is going to allow you to increase your endurance around 40%. That’s across the board for anybody and that’s over the course of five weeks. Where mid-infrared a little bit different. Far, the deepest core temperature, mid-infrared hones in on the soft tissue of the body. That’s at 6.7 microns, so it’s also delivered at microns. Even though it’s a shorter wavelength than far infrared, it’s actually the surface of that heater is a little bit warmer. You can feel mid-infrared more than you can the far infrared.

It’s like far infrared, you just feel very radiant and like natural and like very giving in it, and mid-infrared would be almost like if you were in that feeling but then you put like this heated blanket around you because it’s honing in on the soft tissue where your fat stored and also where inflammation resides. It helps with increasing your circulation more so than just using far infrared alone, even though because of that heat because of the blanket heat that you’re getting when you’re inside of the mid-infrared.

You can’t operate the far infrared and the mid-infrared on the same heater. They’re two separate heaters, so that’s something always really important to remember.

If anybody is telling you okay you’re getting three different wavelengths all off one heater, it’s not even possible because the wavelengths are completely different. The near infrared is done normally by LED array or laser. Because of the control of the surface temperature again, when you’re looking at near infrared, what it’s doing is it’s helping with boosting the cell’s ability to create energy and repair faster. It’s great for wound healing, boosting of the mitochondria. In addition to that, it’s also really good for strengthening your immune system and that can go along with the far as well because you’re falsifying that fever.

Ari Whitten: Okay. Now I would imagine there’s a subset of people listening to this who have never heard of any of these things before, far infrared, mid-infrared, near infrared, and maybe like all of this sounds very strange, like some weird technology. Is there any place in nature where humans get these types of wavelengths or frequencies naturally?

Andrea Duffy: In nature, you actually get all of these frequencies naturally. The far infrared is the invisible heat that comes off of the sun surface. It’s just the amount that you’re getting that’s different. The best way to describe it. So say it was like 50 degrees outside and it was brisk and cold and then the sun was out and you got in your car and the car was like really warm and felt very compatible in there, that’s a good that’s a good explanation of what far infrared is when it feels like what it feels like naturally coming off of the sun. Near-infrared is also on the sun spectrum. If you Google’s or Wikipedia infrared, you’d see that all of these wavelengths off of the sun spectrum, they fall between like microwave wavelengths, radio wavelengths, but they’re all different frequencies.

That’s another good explanation on how you know you can’t get one and the other at the same time because you would never be able to put a piece of food in front of your radio and cook it, even though the spectrums are very close to each other because they’re on different frequencies. This is all natural. It’s just honed in on a larger amount.

Ari Whitten: Okay, yeah. That’s the main thing I wanted people to hear was that this is not just some weird technology. This is like people are getting this stuff in nature and I just wanted like people to understand that this is actually a natural thing for the human body to be exposed to these wavelengths. I would go so far as to say a necessary thing for health, like a necessary nutrient for health that our bodies need these wavelengths to function well. The way I teach in the subject of infrared sauna is like if we look at all the research around this, we can see oh there’s unique benefits of far infrared exposure on the human body, there are unique benefits of mid-infrared, there are unique benefits of near infrared.

They have different mechanisms of action as you hinted out, and these things are meant to occur in nature. Traditional human societies living in more natural ways, spending more time outdoors get lots of these wavelengths naturally all the time, but the way that modern humans live indoor lives disconnected from the sun and the outdoors, we’re missing out on this.

Andrea Duffy: Absolutely.

Ari Whitten: We’re missing out on all of these benefits of infrared sauna use. A sauna is to me like such an amazing way of getting all of the benefits of those wavelengths in a very time efficient and powerful way.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more and I think because I’m so surrounded by the science of it and I’ve been researching and looking at it for so long and I’ve been using it for so long, I forget that fact that what I’m simulating in an hour’s worth of time is probably the same amount of heat that somebody would endure in an entire day, so you’re not really missing out on that therapy and you are still sweating the way that you would have way back when had you been working outside all day and just running around, and that’s a good way to shortcut it if you are trying to do a bunch of different therapies at the same time.

What type of wood to look for when choosing a sauna

Ari Whitten: Yeah, absolutely. One of the other things that is a common source of discussion in the sauna industry is all these competing claims around the quality of the materials used and off-gassing and the quality of the woods used and are their glues and are their EMFs emitted by the infrared heaters and so on. Let’s delve into that a little bit and I guess first we can talk about just the wood construction and off-gassing type concerns. Are there differences between brands as far as quality of woods used and particle boards and glues and all that kind of thing? What are benefits of infrared sauna.

Andrea Duffy: Absolutely. With anything if you take a shortcut, the shortcuts are coming from somewhere, whether it be the heater quality is obviously going to be a shortcut, the type of wood that’s being used is also a shortcut, and then also with the type of electrical that’s being put into it. These are things you have to be aware of when you’re looking at infrared saunas because you don’t want to be taking on more toxins, more EMFs when you’re inside of there, and then by all means, you don’t want to be sitting in just a hot box not receiving any therapy at all. When you’re looking at what option, you can look at the type of wood and really know where that sauna was produced.

The lowest wood that you can choose is hemlock and hemlock is a wood that normally comes from China. It’s a very porous wood. It doesn’t hold up very well. It’s listed on the wood toxicity chart to cause respiratory issues and things like that. Not only that, if it gets wet, it smells like urine. You’re like in this box that you’re really sweating in and then if it gets wet, it stinks. It’s a wood you definitely wouldn’t want to use. If you can avoid it, avoid it. If you’re in there …

Ari Whitten: Now are a lot of sauna brands out there using hemlock?

Andrea Duffy: I’m not a 100% sure like what the ratio is, but there is a lot that uses hemlock. That’s where you’re going to find the China manufacturer. If you go to like a Home Depot or like a department store like that, you’ll notice that the units all look the same and they’re all made out of hemlock, but they might have different brand names, chances are the manufacturer of those units are actually it is the same sauna, they’re just labeled differently.

Ari Whitten: Interesting.

Andrea Duffy: When you’re researching the unit, you want to make sure like if they’re using studies that the studies are specific to the brand you’re buying, they’re not general studies because anybody can talk in general. Okay. Generally, saunas have been proven to do this, this, and this, but it’s really important that they’ve measured the amount of far infrared that you’re getting to make sure that if they’re correlating with the study, does the sauna do it because you’re getting in the same amount or more.

That’s another thing, so it digressive off the wood. The basswood is a non-odorous, hypoallergenic option. That wood was chosen by Dr. Raymond Francis who is an MIT scientist and I believe his brand is called Beyond Health. He was the first one.

He did a lot of research on wood and he was one of the thought leaders behind making the units out of basswood because it’s non-odorous, there hasn’t been any recorded adverse reaction. If somebody really has a hypersensitivity wood, it’s a no-brainer just go with basswood.

Then the cedar option, which cedar is a natural wood, and most people are not allergic to cedar. There’s like 3% of the population is actually allergic to cedar, but more people are sensitive to the odor of cedar if anything. It’s an antifungal, antimicrobial wood. It’s been traditionally used in sauna forever because of the steam with the hot rocks.

You do not need the antimicrobial infrared because infrared kills bacteria all on its own, so the reason that you would need in a traditional sauna, it doesn’t carry over to an infrared sauna. There’s no reason to get it from cedar, especially if you have a hypersensitivity. I guess the only reason I would recommend cedar is if you’re going to put it outdoors. Other than that … Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Otherwise, you generally recommend basswood.

Andrea Duffy: I always recommend basswood.

Ari Whitten: Now I know you guys also do eucalyptus I believe. Is that …

Andrea Duffy: We do.

Ari Whitten: What are the pros and cons with that?

Andrea Duffy:  The reason we started with the eucalyptus option is because it’s a commercial grade wood and our eucalyptus units are actually a little bit different. The floor heater has been omitted. If you were a commercial owner or if you were going to put it outside your pool, you don’t have to be a commercial owner. If you’re going to put it outside of a floor, you’re going to be going from a cold bath to the sauna or a hot tub to the sauna. You wouldn’t want a floor heater in there just because of the amount of water and there’s electrical that would go along with it. Then the eucalyptus option also has a double reinforced floor, so we have an ADA compliance on us.

If you were somebody that was in a wheelchair and you were looking to get a sauna, you’d still be able to do it and you wouldn’t have the floor heater sitting so then the floor wouldn’t be compromised, but then there’s also the crazies out there that love to put their stationary bike inside of the sun or workout in there and dropping kettle balls and what have you.

Ari Whitten: Guilty as charged. I think you just called me crazy.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah. I might have. If you’re thinking about doing those types of things, then I would recommend probably omitting the floor heater as well just because … I don’t know. Do you have a floor heater in your unit?

Ari Whitten: I do, but actually in order to protect the wood on the base of the sauna when I put my stationary bike in there, I put like a yoga mat in there, which like just as a cushion so the stationary bike like the hard metal and plastic of that don’t doesn’t screw up the wood in there.

I just put some cushion in there, which covers up the part of the floor heater where my sweat would drip. I’m not pouring sweat into there all the time.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, so you could see how the eucalyptus would be a nice option for that reason.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, but in general you recommend basswood?

Andrea Duffy: Yes.

Ari Whitten: Okay. I actually have cedar, which I like.  I enjoy the smell, but I didn’t know that 3% of the population is allergic to cedar. It would seem that just running the risk of somebody being allergic to the sauna would be problematic especially … I mean it’s a big thing to get and then to realize after you get it and assemble it that like oh wow, I’m allergic to this, that’s not very nice. Basswood sounds like the safest approach.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, and that’s what I have is the basswood and especially be just one because I’ve looked at the studies, but then also you always have to think about the environment it’s in. Mines in the corner of my bedroom, so I didn’t want to have to smell cedar while I was sleeping and things like that because there is an aroma with it.

Ari Whitten: There is. I actually really enjoy the smell of it personally, but I can understand maybe not everyone does.

How Sunlighten have designed their saunas to ensure you are protected from EMF exposure

What about EMF? There’s a lot of stuff around that I’ve seen a lot of different sauna manufacturers claiming oh we have the lowest EMF and we’re the only ones EMF free and stuff like that. What’s the deal with that? What’s the truth as far as EMS and saunas?

Andrea Duffy: EMF is interesting because you will hear people say okay we’re the lowest, we’re the lowest or we have none. That’s always my favorite, none at all, something plugged into the wall, no EMF, which you know would be virtually impossible to have absolutely zero.

There are ways that you can go about reducing EMF and that’s what we’ve done specifically is we’ve wrapped all of our wirings and still conduit, and then we also wrap the wiring away from the body anywhere that you’d be sitting, so then you would be for this from the electrical points and then we also had a third party test come out that it’s no higher than 0.3 microns. There are other companies that have also created a low EMF option.

There is no such thing as the no EMF option just because if they say they have no EMF, then ask for the study and then if you read the study, you’ll see that there was a little bit of EMF or some EMFs in there.

Ari Whitten: Right. They just took a little liberty with their interpretation of it. Instead of being accurate and saying the measurement was so and so, they’re like well it was so low, that it’s no EMS.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, exactly. That is important because you want to make sure there’s a lot of wiring that goes along with making an electrical unit. Having your safety as a number one concern and being a wellness company, so that’s another way to look okay is this a wellness company, do they have studies, do they have options for my safety preventing that EMF is just another point of that.

Ari Whitten: Gotcha. You said that the measurement on sunlight and saunas for the EMFs was 0.3, is that correct?

Andrea Duffy: It’s actually 0.03.

Ari Whitten: 0.03.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

Ari Whitten: That’s in milligauss?

Andrea Duffy: Milligauss, yeah.

Ari Whitten: Okay. What our standards as far as what’s considered safe versus unsafe? Can you give an estimate of what maybe some other brands of saunas have measured at?

Andrea Duffy: Yeah. Basically, there are a couple different standards that people will follow. The US standard is going to be anything under a 100 milligauss exciting enough, which is really high, but the Swedish standard is anything under three milligauss. Yes.

Ari Whitten: Okay, so under three milligauss is considered safe …

Andrea Duffy: Is what you can …

Ari Whitten: By even the most stringent standards and yours is 0.03.

Andrea Duffy: Yes, yeah. Even if you wanted to compare it to things, so sometimes we were like okay compared to other electrical items around my house when you look at your cell phone when it’s in use, you could be anywhere from two to six milligauss of EMF.

That’s one of the reasons that you want to keep it away. Your computer would be right along the same as well. Oddly enough like a digital alarm clock is going to be around 65 milligauss of EMF, so that’s why you wouldn’t want that in your head while you’re sleeping. In addition to like your vacuum cleaner, something that’s running on a constant would be something that would be higher towards the 65 to 80 milligauss of EMF or like your hairdryer and things like that. Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Gotcha.

Andrea Duffy: To have 0.03 is very low when you’re comparing to phase.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, and I’ll just translate this. I’ll go a step further since I know you have to be very nuanced and specific. Since you’re affiliated with a company, I will go a step further and say if we’re talking in the realm of 0.03 milligauss, this is something that’s so low that basically forget about it, don’t worry, it’s non-significant.

Andrea Duffy: If you are worried about it, if you move it one inch away from the heater, at that rate, you wouldn’t be receiving any because you would be that far away. That is one of the benefits of infrared sauna use, from Sunlighten.

Ari Whitten: Right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the other thing we should mention about EMFs is that the amount of exposure you’re getting, it goes down exponentially as with each inch of distance that you get away from the source of that EMFs. If you get to three inches, four inches away, there’s basically zero detectable EMFs.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

What to watch out for when purchasing a sauna

Ari Whitten: I think we touched briefly on like glues and plastics and potentially harmful materials. The reason I want to go back to this is because, with my community, a lot of people with chronic fatigue have multiple chemical sensitivities. Is there anything in saunas more broadly that people need to watch out for as far as things they might react to in a sauna?

Andrea Duffy: Yeah. You want to make sure when you’re looking at units that if there is any glue involved, that it’s a water-based glue, it’s non-toxic. In most constructions, they are going to contain some form of glue, but there are certifications that are attached to that. There’s a role certification, which role certification means that it was a removal of harmful substances, but then there’s also air quality tests that have been done as well. That’s one of the things that we did to ease the mind for people that are ultra sensitive is we had an air quality test done inside of the sauna and then out of the sauna because of the emitters of the far infrared. Like we mentioned earlier, they kill off the bacteria inside of the sauna.

The air quality actually outside of the sauna was worse than inside of the sauna when we did those tests. One of the benefits of infrared sauna use from Sunlighten.

Ari Whitten: Wow.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Are there big differences between the amount of glues used or the type of glues used between different brands?

Andrea Duffy: Yes, there is. There are oil-based glues that can be used with different brands that those would be things that would be off-gassing. Then you also want to make sure the way the sauna is treated. You want to make sure it wasn’t treated with anything so when you’re thinking about how is the wood dried, where has it been stored, those types of things.

We kill and drain our wood for 40 days and then it’s sat outside for an additional 40 days, and then the outside of the sauna is not treated with anything at all. I’m sorry, the inside of the sauna, it’s a double paned wall. If you’re wondering like how does it operate, it’s two panes and then there’s a gap there that’s between the two panes.

Then the outer pane, it has a water-based like finish on it that is also completely non-toxic, but then the in pane, the one that’s going to be heated doesn’t have anything added to it at all. That’s where you need to really make sure that when you’re looking at the sauna, you want to make sure that it doesn’t have any type of veneer or any type of finish, the type of glue that’s something that you can ask them for, what type of material was it, can I see the ingredients on it.

Ari Whitten: Cool.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah.

Other benefits of infrared sauna use: reduction in blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol

Ari Whitten: What other benefits of infrared sauna use are there? I know we already talked about the body temperature and chronic infection stuff, but what other benefits are saunas associated with and specifically infrared saunas?

Andrea Duffy: A couple of different benefits of infrared sauna use specifically that we’ve tested on here at Sunlighten. We did a UMKC study that showed the reduction of blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. That is a really important study because it was done over six weeks and people were using the sauna three times a week for 30 minutes, but there are not many things you can do naturally that will help you with reducing your blood pressure that quickly. If you already have low blood pressure, it’s not something that you need to be worried about. I always tell people is it was like somebody being skinny and saying okay well, I don’t need to work out because I’m already skinny.

It’s good to maintain low blood pressure, so it will help with also the maintenance of it. In addition to that, there’s also been a weight loss reduction study that was done from Dr. Richard Beever, and that showed over five weeks using the sauna regularly and I won’t repeat the regular schedule but it’s going to be pretty much the regular for all the studies, which is the six weeks, 30 minutes three times a week.

That showed the reduction of the waist two inches, so it was a fat reduction study that was done and that fat reduction study was actually in conjunction with the type two diabetes study. Anybody who has diabetes in their family or they’re looking to increase their circulation and looking to heal off of that, the saunas are awesome for it. That is one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

There also has been an increased range of motion study done. That study showed the increased range of motion once you exit the sauna if you do light stretching for about 15 minutes. There were two groups. The group that added the mid-infrared to the heaters increased the range of motion 205% over the other group, and that study was done at Auburn University. It’s a really, really exciting study because people with chronic fatigue often have chronic pain. If you’re in the sauna and you’re using it and you feel like okay well, I have chronic fatigue, I have a hard time working out, okay well don’t you don’t have to work out but at least stretch because it will make you feel so much better.

You’ll sleep better. You’ll have a springing your stuff in the morning a little bit different than you did the morning before. If you’re somebody who’s never been flexible before, what a great tool to use to increase. You’ll just be like honey I’m doing the splits today, no. Yeah.

Ari Whitten: Sorry, go ahead.

Andrea Duffy: No. That’s fine. There are other studies that have been done in conjunction with like the other wavelengths as well as like the near infrared and far infrared and I can go on and on if you want me too.

Benefits of infrared sauna use on core body temperature

Ari Whitten: Yeah, let’s get right into it. Let’s talk about some of the benefits of infrared sauna uses as it relates to core body temperature. What’s the deal with core body temperature and how does that relate to say for example like infections, if somebody has a chronic infection with Epstein-Barr virus or Lyme disease or something like that? Are ther any unique benefits on infrared sauna use for a person in that scenario?

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, absolutely. When you’re looking at using saunas in general, it’s two different types of heating mortality obviously. You have the traditional hot rock sauna, which is going to offer that convectional heat, heating the air. There’s still benefit to that, being in a room with a hot environment, but you’re not going to be raising your core temperature the same way that you would in an infrared sauna. Another one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

The study that has been done shows a 3-degree increase within 30 minutes on average, so obviously it depends on the size of the person. The reason that it raises your core temperature differently than a c is that it’s a penetrating heat, which is allowing your body to absorb it, even though when you’re in there it doesn’t feel as warm.

It’s going to feel more radiant. You’re going to be breathing easy the whole time. Your eyes won’t be burning like they would be in a traditional sauna, but your core temperature is raising very quickly, and the 30 minutes is going to give you that three degrees creating that hyperthermia.

The longer you’re in there, the more you’re going to raise your core temperature, but the thing that’s really interesting about it is that even when you exit the sauna, it takes about the same amount of times for your temperature to decrease. You are really falsifying a fever. You’re allowing your body to rise above the core temperature like you would for a low-grade fever which is going to help fight bacteria, which is causes Lyme and different types of viruses.

If you’re somebody especially that has a hard time getting a fever, you’re somebody that number runs a temperature, then definitely you want to get in there. You want to create that falsified fever, which is going to allow you to really heal from the inside out.

The benefits of infrared sauna use on chronic infections

Ari Whitten: Beautiful, and have you heard from people with some of these chronic infections with Lyme disease or Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, some of these other infections, have you heard stories from users of the sauna who have talked about how it’s helped them? What are one of the benefits of infrared sauna?

Andrea Duffy: Absolutely. I’ve been with the company now with the Infrared Sauna Company for six years, and I have gone to multiple Lyme conferences with Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt. He owns the Sophia Health Institute as well as the Klinghardt Academy in Germany, and he uses the units to help with raising the total body’s core temperature.

He says time and time again if there’s one thing you can do for this disease, it’s to raise your total body’s core temperature and I even have heard of people with MRSA that have been able to use it for those types of things that you just can’t stir it any other way than really falsifying that fever because there’s really no known cure to it. In addition, the Epstein-Barr virus would go right along with that.

The more you use it, so that’s something that I always like to tell people, it is a therapy. It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not one and done. It’s something that you have to slowly bring yourself into, start slow if you’re sick, and then work your way up that up to it. As you create that environment and your body starts getting used to the heat, you’re going to be able to stay in there even longer and longer, and you’re just going to feel better and better as you get out. That is one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

Ari Whitten: Beautiful. Let’s let’s jump back a bit. We jumped right into some specifics there but …

Andrea Duffy: Sure.

How regular sauna use is linked to lower risk of dying

Ari Whitten: Yeah. So, one of my favorite benefits of infrared sauna. Well if there’s any other notable study or a piece of research on a particular thing that’s worth mentioning, by all means. One thing I’ll jump in here and interject is there’s some research that has come out of. It’s associative research, what they call epidemiological or observational research, but they looked at basically a correlation between sauna use and two things, cardiovascular events so heart attacks, stroke things like that, and all-cause mortality, which is dying from any cause. I show these graphs from the research on this study in my program the Energy Blueprint and what you see in these charts is absolutely incredible.

You see this huge drop-off in cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular events, and all-cause mortality, risk of dying from any cause. In this research, I think they followed people for eight or 10 or 12 years or something like that, and they found that it dropped off directly in proportion to how often people used a sauna and how long they stayed in the sauna. They showed very strong direct correlation between both of those, so basically the more frequently someone used it and the longer they stayed in, the less likely they would have any chance of cardiovascular event or risk from dying from any cause.

I showed these charts and I always say because I like to point this out for people that if there was a drug, if there was a prescription drug that showed data like this, that showed this huge reduction in risk of dying from any cause in direct proportion to how much of this drug you take, if there was a prescription drug that came even close to this, did even half of what a sauna could do in this regard, it would be a huge just massive blockbuster, like the best-selling drug of all time and would be a drug that’s generating billions of dollars in revenue and would be hailed as a miracle drug by the world over. Everybody would be like this is incredible, we’ve discovered this amazing miracle pill, everybody should be on this thing.

The crazy thing is that we actually have that, it’s just not in a pill, it’s not a drug from a drug company, it’s a sauna.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, and I couldn’t agree, and I think I know what study you’re talking about. Every time I see it, I always think like of course, it does up for your heart and your life it’s because you’re reducing so much inflammation and it’s hard to explain how the little pain and the little inflammation that you just get used day to day because I travel quite a bit. When I’m away from my sauna, I just start to tighten up and those little injuries that you’ve had if you’ve taken your body to the extreme, they start to creep in a little bit. Where even somebody with fatigue, you just have a lot of inflammation, which is so wearing on the heart.

Your body and your heart are working on it non-stop, and getting in the sauna something that’s really giving your body a break.

It’s giving your body a chance to just not only relax physically and doing it even naturally by increasing circulation and sweating and detoxifying, but then you’re also relaxing mentally as well, unless you’re biking like you, but no.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, for sure. Well, sometimes I’m in there just meditating.

Andrea Duffy: Good, good.

Ari Whitten: Oftentimes I’ll do a hard workout on the bike, steady state cardio or high-intensity interval training, and then afterward I’ll sit, meditate, stay in the sauna.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, that’s the best place to do it because it’s so easy to do because you’re just encapsulating, enclosed and natural and just breathing easy, and so it’s awesome to do breathing exercises when you’re in there because your breaths are just very different. I feel like you’re breathing in that infrared, those wavelengths, those healing wavelengths when you’re in there.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, and by the way for people listening, there’s a big difference between doing breath work especially like breath work through the nose in an infrared sauna versus a traditional sauna.

Oftentimes the traditional sauna, like, singes your nose and you get that really like uncomfortable feeling in your nasal passageways. In an infrared sauna, you don’t get any of that. You don’t get that like …

Andrea Duffy: Burning.

Ari Whitten: Painful burning sensation in the nose, which is nice for doing work.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, absolutely.

What research shows about sauna use and detoxification

Ari Whitten: Yeah. One other thing I’d like you to touch on is detoxification, and I know we went briefly into this before, but is there any research around, or actually I know there’s research. I’ll just say can you talk about some of the research related to like sauna use and detoxification? What are the benefits on infrared sauna?

Andrea Duffy: One of the research studies that I wrenched a little bit earlier was the 80/20 study where it showed the water and the toxins. The other studies that I have been done are blood results studies for a reduction in heavy metals and it’s heavy metals. Normally the studies are done on mercury, aluminum, and what’s the other one?

Ari Whitten: Lead.

Andrea Duffy: Lead. Sorry, yeah. I’ve had a brain freeze on that. They’re normally done over six months and the reduction is a little bit different depending on people’s sizes, but it’s normally around half. If you’re looking at how significant that is and how quickly somebody who has a lot of heavy metals in their body if you’re looking to get rid of it, so that’s also a very important part.

If you have a lot of heavy metals and you definitely want to start slow because you’re reducing a lot very quickly, so that’s something to really remember if you get out and you feel more fatigued than you did when you went in and back off a little bit, reduce the temperature a little bit, reduce the amount of time that you were in there by 15 minutes, and then just start slow.

Even if you try to step it up and you have that result again like, you relapse where you don’t feel good when you get out, then you almost want to start all the way back over and detox a little bit slower because it will come. You will feel better but you don’t want to feel terrible while you’re doing it. One of the benefits of infrared sauna.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and a couple things I’ll add to that one is there’s actually some research that has indicated that certain toxins are really only excreted via sweat and not some of the other detoxification pathways of the body or they’re much less efficiently gotten rid of through other detoxification pathways.

Sweating seems to be really necessary to help eliminate at least certain toxins based on the research, and I’ve seen some research specifically around BPA indicating that. That is just we get rid of it much more efficiently by sweating more than anything else, so that’s interesting.

Then one other thing related to that is I just want to add that just to mention that sweating is one of the major detoxification pathways in the body and in the modern world kind of like we talked about earlier, we’re no longer living in outdoor lifestyle.

Well, one of the other things that are happening in the way that we modern humans live is most people don’t sweat anymore. I mean literally like go weeks or months without sweating like at all, and I just want to ram home the point that sweating is one of the major detoxification pathways in the body.

If you don’t sweat regularly, it’s a guarantee that you’re accumulating toxins over time, and the best way to detox, we often think of detox is like oh I went on this 10-day detox, I did this substance, this supplement that’s supposed to be good for detoxing. The best way to detox is to keep your body free of toxins by detoxing, doing various detoxification practices on a daily basis or near daily basis.

You’re stimulating detoxification pathways pretty much all the time, rather than like not doing anything and then all of a sudden oh I went on a 10-day detox. No, do it all the time and like sweating in particular is so important to keep the body free of toxins.

Just to extend that what you’re talking about with the heavy metals in that 6-month study, well imagine if they kept going and if they just had sauna use as part of their daily practice or they did it whatever three or five times a week or something like that, they’re doing it all the time, eventually you’re going to get to a point where your body’s almost free of these toxins. Then if you keep using it, you’re going to stay free of the toxins.

Andrea Duffy:  Absolutely, yeah. Well, I hear all the time I guess I should say because I’m the one hearing about it, about people who for instances smoke cigarettes like years and years ago and they had given it up. I haven’t smoked a cigarette in five years and interestingly enough I was sitting in the sauna, and I swear I could smell almost like that cigarette smoke coming off of anyone sir in there once I start get working up a good sweat. I hear it all the time where people will notice these little toxins that they know that they’ve taken a long time ago coming out that way, or even when we were talking about doing breathing exercises and things, I’ve had one woman, for instance, she had inhaled bleach when she was going to open up like a canister of chlorine for the pool.

She had like this pulling cotton feeling at the bottom of her lungs because she had scar tissue from inhaling that. She was doing breathing exercises within the sauna and it was a year before. She’s like, ”I swear I had this breath and I just smelled chlorine, like that was stuck way down.” She’s like I just put these exercises and things like that, and she’s like in that pulling cotton feeling when I would take it ultimately the deepest depth breath possible started to go away and I started to heal that way.

Ari Whitten: Wow, that’s cool.

Andrea Duffy: Toxins get stuck, you got to get them out. Yeah.

How long and frequent your sessions should be to ensure you get benefits of infrared sauna use

Ari Whitten: Very cool. As far as recommendations on frequency and duration of sauna use, do you have any recommendations for how long and how frequently people should be using them?

Andrea Duffy: . Well, I’m a crazy sauna user, so you can do whatever you want, but I recommend minimum three times a week, minimum if you’re going to do it. The maximum beep would be once a day and I typically will sauna anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour just because I want to keep my total body’s core temperature raised. I know that it’s going to raise the three to four degrees, and then if I’m in there for an hour, then it will continue to stay raise for another two hours. If you’re going to be doing stretching and you want to continue to sweat and really just fight off that bacteria, that’s for me the best way to do it.

That’s a little bit more excessive than typically people will do, but I know for based on all of our studies to see results, you have to do it three times a week 30 minutes to get the benefits of infrared saua use, but it’s safe to do all the time. I guess that’s the point I like to make that once you’re used to it, it’s safe to do it more often than that and stay in there longer.

The different models of Sunlighten saunas

Ari Whitten: Okay, cool. What about your models as at Sunlighten? What models of saunas do you sell? Just I’ll interject real quick that I personally have a Sunlighten sauna and the reason that I have one is for no other reason than the fact that I spent many, many months researching the quality of different saunas and the quality of the emitters and the EMFs and all these other issues that we talked about just now and talking to a lot of other health experts in the field as far as what their experience with different sauna brands was and what they felt were the highest quality brands, and over and over and over again everything was pointing to Sunlighten.

I ended up personally purchasing one, and I will also mention that my choice of sauna had to do partly with the fact that I’ve put a spin bike inside of mine, so I had to get a type of sauna that actually allowed for that and had removable benches. I ended up getting a far infrared sauna signature for 4-person sauna from you guys. I believe Sunlighten is the highest quality brand out there. That’s why I bought one but I would love if you could just talk about some of the different options that you guys have for people.

Andrea Duffy: One of the benefits of infrared sauna. Yeah, absolutely. We really have an option for everyone. Basically, our whole vision is no one left behind. We want to make sure that we can make something for everyone. Whether you’re a Sunlighten customer or not, we want to still would invite you to come to our website, look at our information that we have for detoxification, look at our sauna protocol, but we really wanted to create a unit that would fit anybody in any lifestyle. The first unit that I’ll tell you about is we have a portable solo unit, which is the best way to describe it is it’s a wooden cabin even though it’s portable. It looks almost like a sleeping bag but it’s a dome that telescopes up over the body.

You can slide it up to your neck and then it has four additional far infrared heaters that line the pad, and then it also comes with light therapy as well for helping for meditation purposes. The light therapy and the solo are different than near infrared. I’ll mention that right away because a lot of times when people see it, they get the two confused. It’s a far infrared unit and you can just lie it on the floor, plug it into any outlet. If you live in an apartment or wherever, you’re able to take it with you. You’re still getting that total body core temperature, you’re getting that detoxifying sweat. It comes with a basically like a fitted mattress sheet this made of a carbonized bamboo material.

That carbonized bamboo material is antifungal, antimicrobial, and naturally deodorizing, and then bamboo is what makes it really durable and captures all that sweat because that’s a common question. People are like oh am I laying my sweat. No, it’s really absorbing and then you can hand wash it or throw it in your laundry like you normally do.

You want to just use something that’s completely toxic-free when you’re using it because you don’t want to be in that heated environment with the solo pad. Then we have the wooden cabin. We have a far infrared signature line that ranges from one seater all the way up to four-seater like what you have. All of our units come in the basswood option.

The solo I should mention the individual light importable of the unit does not have any glue at all, not even water-based glue. If somebody is like okay well, I want one that doesn’t even have water based though you still have an option to have one that omits that as well.

Ari Whitten: Nice.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, and then the wooden cabins range from ones here all the way up to four, and the fourth seater is very large, you’re able to workout in there. You get all of our benches are removable, so you can utilize the pore space if you want to. It’s little removable but it’s a little bit of a job to remove them, so it’s not something you’re going to do every day. You’ll probably get your sauna functioning the way that you want it and leave it that way, but you can always put the benches back. Then we have our three in one system, which is our impulse sauna line. The impulse on a line has near infrared, mid infrared, and far infrared, and then the units range from one seater all the way up to a six-seater.

The only thing that makes an each sauna line is the heating technology, all of the features, the functions, all of that is exactly the same. The signature sauna lines are far infrared line, the impulse on the lines are three in one system. With the three in one subsystem, you’re able to turn on or off any of the wavelengths and you can operate them all at the same time because they’re on different heating panels. You’re able to get near mid and far all at one time if you want to.

Ari Whitten: Nice.

Andrea Duffy: You’re also able to go in there and you can increase or decrease the wavelength to cause your body to react differently. That’s something that’s really cool, a lot of people like that. What I mean by that. Say if you wanted to do a cardio workout inside of your sauna but sitting, so you are somebody who hasn’t done a cardio workout in a while and you want to simulate a cardio workout heart rate while you’re sitting. You can go in there, you can do a cardio program, which will heat and cool the sauna, allow your heart rates to increase and decrease during the 45-minute session. That way you’re able to burn more calories, so in that program, you’re going to burn and upwards towards 600 calories all while sitting.

Ari Whitten: Wow.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, so it’s pretty, pretty intense and then there’s a pain relief program that offers a very strong bandwidth of the mid-infrared, which is going to help with decreasing inflammation more so. The reason that you want to do that is just because the studies are based on 56 different clinical studies. By manipulating those heaters, you’re causing a different reaction within the body. To have all them on all the time, there’s a benefit to it but there’s also benefit in manipulating, working, tweaking so you’re not plateauing within your health goals if you will.

Ari Whitten: Yeah, and I’ll just interject that I personally am a huge, huge advocate of red and near-infrared light therapies, and one of the downsides of that is that I often hear from people is like oh well, you’re talking about a sauna and you’re talking about near-infrared light therapy, I mean these devices are expensive. And by the way, they’re not only expensive but time-consuming, but one of the cool things about what you’re talking about is you guys have actually incorporated near infrared and far infrared and actually mid-infrared into the same unit, so you can get all of these things at the same time during the same session. It’s a hugely time efficient and it’s just a beautiful piece of technology that you guys have incorporated into that.

I think there’s also you mentioned a little bit about the program settings, but these are programmed settings done by clinicians for specific purposes. Is that right?

Andrea Duffy: That’s right. There are six programs that are done in there … Well actually seven because seven would be the custom where you’re going to able to manipulate the heaters into your own programs, but the other programs are anti-aging, cardio, relaxation, pain relief, detoxification, and I feel like I’m forgetting one. Oh well. Well, you’ll see it on our website if you go. And that is one of the benefits of infrared sauna.

Ari Whitten: I mean that’s enough, anti-aging, detoxification, pain relief.

Andrea Duffy: Yes.

Ari Whitten: I forget the other one. I think I only got three there. I think you got five out of six. I got three out of six.

Andrea Duffy: Well and one of the other things I do like to always mention is that to have three wavelengths inside of our sauna, we have a US patent on it. We were being the first unit that had mid-infrared and far infrared in the sauna. We were able to obtain a patent on it through the engineering firm that we hired to help us with designing our wavelengths, and then also we hired a different engineer firm to do the testing on the absorption of the wavelengths. Because we were able to prove there’s actually three different heaters, three different emitters, three different wavelengths, three different frequencies, we were able to obtain a US patent on that.

If you hear anybody say that in the US that they have a full spectrum or they offer the wavelengths, then I would definitely ask them for the studies because we have a patent on it.

Ari Whitten: Cool. Good to know.

Andrea Duffy: Mm-hmm.

Andrea’s preferred sauna

Ari Whitten: Do you have any preferences as far as like specific recommendations of which sauna that you think would be the best option?

Andrea Duffy: I do because I’ve been here for six years, I’ve purchased two saunas since I’ve been here. Based on my own personal experience, I bought a one person when I started way back when and started my whole detoxification process. I was like okay I’m going to get one right away. I purchased the one person. It’s small, it’s smaller. If you feel as if you need the bench space to put your feet up, if you feel like you are going to need that for relaxation, don’t be like me, only by one sauna. Go a little bit bigger because nobody’s ever complained that they’ve had too much room inside of their sauna, but at that time like a lot of people I was renting.

The one person was the only option I could do because I didn’t want to have to upgrade my electrical. When you go bigger, you have to update upgrade your electrical to be a dedicated higher power, so that’s something to always think about as well. If you’re somebody who’s a nomad and like just to move around, then maybe the one person is the best option for you. If you’re thinking it’s going to be a forever unit, then going with something that’s a little bit bigger allows you to do encompass more things while you’re in there, so think about that. I like to do not only the stretches, but I do different types of like … I won’t even get into it, fat burning things so things like that.

Ari Whitten: Yeah. I mean not only did I want to put a spin bike in mind, so that was a space consideration for me, but I also really wanted one that I can lay down in.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, absolutely.

Ari Whitten:  Not have to be in a seated position, so that was a huge factor for me as well and getting a bigger one.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, exactly. You don’t have to have a bigger one, but it’s always just something like I always tell people like put yourself in there, close your eyes, imagine what you’re feeling like when you’re inside of the sauna, what’s going to make you happy because ultimately the more comfortable you are, the more often you’re going to use it and you know yourself that way. Yeah.

Why the Sunlighten Solo is the #1 Most Popular Infrared Sauna

Ari Whitten: Yeah. I’ve also heard great things about the solo unit. I’ve had a lot of members of my program who bought the solo unit and I’ve actually heard tons of people raving about that. I know that’s the cheapest option and the most portable and space-efficient option.

Andrea Duffy: Number one seller is the solo.

Ari Whitten: Nice.

Andrea Duffy:  Yeah. People purchased that one all the time. Well, people love the solo for a couple different reasons really. The proximity of the heaters to your body is zero to none. You’re in there when you think about just being in a sleeping bag basically with heaters as to what it would be like. You’re on top of those heaters. They’re so close to your body, you’re able to heat up quickly. There’s no warmup time for the solo. Also, you’re horizontal, which is going to help with facilitating even better circulation, so you sweat like mad in there really because …

Ari Whitten: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking is because I was talking about moving towards some of the bigger saunas as laying down as one consideration, meaning that space and yet actually the cheapest option, the solo, you’re in a laying down position. That must be one of the greater benefits of infrared sauna use.

Andrea Duffy: Yes.

Ari Whitten:  That’s cool that in order to get in that position in a sauna, you don’t necessarily need to go all out and spend the most … The cheapest option allows it to.

Andrea Duffy: Yeah, and it’s the most comfortable option because you’re laying there and you can put a sleep mask on and listen to whole tones music or do whatever and just really, really embrace the whole heating experience that way.

Andrea’s gift to you

Ari Whitten: Beautiful. One of the other things that we talked about is a discount for my audience. Can you talk just a bit about what you guys are able to offer for our listeners to this who are interested in getting a sauna from you guys?

Andrea Duffy:  Yeah, absolutely. We were able to work a very significant discount because one of the things that we’re allowing you to do is use it in conjunction if we are running a promotion or a sale. You can use the Energy Blueprint or you wouldn’t discount. Either way, they should be able to put that code in for you. It’s $100 off any signature or solo units. Even the portable cheaper option, you can still take the $100 off, and then $150 off of any of the impulse 2 unit.

Ari Whitten: Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing that. I really appreciate it, and I know I’m sure my listeners too as well. Also, one final thing is if people are interested in and getting a hold of you or your team and asking some questions and figuring out which is the best option for them, I know we covered a lot here and hopefully this was pretty comprehensive. If somebody wants to reach out and ask some questions, how can people connect with you guys so they can reap the benefts of infrared sauna?

Andrea Duffy: You can connect with us two different ways. One, you can go to our website and there is a link that allows you to fill out your information and then somebody will reach back out to you, and you’ll receive pricing that way. Then the other way is just a call in. Our website is Sunlighten.com. It’s S-U-N-L-I-G-H-T-E-N.com and then our phone number +1-877-292-0020 and again it’s +1-877-292-0020. You just put option five and you’ll get anybody on the floor.

Ari Whitten:  Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, Andrea. On a final note, I just want to re-emphasize for everyone listening that these wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation talking about far infrared, mid-infrared, near infrared, as I mentioned earlier, these are necessary nutrients for the body to function well. If you’re not living in outdoor life, you’re spending a lot of time outdoors, getting a lot of sun on your body, I really can’t emphasize more strongly that this stuff is it’s not just like optional, like a nice bonus.

This is a necessary nutrient for your body to function well and there’s a huge body of evidence showing that it has effects on weight loss, it has huge effects on detoxification, has effects on anti-aging, has effects on pain relief, and increasing energy levels and helping people to decrease fatigue, and as I mentioned earlier has huge effects on decreasing risk of heart disease and even all-cause mortality or your risk of dying from any cause. Just want to re-emphasize for people that this is really truly a powerful medicine. I strongly encourage you guys to reach out to Sunlighten and find which option is the best for you and really start using this technology because just the benefits of infrared sauna use are massive. Andrea, thank you so much again. It’s really been a pleasure to have you on.

Andrea Duffy: Thanks, Ari so much. If anybody sees me chiming in on the Blueprint page, my name is Andrea Duffy, so I’ll do that when I can.

Ari Whitten: Awesome, yeah. I always appreciate you commenting there, so thanks again so much.

Andrea Duffy: Thank you. Bye.

Ari Whitten: All right, bye.

How to Get a Discount on Your Sunlighten Sauna By Following The Energy Blueprint Podcast

When setting up this podcast, I specifically asked Andrea if Sunlighten would be willing to offer a special discount to all my listeners. Since I know many of you will be excited to start using sauna therapy, I wanted to make sure you’re able to get started at the cheapest price possible for the best sauna possible. I’m very happy to say that they agreed to my request with generous discounts:

You can get $100 off any of their Signature series saunas, or $200 off their high tech mPulse series saunas.

Just use this Energy Blueprint link to order and they’ll get you set up with your discount.

Or if you’d like to call them to discuss which sauna is best for you, you can reach them at (877)292-0020 and then once you find the one right for you, simply let them know that you’d like The Energy Blueprint discount.

Note: They even offer the $100 discount on the Solo system, which is their lowest price and most popular option.

The Benefits Of Infrared Sauna Use And How To Find The Best Sauna For Your Health – Show Notes

What the differences between convection and infrared saunas are (1:27)
The far infrared frequency explained and how it affects your body (4:35)
The benefits of infrared saunas from more expensive brands compared to cheap ones (6:29)
How to use sweat to decide on what the quality of your sauna therapy session is (7:55)
The differences between the infrared wavelengths (12:54)
What type of wood to look for when choosing a sauna (20:00)
How Sunlighten have designed their saunas to ensure you are protected from EMF exposure (27:31)
What to watch out for when purchasing a sauna (32:06)
Benefits of infrared sauna use on core body temperature (33:33)
The benefits of infrared sauna use on chronic infections (35:48)
Other benefits of infrared sauna use: reduction in blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol. (39:02)
How regular sauna use is linked to lower risk of dying (42:04)
What research shows about sauna use and detoxification (46:46)
How long and frequent your sessions should be to ensure you get benefits of infrared sauna use (52:36)
The different models of Sunlighten saunas (53:51)
Why the Sunlighten Solo is the #1 (1:05:05)
Andrea’s gift to you (1:06:33)
How to Get a Discount on Your Sauna Because Of Following The Energy Blueprint

 

 

Links

If you want to read more about the science on benefits of infrared sauna use go check out the Sunlighten website.

If you have questions on which infrared sauna is the best choice for your unique needs, you can reach Sunlighten at (877)292-0020 (choose option 5) and speak to a representative. Make sure to tell them that you found them via this podcast and ask for The Energy Blueprint discount. (You get $100 off any of the Signature series saunas — including the Solo system — or $200 off any of their mPulse series saunas).

To check out their line of saunas, go to their website.

The Right Way To Breathe For Increased Performance And Energy With Patrick Mckeown Cover Image, The Benefits Of Infrared Sauna Use And How To Find The Best Sauna For Your Health, www.theenergyblueprint.com
In the podcast, Ari mentions that he does meditation and that you could do breathing exercises while you are in the sauna. Learn more about the importance of breathing exercises and what the right way to breathe for improved performance and energy is.
The Real Effects Of Electromagnetic Radiation on The Human Body Cover Image │ The Benefits Of Infrared Sauna Use ANd ow to find the right sauna for your health, theenergyblueprint.com
EMFs are a concern for many. At Sunlighten, they take this very seriously and have reduced their EMF radiation to close to nothing as one of the benefits of infrared sauna. If you want to learn more about what electromagnetic radiation does to your body, check out this podcast with Nick Pineault 

 

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