Ice baths and Saunas

People who work out and/or train consistently have more than likely used an ice bath and a sauna before. Both ice baths and saunas can provide our bodies with many notable benefits. If you can afford to, you can even purchase a sauna and ice bath to add to your personal home gym. In this blog post, we will show you some of the sauna and ice bath benefits.

The increase in blood flow

When you are in an infrared sauna, the infrared radiation heats up your tissue. The result of this is your blood vessels dilating to try and cool down your body. Blood flow then increases to the skin and muscle tissue thanks to the dilated vessels. This ensures that pain from muscle soreness will be reduced and your recovery time will be quicker after a fierce workout.

When you get into an ice bath, the opposite actually occurs. Your blood vessels in the extremities start to constrict due to the cold temperature of the water. But once you get out of the cold water, the blood vessels start to dilate to give the cold tissue some nutritious and warm blood. After an ice bath, you will experience an increase in blood flow that also helps with muscle pain and aids in healing.

Immune function improves

When you are in a sauna, your body’s natural core temperature increases. This makes your body feel like you have a slight fever. Because of this, your immune system will release white blood cells, lymphocytes, and other parts of your body’s antiviral system.

In an ice bath, your body increases plasma concentrations of an antioxidant that plays a major role in the useful function of t-cell lymphocytes. This antioxidant is called glutathione and it activates natural killer cells.

So using both sauna and ice baths will help your immune system and make you a lot more invulnerable to viral infections.

Helps relieve stress and elevates your mood

Being in a sauna is very relaxing, and many people can attest to this. This is because saunas cause the release of endorphins in our bodies, one of those endorphins include beta-endorphin which is a substance that enhances your mood, energy, and tolerance to pain. 

Jumping into an ice bath is anything but relaxing like a sauna, it quite literally triggers our fight or flight response. But, when your body gets used to the cold you will learn to slow down your breathing which aids in down-regulating your sympathetic nervous system.