sauna advice often gets flattened into one sentence: hotter is better. The better version is more precise. Heat is a cardiovascular stressor, and like any stressor, the dose decides whether it builds resilience or taxes recovery.
Full transcript grouped into roughly ninety-second sections. Timestamps open the source video at the corresponding moment.
Rhonda, a little bit of a pivot. What is your current stance on sauna? Has Has anything changed there? My current stance on sauna, boy, that's a very general question. So, um I get a question a lot, infrared sauna versus hot sauna, like what's better? And my stance is still that a regular hot sauna is the best for cardiovascular benefits. So, we're you know, we're talking about improvement improving your blood pressure, improving your cardiovascular disease risk. Like all the studies that have been done with like hot saunas.
And in fact, if you do a head-to - head comparison, same amount of time spent in an infrared sauna, which only gets up to about 145 ° versus a hot sauna, you're getting like 175 ° Fahrenheit, um you don't get the same cardiovascular benefits. Head like if you're saying the same duration. You have to stay in much, much longer to get some cardiovascular benefits from infrared. I'm talking double at least. I would say um anything that's that my mind changed would be going really, really hot. Okay. And and that is something I may have told you already, but I think that uh the literature now on So, cardiovascular benefits are great with sauna use, also brain benefits as well.
So, cardiovascular system is very intimately linked to the brain. Obviously, like blood pressure, you know, hypertension is a big, big risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, for dementia. And so, you want to keep your cardiovascular system healthy. You want the blood flowing. You want the oxygen
getting to your brain. You want all the nutrients getting to your brain, right? Um but also, heat shock proteins are activated when you're under heat stress. So, sauna use is one of the major ways you can actually activate heat shock proteins as does exercise, anything that's elevating your core body temperature. Um however, you don't want the temperature to be so hot. One thing that you can do in the morning that can absolutely make a difference is have salt in the morning. I want to give you a quick takeaway before we even get into the science.
Okay, salt can help get your energy up. It can help that whole process of manufacturing energy take a little bit of stress off the adrenals first thing in the morning. And one of the things that I do is I have electrolytes first thing in the morning. So, I popped the link down below for my preferred electrolytes. It also gets you a free sample variety pack with any purchase when you use that link down below. It's called Element, drink l m n t. com / thomas. They have packets, but they also have cans. And their cans come in two forms, a 1, 000 mg sodium form or 500 mg sodium form.
I'm a fan of the 500. I like just getting a little bit of sodium, getting awake before I have my coffee. Because there's a lot of times when I have a little bit of electrolytes where I realize, oh, I didn't even need coffee this morning. So, that link down below gets you that free sample variety pack with any purchase. So, check them out down below. So that there have been studies showing that, for example, people that use the sauna four to seven times per week, this is a 175 ° Fahrenheit sauna for about 20 minutes, have about a 66% lower risk of dementia
and Alzheimer's disease compared to people that use the sauna one time a week. There's a second study that was published, independent group. This is also out of Finland, showing again, you do get a protective effect if you're using the sauna routinely, dementia risk goes down, Alzheimer's disease risk goes down. But what's interesting about this study is that the researchers stratified that data according to sauna temperature. And what they found is that individuals that were below 200 ° Fahrenheit had those benefits of protective effects against dementia. If they started to go above 200 ° Fahrenheit, you know, the 212 ° Fahrenheit, you know, these people that are going hard on the Go hard or go home, right?
Those individuals actually increased their dementia and Alzheimer's disease risk. And I think this is I wouldn't say it's kind of a change for me. I I never was really going that hot, but at least now I know I'm aware of that literature where I don't think you should be going into a 200 200 ° Fahrenheit sauna, to certainly not 212, 215 ° Fahrenheit sauna. Your brain is in that sauna. Your brain, your head is getting cooked in there, too. And we don't really know what the mechanism mechanism is. And like I said, this is only just one study.
But I think it's enough. You don't have to go that hot. Like there's no literature out there showing that you get more benefits by going that hot. In fact, there's only something showing that you don't get benefits. And in fact, might get negative effects by going that hot. So, I think that's the biggest thing that um
has has changed for me is is telling people that they shouldn't be going to 200 ° Fahrenheit if they're getting in a hot sauna. Um yeah, that would be the the thing for me. The other thing is also, I think that it's really it can extend the endurance part of your workout. So, going in the sauna after an endurance exercise, after an endurance workout will improve your VO2 max more than just doing doing a an aerobic type of workout. And that's been shown in a, you know, head-to - head study. Dr.
Jari Laukkanen showed that if you took individuals, put them on a stationary bike, worked them, you know, for 30 minutes, and then half of the group went into the sauna for about 15 minutes after that, and the other half didn't, the the group that did the exercise plus the sauna had greater improvements in VO2 max than the people that only did the exercise. Um I think that's really cool. People are always wondering when to sauna. So, it's great to do it after an endurance workout, but it's also great to do after resistance training.
And that's an also a new study that came out showing that people that did resistance training, again, if you took the two groups and you did resistance training only, and then the second group did the same resistance training workout, only they went into the sauna afterwards, and those individuals had greater um mark biomarkers of anabolic signaling. So, like different markers of of basically muscle hypertrophy were found in the group that did the sauna on top of the resistance training. And this goes back to like, you know, there's studies showing locally if you take someone who's injured, if they have
um you know, if they're unable to use like their leg or their arm, and you heat you do local heat, they're about 40% less likely to use They lose 40% less muscle than if they do nothing. Heat is through heat shock proteins, it is preventing, you know, the degradation of protein. So, like kind of shifting that balance, protein synthesis to degradation. Yeah. So, if you're in a situation where like you maybe can't get the resistance training in or something like that, like there is an argument to be had that like sauna can at least prevent some catabolism or atrophy.
Absolutely. Disuse atrophy, I I would say there's there's evidence that, I mean, if you cannot if you're injured um and can't get in the sauna, I sorry, and you can't exercise, then getting in the sauna will help prevent that disuse atrophy along with omega-3 fatty acid use. That's another study that was done by Chris McGlory. Um this was in women, but it you know, women that were doing high-dose omega-3. So, they were doing about 5 g a day. After 4 weeks, you have to like build it up in your muscle first.
So, it has to like accumulate in your muscle. It prevented disuse atrophy by like 50%. Damn. Pretty big. Huge Huge implications for, you know, surgery, for older adults. I mean, people that are convalescing cuz they have the flu or whatever, you know, where they're just out You're just out, right? Omega-3s and sauna, big, I think, winners for preventing disuse atrophy. From a detoxification perspective,
is there merit to sauna to actually detox? Like can we clear things? Because one of the things I want to talk to you about was uh not just microplastics, but plastics in general. And this is a good segue into that. We don't have to talk plastics specifically in this question, but I am curious because people kind of say, well, no, you can't actually detox through sweat. Can you? And does a sauna work for that? So, that That's an interesting question. We have a variety of different ways that our body can get rid of toxic compounds, this so-called detoxification.
Urine being a big one. So, we we get we excrete things through our urine, but also through sweat. And then through our feces as well, things come out through feces. And so, um you know, those are like some of the the major players here with with respect to getting rid of toxic compounds. Sweat, urine, feces, different types of toxic compounds have are excreted through different pathways. So, for example, if we're talking about bisphenol A, this is a plastic-associated chemical. It's an endocrine disruptor. It is associated with all kinds of problems from cancer to fatty accumulation to autism spectrum disorder if we're talking about, you know, being exposed in utero during pregnancy.
That the major route of excretion for that is actually urine. Urine would be the major route. But if we're talking about aluminum, for example, aluminum is excreted
through sweat, mostly. It's also excreted through urine. And BPA is somewhat can be excreted through sweat somewhat as well. But the major way is through, you know, either So, if we're talking about aluminum, it would be sweat, or BPA would be urine. So, if you're in the sauna and you're sweating, then you're going to excrete obviously, you're going to be losing electrolytes like sodium. That's the big thing that you actually do um excrete through the sauna. But if we're talking about toxic chemicals, you're going to be excreting ones that are preferentially excreted through sweat.
So, I think another one is cadmium as well, aluminum. And then you do lose some things like BPA and some of these plastic chemicals do come out somewhat of sweat, but it's not the major way that you're going to get rid of them. It's just you're going to get get a little extra. You'll squeeze a little bit more of that water out of the cloth, right? Got it. So yeah, you will be excreting, but you do have to sweat. You do have to sweat when you're in the sauna.
You can't just get in there and not sweat, right? Yeah. And I guess that that dovetails into the question about about sauna in a fasted state, because that was going to be my next question is I would imagine if you're in a fasted state it might help with fat mobilization, you know, with a little bit of of lipolysis or possibly that turnover, which would sort of dovetail with do we store fat or toxins in our fat? And is that liberation potentially helping the same way that maybe cardiovascular exercise helps?
Yeah. I do think I mean, we do store some toxins in our fat, right? And and so liberating them is a mode of
getting rid of them. Um there's not a whole lot of evidence. I mentioned one study with the sauna helping increase or decrease fat, which would presumably means that you're undergoing lipolysis and getting getting rid of fat, right? Um I would say my major way of thinking about the you know, detoxing with either in a fasted state with exercise or in a fasted state with the sauna is is more about the autophagy and the clearing away of damaged stuff within our cells. And I think that that there is an argument there that if you're combining the fasted state with the exercise, there's not really a lot of evidence with the sauna, but if you were to connect the dots and go, well, sauna is a type of moderate intensity exercise then then you might presume that you would be probably increasing some of that, you know, activating that system a little bit more robustly.
And you would be. You're elevating AMPK for sure. Yeah. So, the literature out there has shown that like if you do, you know, aerobic exercise in a fasted state, you do increase lipolysis more than if you're just doing it exercise aerobic exercise in a fed state. So, you are going to burn more fat, right? I mean, if you're if that's your goal, you know, that's going to happen more if you're in a fasted state. It's also um evidence that you will, you know, boost the autophagy signals more, too.
And again,
the more vigorous the intensity of the exercise, the more you're overpowering everything cuz that in and of itself is a really strong signal for autophagy and also mitophagy, damage clearing away damaged mitochondria. But I think the combination of the two are probably going to be, you know, more robust than just one by itself. And as I certainly don't think that um sauna by itself is a big big lipolysis activator. No, I don't think Yeah, I don't think you're going into a sauna for specific fat loss, but I would imagine that I could make an argument that like after, you know, a 5 or 6 mile run, you go sit in the sauna for 20 minutes, it might be the equivalent of adding another quarter mile or half mile on your run or something like that.
Absolutely. It's It's like the way I think of it is doing a sauna after an aerobic exercise workout is extending the workout. First of all, you know, your heart rate's already elevated, so it's it doesn't take long. All of a sudden you get in that sauna, it's already elevated and you're already hot and sweaty, so those mechanisms are really like kicked in. Like everything's just amplified. So, it really is like extending extending your workout. And that's probably why Dr. Jari Laukkanen's study showed that you could improve VO2 max greater than cycling alone if you followed the cycling with the sauna, right?
It's amplified. It's extending that workout. Yeah, which is I mean, that's that's powerful. And I I feel like maybe from a blood flow perspective, but I do feel like it kickstarts recovery for me. Maybe that's that might could just be anecdotal, but it feels like it starts the I'm getting the benefits of
the exercise while simultaneously kickstarting the recovery process. For sure kickstarting recovery. Again, and I mean, some of this data it's this is well known that increasing blood flow to the muscles, it will improve recovery. I mean, that's like a fact if I, you know, am doing my my squats or deadlifts and I I do like a pretty hard workout and I run the next day and sauna the next day, I I bounce back so much quicker. And it's clearly like I'm just getting I'm getting everything that needs to go to the muscle by increasing the blood flow, right?
And that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing when you're doing aerobic exercise when you're doing the sauna.
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4-7 weekly sauna sessions in the classic Finnish data 174-194 F traditional heat range often discussed in sauna research 200 F+ where caution becomes more important
In the conversation, Rhonda Patrick continues to distinguish traditional hot sauna from infrared when the goal is cardiovascular adaptation. The strongest population data comes from Finnish-style heat: high ambient temperature, meaningful sweat, and a heart-rate response that resembles light to moderate exercise.
Infrared can be relaxing and useful for some people. But when the claim is blood pressure, cardiovascular risk, and longevity, the evidence base still leans toward traditional heat exposure.
The updated caution is around extreme temperatures. Once heat rises beyond roughly 200 degrees Fahrenheit, the margin for error narrows. Dehydration, blood pressure shifts, and heat strain can arrive before a session feels obviously unsafe.
The aim is not to endure the hottest room possible. The aim is to create enough thermal load that the body adapts, then leave with enough reserve to recover well.
Sauna after training can extend the cardiovascular demand of a session and may support heat adaptation. It also increases the need for hydration, electrolytes, and honest attention to fatigue. A hard workout plus hard heat is a stack, not a casual add-on.
Used well, that stack can feel restorative: muscles soften, breathing slows, and the nervous system shifts out of effort. Used poorly, it can turn recovery into another stress debt.
The cleanest sauna protocol is repeatable. Duration, temperature, frequency, and timing should be matched to sleep, training load, and medical context. If heat leaves you calm and clear, the dose is probably close. If it leaves you wired, drained, or headache-prone, the dose needs refinement.
A sauna session should feel like controlled cardiovascular demand followed by restoration, not a test of how much heat you can tolerate.
Use traditional sauna when the goal is the cardiovascular signal found in the strongest research.
Be cautious above 200 degrees Fahrenheit, especially after training or when dehydrated.
Treat electrolytes, cooling down, and sleep quality as part of the protocol.
