Not only are saunas one of the most natural and beneficial wellness trends for your health and skin, but they also have incredible effects on your brain! Regular sauna use has been gaining wide momentum as people all over the United States have been dishing about the sauna health benefits they are achieving.
Here are 6 incredible ways saunas can affect your brain!
Saunas can help treat your depression!
There have been studies conducted on patients diagnosed with major depression to access whether a heat treatment would significantly help improve their symptoms. The results have demonstrated that treatments involving the controlled elevation of body heat significantly improved symptoms and was even 2.5 times more effective as a treatment method than typical antidepressant treatments.
Elevated body heat is directly associated with the sauna benefits of just a single session, as this is the key function of a sauna. Scientifically speaking, dynorphins are typically released when using a sauna which triggers an increase of endorphin receptors, allowing you to feel more sensitive and receptive to the feel-good chemicals produced in your body.
Regular sauna use can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are a variety of known sauna health benefits that you can achieve by regular sauna use from lowering your blood pressure to detoxifying your body. But, what you might not know is that you may be lowering your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease too! A research study conducted to test these sauna benefits has shown that out of the men tested, those who frequently used saunas had a 65% reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Saunas can help you grow new brain cells!
Exercise and saunas historically go hand-in-hand and can even have several similar benefits on your body. Exercise and sauna use can boost BDNF which is the brain-derived neurotrophic factor. This helps your brain create new connections, lower anxiety, heal you mentally from traumatic events, and develop long-term memories. Saunas have been reported to increase BDNF expression in the brain!
Saunas can help prevent the build-up of plaque in your brain
It is not uncommon for plaque to want to build-up in your body, but your body has systems in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen and that everything functions effectively and efficiently. The most common occurrence of an unhealthy plaque build-up is beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid is a protein that the plaque usually found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients is made up of. Research has shown that saunas, by providing a type of heat stress treatment on the body, can generate the creation of heat shock proteins in the body that fortify other proteins. This fortification prevents proteins, especially beta-amyloid, from becoming disfigured and clumping up in the body and the brain.
Regular sauna use can enhance your focus and memory.
It is natural to remember and recall feelings and actions from events that caused emotional stress. This is due to your body’s release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine which enhances your focus and creates strong memories. Norepinephrine is also typically released during exercise and sauna use, generating another sauna benefit for your brain.
Saunas can help prevent the development of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that develops when the body’s immune system destroys the myelin sheath, which is the fatty part that surrounds the neurons in your brain that also helps transmit thoughts.
A sauna health benefit that has been studied by various researchers is the boost in prolactin, the hormone that counteracts MS and helps rebuild myelin in the body. These studies have shown that the body produces this hormone in a greater amount during regular sauna sessions. However, it is important to note that sauna use was reported as a possible preventative measure and has, unfortunately, not been proven effective for patients who have already developed Multiple Sclerosis.
There are many widely known sauna health benefits that have been breaking the internet lately, but there are so many reasons why saunas go beyond just the typical wellness trend. Here are just 6 incredible ways saunas can affect your brain, and there are bound to be more benefits that are yet to be discovered!
