SaunaScape

After a session in the sauna, I just feel good. I can’t explain why, just that it does.

Stephen Colmant, a licensed Psychologist based in North Carolina, and Allan Eason, a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State, a have spent their careers examining the physiology of sweat bathing on individuals alone and in groups. Colmant wrote his doctoral thesis on the topic, and built a custom sauna designed specifically for group therapy sessions. They have posted their research and related articles online at PsychSymposium.com.

Their “Sweat Therapy Theoretical Model” says that a sauna’s unique form of exercise sweating without focus on muscle coordination, focus on self regulation as the heat from the sauna changes from pleasurable early in the experience to a focus on coping with the more intense perception of heat, metaphorical elements of the sauna experience including the challenge of man vs. fire while naked (or nearly so), and the shared interpersonal experience of enduring the heat with others with an increased awareness of others’ well-being in the heat interact to produce positive effects on the mind, body and spirit.

[PsychSymposium.com]

After a session in the sauna, I just feel good. I can't explain why, just that it does. Stephen Colmant, a licensed Psychologist based in North Carolina, and Allan Eason, a doctoral candidate at Oklahoma State, a have spent their careers examining the physiology of sweat bathing on individuals alone and in groups. Colmant wrote his doctoral thesis on the topic, and built a custom sauna designed specifically for group therapy sessions. They have posted their research and related articles online at PsychSymposium.com. Their "Sweat Therapy Theoretical Model" says that a sauna's unique form of exercise sweating without focus on muscle coordination, focus on self regulation as the heat from the sauna changes from pleasurable early in the experience to a focus on coping with the more intense perception of heat, metaphorical elements of the sauna experience including the challenge of man vs. fire while naked (or nearly so), and the shared interpersonal experience of enduring the heat with others with an increased awareness of others' well-being in the heat interact to produce positive effects on the mind, body and spirit. [PsychSymposium.com]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Sauna Benefits, Your Body. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.