SaunaScape

I’ve been a Lifehacker fan since its beginning. While some of their topics are obscure geekdom, the occasional tip about a new piece of software or website that ends up saving me hours makes it a daily stop on my morning review of the news. I was really interested this morning when I saw their new post “How to Hack Your Bathroom into a Home Sauna.”

I had to check the calendar to make sure today isn’t April 1. It isn’t.

Holy sh*t Lifehacker. What will you stoop to for linkbait?

The post is chock full of lots of crazy ideas and very few concrete details, like:

If you plan to install a wood-burning stove, you’ll need to fire-proof the walls and roof around the stove. Particle board isn’t cheap, but this is one area you don’t want to skimp on.

If you don’t have an air vent in the bathroom, don’t make one: the gap under the bathroom door will work just fine.

Um, NO NO NO NO NO!

If you’re putting a wood burning stove anywhere enclosed, you need to make sure you have proper ventilation. If you don’t you’ll end up at best poisoning yourself and at worst asphyxiating yourself and your whole family in your project. Especially if you follow their instructions to build a sauna stove:

A wood burning stove can easily be made from a junk yard gas canister. Use a cheap angle grinder to lop off the top, then just find a metal bucket, cut a hatch and fit the flue.

Those are the instructions. All of them. Now go forth and build one of these and put it in your house!

Please don’t follow these instructions. We value you as a reader too much to have you kill yourself in a home-made deathtrap.

If you’re really set on building your own sauna in your home, buy a good book like How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat by Mikkel Aaland, The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath by Rob Roy, or Hot Tubs, Saunas & Steam Baths: A Guide to Planning and Designing your Home Health Spa by Alan Sanderfoot.

If you don’t want to shell out the dollars for a book, then visit Sauna Times or Kalle Hoffman’s Sauna Pages. Both offer plenty of free advice and detailed plans for building your own saunas and sauna stoves.

And unless you really, really know what you’re doing, build your first DIY wood stove sauna in a shed, far away from your home and anything else flammable.

Meanwhile, watch for these exciting posts coming soon to Lifehacker: “Improve your mood: Hack your bathtub and a toaster into your own electro-convulsive therapy system” and “Hack your own Botox from cans you fish out of your grocer’s dumpster!”

I've been a Lifehacker fan since its beginning. While some of their topics are obscure geekdom, the occasional tip about a new piece of software or website that ends up saving me hours makes it a daily stop on my morning review of the news. I was really interested this morning when I saw their new post "How to Hack Your Bathroom into a Home Sauna." I had to check the calendar to make sure today isn't April 1. It isn't. Holy sh*t Lifehacker. What will you stoop to for linkbait? The post is chock full of lots of crazy ideas and very few concrete details, like: If you plan to install a wood-burning stove, you'll need to fire-proof the walls and roof around the stove. Particle board isn't cheap, but this is one area you don't want to skimp on. If you don't have an air vent in the bathroom, don't make one: the gap under the bathroom door will work just fine. Um, NO NO NO NO NO! If you're putting a wood burning stove anywhere enclosed, you need to make sure you have proper ventilation. If you don't you'll end up at best poisoning yourself and at worst asphyxiating yourself and your whole family in your project. Especially if you follow their instructions to build a sauna stove: A wood burning stove can easily be made from a junk yard gas canister. Use a cheap angle grinder to lop off the top, then just find a metal bucket, cut a hatch and fit the flue. Those are the instructions. All of them. Now go forth and build one of these and put it in your house! Please don't follow these instructions. We value you as a reader too much to have you kill yourself in a home-made deathtrap. If you're really set on building your own sauna in your home, buy a good book like How to Build Your Own Sauna & Sweat by Mikkel Aaland, The Sauna: A Complete Guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath by Rob Roy, or Hot Tubs, Saunas & Steam Baths: A Guide to Planning and Designing your Home Health Spa by Alan Sanderfoot. If you don't want to shell out the dollars for a book, then visit Sauna Times or Kalle Hoffman's Sauna Pages. Both offer plenty of free advice and detailed plans for building your own saunas and sauna stoves. And unless you really, really know what you're doing, build your first DIY wood stove sauna in a shed, far away from your home and anything else flammable. Meanwhile, watch for these exciting posts coming soon to Lifehacker: "Improve your mood: Hack your bathtub and a toaster into your own electro-convulsive therapy system" and "Hack your own Botox from cans you fish out of your grocer's dumpster!"

Image via Wikipedia

Dear Infrared Sauna Industry:

I’m a traditionalist myself, but I will admit, I’ve been inside an infrared sauna or two in my day and it was an enjoyable experience. I can see the advantages of an infrared sauna. The low prices, easy assembly, quick heat up and localized heating all make it an option for many people who may not otherwise be able to enjoy a sauna. I get it.

Just please tell me, why do you insist on discrediting the sauna industry with lies? It damages all our credibility.

My point is illustrated by this quote from a business offering infrared sauna sessions that aired on a Fox affiliate a few days ago.

“If you sweat profusely, clinical studies show that you can burn up to 600 calories in a hour of being in there,” says [redacted].

The infrared sauna makes the same rays that come from the sun, but filters out UV radiation.

“The traditional saunas of the past go a half inch into the tissues,” [she] says. “This goes an inch and a half, so three times deeper. Even the sweat produced for this is different.”

That’s because the heat is different. The infrared sauna reaches temps up to 140 degrees and breaks up the water molecules that hold toxins in your skin. So when you sweat in here, you sweat toxins out.

Four paragraphs, lots of false claims. Let’s look at them:

“Burn up to 600 calories in an hour.” This is false. In a sauna, you don’t burn many more calories than you would otherwise sitting on a couch. You’re definitely not going to burn the same number of calories that you would during a strenuous workout on a stair climbing machine.

The truth is saunas do help with weight loss. Researchers don’t completely understand it, but regular sauna sessions help your brain better regulate your appetite to get your body back to a healthy weight. If you are overweight, the sauna will help you lose weight. If you are underweight, the sauna will help you gain it back.

“The infrared sauna makes the same rays that come from the sun…” This is partially true. All hot things give off infrared rays. Light bulbs, the sun, even your body now is emitting infrared rays to heat something in the room cooler than you. Infrared saunas use specialized heater panels to create their infrared rays, while a traditional sauna uses heating elements and rocks to create infrared rays.

“Infrared sauna radiation goes deeper into your skin than a traditional sauna.” Unfortunately, that is not true. Traditional saunas have, if anything, more sources of infrared radiation than a “pure” infrared sauna.

“The sweat produced is different.” True, but unfortunately not the way they would like you to think. Because the heat in the infrared sauna is lower and the heat is localized to the parts of your body closest to the heating panels, the sweat is less intense than in a traditional sauna.

“The heat is different” This is partially true. Infrared saunas use infrared heat only from special radiant panels. A traditional sauna heats with infrared heat from the stove, the walls and even the water vapor in the air surrounding you. In addition, the heat of the air directly transfers heat to you.

“The infrared sauna breaks up the water molecules that hold toxins in your skin” False! The heat of a sauna does not break up the water in your skin. It also doesn’t break up the fat in your skin. What all hot baths do is send blood from your internal organs to your skin to help keep your body cool. This changes your circulation and can help move toxins in your blood stream past specialized organs in your skin that will eject toxins as part of your sweat. These toxins are mainly metabolic wastes, but can include some other environmental toxins.

So, infrared sauna industry, you’ve made a big point of making claims which are nonsense, yet on closer inspection, turn out to be not that far from the truth after all. It would do us all a lot better if you came clean and purged your marketing material of this junk.

We’re all in this together. The more people who are aware of saunas and their legitimate benefits, will give you more potential customers. Sure some of them will choose to get a traditional sauna, but for those who don’t, you’ve got a pretty decent product for them.

Cheers,

Chris

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Image via Wikipedia"][/caption] Dear Infrared Sauna Industry: I'm a traditionalist myself, but I will admit, I've been inside an infrared sauna or two in my day and it was an enjoyable experience. I can see the advantages of an infrared sauna. The low prices, easy assembly, quick heat up and localized heating all make it an option for many people who may not otherwise be able to enjoy a sauna. I get it. Just please tell me, why do you insist on discrediting the sauna industry with lies? It damages all our credibility. My point is illustrated by this quote from a business offering infrared sauna sessions that aired on a Fox affiliate a few days ago. “If you sweat profusely, clinical studies show that you can burn up to 600 calories in a hour of being in there,” says [redacted]. The infrared sauna makes the same rays that come from the sun, but filters out UV radiation. “The traditional saunas of the past go a half inch into the tissues,” [she] says. “This goes an inch and a half, so three times deeper. Even the sweat produced for this is different.” That's because the heat is different. The infrared sauna reaches temps up to 140 degrees and breaks up the water molecules that hold toxins in your skin. So when you sweat in here, you sweat toxins out. Four paragraphs, lots of false claims. Let's look at them: "Burn up to 600 calories in an hour." This is false. In a sauna, you don't burn many more calories than you would otherwise sitting on a couch. You're definitely not going to burn the same number of calories that you would during a strenuous workout on a stair climbing machine. The truth is saunas do help with weight loss. Researchers don't completely understand it, but regular sauna sessions help your brain better regulate your appetite to get your body back to a healthy weight. If you are overweight, the sauna will help you lose weight. If you are underweight, the sauna will help you gain it back. "The infrared sauna makes the same rays that come from the sun..." This is partially true. All hot things give off infrared rays. Light bulbs, the sun, even your body now is emitting infrared rays to heat something in the room cooler than you. Infrared saunas use specialized heater panels to create their infrared rays, while a traditional sauna uses heating elements and rocks to create infrared rays. "Infrared sauna radiation goes deeper into your skin than a traditional sauna." Unfortunately, that is not true. Traditional saunas have, if anything, more sources of infrared radiation than a "pure" infrared sauna. "The sweat produced is different." True, but unfortunately not the way they would like you to think. Because the heat in the infrared sauna is lower and the heat is localized to the parts of your body closest to the heating panels, the sweat is less intense than in a traditional sauna. "The heat is different" This is partially true. Infrared saunas use infrared heat only from special radiant panels. A traditional sauna heats with infrared heat from the stove, the walls and even the water vapor in the air surrounding you. In addition, the heat of the air directly transfers heat to you. "The infrared sauna breaks up the water molecules that hold toxins in your skin" False! The heat of a sauna does not break up the water in your skin. It also doesn't break up the fat in your skin. What all hot baths do is send blood from your internal organs to your skin to help keep your body cool. This changes your circulation and can help move toxins in your blood stream past specialized organs in your skin that will eject toxins as part of your sweat. These toxins are mainly metabolic wastes, but can include some other environmental toxins. So, infrared sauna industry, you've made a big point of making claims which are nonsense, yet on closer inspection, turn out to be not that far from the truth after all. It would do us all a lot better if you came clean and purged your marketing material of this junk. We're all in this together. The more people who are aware of saunas and their legitimate benefits, will give you more potential customers. Sure some of them will choose to get a traditional sauna, but for those who don't, you've got a pretty decent product for them. Cheers, Chris    

Image by artindeepkoma via Flickr

Sauna Suits, those silvery plastic jumpsuits that are touted everywhere on the internet as one of those “secret weapons” to lose weight quick. Why not? Boxers use them all the time. Buying a sauna suit is cheap, and the benefits are fast and easy to measure, and their makers claim that they are great tools for fat loss, detoxification and increased circulation, as well as other benefits that a traditional sauna gives.

No surprise here: Those marketers are lying to you.

“Sweating while wearing a sauna suit may help eliminate toxins that have accumulated in the body!” is text lifted from one breathless claim. Using a traditional or infrared sauna to remove toxins from your body is a popular, but dubious claim. However, extending the detox claim to a sauna suit, is an outright lie.

Most sauna suits are made from vinyl or a vinyl compound like PVC or EVA. Vinyls emit hundreds of toxic chemicals throughout their life cycles, including chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, and reproductive issues. Raising the temperature and humidity around them increases the amount of these chemicals that will be released.

Higher-end sauna suits are made from neoprene. Neoprene is much more stable then vinyl, but it too has its problems. Neoprene is a known allergen, and there are certain lead compounds used in the production of neoprene that may or may not be cleaned out of the fabric before it is shipped to you.

Sweat is a two-way street: It will move toxins in whichever direction they are lower. So though you might be removing some toxins from your body, how many new, more dangerous toxins are you introducing?

Fat loss is another point. Traditional and infrared saunas have been shown to help improve weight regulation by the brain —They do not burn fat directly. It is probably related to the psychological benefits that the ritual of sitting in the sauna gives that you would not get doing your daily chores while wrapped in Saran Wrap.

The whole idea of the sauna suit is dangerous if not used in the right hands. These were originally developed for one purpose: To help combat athletes lose weight before their official weigh-in for the event. If done right, a heavier athlete can weigh into a lighter weight class and have a tremendous advantage in the ring. Their weight loss is done to a predetermined target, and as soon as they’ve stepped off the scale, they begin to rehydrate for their match the next day, otherwise their performance in the ring will suffer. If you do not recognize this, you can end up severely dehydrating yourself.

The whole premise of the sauna suit is to interfere with your body’s cooling mechanism to increase your sweat output. Even professional athletes can overdo it in a sauna suit and end up with heat stroke or heat exhaustion. For the truly misinformed, this process can be sped up by wearing your sauna suit into the sauna.

So do yourself a favor. Save your money. If that sauna suit does anything for you, it won’t be good. If you are an athlete, there are better ways of dehydrating yourself.

Update: Full Mount, a MMA publication, recently published its own article questioning the rationale of weight cutting.

Update 2: If you really want to see what you need to go through to cut weight, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published an article about the ordeal a local MMA fighter goes through to make weight for his match.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by artindeepkoma via Flickr"][/caption] Sauna Suits, those silvery plastic jumpsuits that are touted everywhere on the internet as one of those "secret weapons" to lose weight quick. Why not? Boxers use them all the time. Buying a sauna suit is cheap, and the benefits are fast and easy to measure, and their makers claim that they are great tools for fat loss, detoxification and increased circulation, as well as other benefits that a traditional sauna gives. No surprise here: Those marketers are lying to you. "Sweating while wearing a sauna suit may help eliminate toxins that have accumulated in the body!" is text lifted from one breathless claim. Using a traditional or infrared sauna to remove toxins from your body is a popular, but dubious claim. However, extending the detox claim to a sauna suit, is an outright lie. Most sauna suits are made from vinyl or a vinyl compound like PVC or EVA. Vinyls emit hundreds of toxic chemicals throughout their life cycles, including chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, and reproductive issues. Raising the temperature and humidity around them increases the amount of these chemicals that will be released. Higher-end sauna suits are made from neoprene. Neoprene is much more stable then vinyl, but it too has its problems. Neoprene is a known allergen, and there are certain lead compounds used in the production of neoprene that may or may not be cleaned out of the fabric before it is shipped to you. Sweat is a two-way street: It will move toxins in whichever direction they are lower. So though you might be removing some toxins from your body, how many new, more dangerous toxins are you introducing? Fat loss is another point. Traditional and infrared saunas have been shown to help improve weight regulation by the brain —They do not burn fat directly. It is probably related to the psychological benefits that the ritual of sitting in the sauna gives that you would not get doing your daily chores while wrapped in Saran Wrap. The whole idea of the sauna suit is dangerous if not used in the right hands. These were originally developed for one purpose: To help combat athletes lose weight before their official weigh-in for the event. If done right, a heavier athlete can weigh into a lighter weight class and have a tremendous advantage in the ring. Their weight loss is done to a predetermined target, and as soon as they've stepped off the scale, they begin to rehydrate for their match the next day, otherwise their performance in the ring will suffer. If you do not recognize this, you can end up severely dehydrating yourself. The whole premise of the sauna suit is to interfere with your body's cooling mechanism to increase your sweat output. Even professional athletes can overdo it in a sauna suit and end up with heat stroke or heat exhaustion. For the truly misinformed, this process can be sped up by wearing your sauna suit into the sauna. So do yourself a favor. Save your money. If that sauna suit does anything for you, it won't be good. If you are an athlete, there are better ways of dehydrating yourself. Update: Full Mount, a MMA publication, recently published its own article questioning the rationale of weight cutting. Update 2: If you really want to see what you need to go through to cut weight, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published an article about the ordeal a local MMA fighter goes through to make weight for his match.