A sauna is traditionally hot 170 to 220°F (75 to 105°C), but now there is a new type of sauna that goes cold: The cryosauna.
The cryosauna uses a counter-intuitive notion: By quickly cooling your whole body you can shock your internal temperature control system into overheating it. In a modern cryosauna, you remove your street clothes and don skimpy underwear, thermal socks and gloves and possibly a ski mask to protect areas on your body sensitive to frostbite. Then you enter a chamber chilled with liquid nitrogen between -60 and -110°F (-80 and -170°C) for up to 3 minutes.
The extreme cold of the cryosauna cools your skin to 32°F (o°C), which sends your body into overdrive. In the cold, your body reacts as though you’ve fallen through the ice, sending all your blood to the vital organs to preserve life and increasing your heat production. When the session ends and you return to room temperature, your body can’t turn off its heat generating systems fast enough. Blood rushes to your extremities in an attempt to cool your internal organs. For a few minutes, your internal temperature spikes to as high as 104°F (40°C), like you had just spent a half hour in a hot sauna.
Who subjects themselves to this kind of treatment? Athletes for one. Many have found that using the cryosauna can help them recover nearly instantly from the pounding their bodies take. A recent article in the LA Times talks about the many proponents of the cryosauna including basketball star Kobe Bryant, baseball pitcher C.J. Wilson and many of the Pittsburgh Steelers American Football team. The London Telegraph reported in 2009 about how Mark Webber, the Formula 1 driver, credited regular cryosauna sessions for his rapid return to driving after a broken leg.
Research has shown that in addition to helping athletes recover, cryosauna sessions can help with arthritis, weight loss, circulatory problems. Like a traditional sauna, cryosauna users report glowing skin, great sleep at night and an overall feeling of great well-being.
The idea of cryotherapy came out of Japan in the 1970′s. For years many have used less extreme techniques like ice baths and standing under cold waterfalls to chill their bodies. The Japanese idea was imported to Poland, where it was refined and the current generation of ultra-cold chambers were perfected.
Relatively few cryosaunas exist in the world now. We’ve added several of them to our database if you’d like to give one a try.
The New York Times reported on this study performed by a team of Austrian researchers that studied the incidence of common colds in a population of 50 people over six months. Half of the population took saunas regularly, the other half was the control, and were not permitted to use the sauna during the test period.
The study concluded that the sauna bathing population had significantly fewer cases of the common cold than the non-sauna bathing population. After three months, the sauna bathing population had half as many incidents of the cold as the control. Both groups, after they contracted a cold, had no difference in the duration and severity of the symptoms.
So the question is, if I can cut my colds in half, can I deduct my sauna addiction as a qualified medical expense? The IRS says no.
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