Mental health is a fragile world. Not everyone looks at mental health the same way, and more importantly, everyone comes to solve their mental health problems in different ways. But one of the most vexing and uniformly problematic mental health problems being battled by millions today is depression. Depression is more than simply feeling blue or not being up to going out with friends. Clinical depression is a serious imbalance of chemicals in the brain that makes a person predisposed toward melancholic behavior. As said, people solve their depression problems in several ways but today we would like to propose another way that you can go about dealing with mood problems like depression: habitual sauna use. There is a luckily good reason to believe that spending time in the sauna could be a key way to boost your mood. Let’s have a look at the relation between saunas and resolving depression.
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To Begin, an Opening Note on Depression
Let’s begin by saying that there is no traditional cure for depression. While you can get over a cold with some medicine or heal a broken arm with a cast, depression doesn’t have the same easy path to recovery. We’re not saying that using the sauna will cure your depression; that’s just not possible. But anyone dealing with clinical depression can tell you all the same that the goal isn’t to find a cure but rather to make every day more bearable or even happy. And that’s what we plan to talk about today. Adding regular trips to the sauna into your routine may just make your condition a bit easier to handle. So, let’s get into the reasons why that’s true right here.
How Saunas Can Improve Your Mood
There are several reasons that saunas can improve your mood. While some are outright scientifically proven, others aren’t quite tracked like that. When dealing with saunas and depression, there is a lot to learn. These are the most pertinent reasons that spending time in the sauna can aid your overall mental health.
Saunas Increase Your Release of Dopamine
Being that clinical depression is itself a disposition of chemicals, saunas are a veritable perfect match. This is because saunas naturally help the body create more of the chemical that is keenly responsible for our outright happiness. This chemical, of course, is dopamine. But it may be a surprise to some to learn that by simply spending time in the sauna our body creates dopamine. But it’s true, and maybe not for the reasons you’d guess. Our body releases dopamine in the sauna for more reasons than simply because spending time in the sauna feels good. Instead, the dopamine release mostly has to do with what happens inside our body when confronted with the serious heat of a sauna.
The body has a very specific reaction to heat that goes above our natural body temperature. While all that we see on the outside is the release of sweat, there is a long domino line of actions that happen in order to get that sweat out of the glands under our skin and where it’s needed to cool us down. The very first thing that happens to the body once we get into a hot sauna is that our nervous system takes note of the obvious: that being, of course, that the body is getting too hot and that we’ll need to make some changes. This means that the nervous system is primed to send signals to several of our most important internal systems. But the most important signal, however, goes to the brain which then interprets those directions from the nervous system. It’s up to the brain to actually act on the guidance of the nervous system. And this close relationship between the brain and the nervous system is also responsible for the eventual dopamine release that will happen later in this process.
Thanks to the brain’s close connection to the body’s other systems, we start to release sweat and equally take on several other key precautions like the creation of heat shock proteins. The body then continues to maintain these precautions for the whole time you are in the sauna and until you finish your session. As soon as you step out of the sauna and your body starts to even out, the nervous system and the brain functionally acknowledge that they did a good job and kept your body cool! Well done! And in response to the recognition that the body functions well under pressure, the brain and nervous system agree to release a small amount of dopamine which will make it easier for the body to perform the same keep-cool process in the future. This small release, while still small, is more than enough to make a meaningful change in a person’s mood. Think about what happens after someone has a good sweaty workout and their cooldown begins. That idea of “post-workout euphoria” that so many people talk about is actually functionally the same bodily process! The body is very good at paying itself back for doing a good job. And the more frequently you take sauna sessions and successfully keep yourself cool (let’s hope that goes well!), you’ll be releasing an amount of dopamine more than able to give you a mood boost. This is just a very first step how saunas may help resolve depression, but an important one.
Saunas Can Boost Your Serotonin Blood Levels
In addition to dopamine, saunas are also believed to help boost the amount of serotonin in your bloodstream. Serotonin, of course, is one of the chemical compounds most responsible for our general contentment in addition to dopamine. While dopamine is released in the brain, however, serotonin is produced and released in the bloodstream.
The scientific community believes that serotonin and saunas are related because saunas engage our skin when we release sweat. It’s already well-known that serotonin diffuses into the bloodstream during a good exercise session and that’s because the body hopes to positively reinforce that exercise is good for the body; the same is luckily true for the sauna. There is actually a classic Finnish tradition related to stimulating the skin that may even help you give off more serotonin during your sauna session.
Classically and for several centuries, it has been a Finnish tradition to bring branches of birch wood into the sauna and lightly swat at your skin making light and not painful contact. This is a great way to engage the skin a bit more and possibly get your body to release even more serotonin. On top of all of that, birch wood is rich with essential oils so there’s even more to gain by taking up this classic tradition.
Saunas Can Be Good For Your Social Health
In all the talk about mental health, it can be easy to lose the thread that your social health is just as important as your overall mental health. The two are actually extremely closely related. So, how are saunas good for your social health and may contribute to resolving depression? Think about it: saunas have been community gathering spaces for centuries and that is still true today. The average traditional wood-burning sauna is built to hold anywhere from five to ten people. But there are, of course, considerably larger ones that can hold a lot more than that. But no matter how many people your chosen sauna can hold, if there are other people in it besides yourself, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself talking with them! Many people take saunas with their friends to chill out and decompress. It’s pretty much a way of life in Scandinavia and Finland specifically.
Spending time in the sauna with some friends or even just some friendly strangers is more than enough to get people talking. Talking turns to jokes and before long everyone’s laughing like never before. While it’s nowhere close to a real cure for clinical depression, one of the best ways to get out of a bad mood is to talk things out. And there are few better places to do just that than in a sauna. There’s almost something magical about the walls of a sauna that makes people not just more relaxed but even more talkative.
Saunas are Proven to Aid in Reducing Stress
In addition to creating more dopamine in your bloodstream, spending time in the sauna is also proven to help reduce other chemicals which may be contributing to your negative mood or even your depression. Specifically, there are several studies that have found that subjects who make habitual sauna use part of their regular routine have a recorded decrease in the amount of cortisone in their bloodstream. The study specifically took a sample of already healthy men and women who didn’t have a history of regular sauna use and instructed them to take regular sauna sessions multiple times during the week. At the end of the study, not only did the subjects uniformly have less cortisone in their bloodstreams, the patients reported having stronger and more fulfilling mental health all the same.
And while that’s the science behind the stress relief that comes about in a sauna, it’s more than clear that sauna sessions can also release stress on another level. Think about how peaceful it can get in a sauna: with the hot air making it even cozier, it’s more than obvious that spending time in a sauna is good for reducing stress in the same way that spending time in good comfort is good for reducing stress. And on top of all of that, those who use the sauna solo may have even more to gain from their visit when it comes to stress relief.
If you take your saunas by yourself, think about how quiet and peaceful a traditional wood-burning sauna can be – and what impact that may have on depression! That enclosed room is actually quite close to what many people use for meditation spaces. But an important difference between meditation and sauna sessions is that you have to keep a very close eye on the amount of time you spend in the sauna per session, as you run the risk of losing too much water through your sweat. But we’ll get more into those risks later.
Frequently Asked Questions About Saunas and Mental Health
The world of mental health is indeed quite complicated. It goes without saying that you ought to have some questions about the best way to go about improving your mental health with the help of saunas. So, let’s address the most common questions about saunas and mental health here.
After How Many Sauna Sessions Will I Feel an Improvement in My Mental Health?
In the same way that no one has the same mental health situation, everyone has a different capacity as to how long it may take for the sauna to improve their mental health. And on top of all of this, depending on how serious your depression or mental health condition is, it may take even longer to find meaningful relief by using saunas. But the conclusion, either way, is: stick with it. While you may not find a meaningful difference in your mood after one or two trips to the sauna, you can fully expect some real changes in your health and outlook after some weeks of regular sessions.
And depending on which chemical you are waiting for, there are multiple reasons that you may have to wait until after your sauna session has ended to get the bulk of the euphoria that comes from the sauna. For example, as explained above, dopamine doesn’t release in your brain until after your body has cooled down and left the sauna. So, you may not feel that mood improvement until after you’ve exited. But, if you’re chasing the very simple social aid that saunas can bring about, just laughing with your friends in the sauna is the type of mental health aid that you can feel instantly. The question, then, ought not to be about how many sessions you start to feel better. Your goal instead should be to use the sauna as often as is comfortable for you and watch how over time your mood and sensibilities improve.
How long Should I Spend in the Sauna Per Session for My Mental Health
Your ultimate goal each time you get into a sauna is to get your body as sweaty as you can within reason. When your body is releasing sweat, this means that all of the benefits that we’ve discussed above are at full strength and are the most likely to make a meaningful effect on your mental health. And, of course, everybody takes a different amount of time to get sweaty even in the same sauna. But at the same time, getting sweaty is indeed a mark of good health, but it’s very easy to sweat too much in the sauna. So, once your body is releasing a good amount of sweat, you should start thinking about getting some water back into your system as soon as possible. The longest a person ought to spend in the sauna, a beginner or sauna expert, all the same, is about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes in the sauna, it’s just about a certainty that your body will be in need of more water. And it goes without saying that dehydration will make no positive benefit on your mental health – so drink plenty when using saunas against depression.
How Many Times a Week Should I Use the Sauna to Improve My Mental Health?
Habitual sauna use is generally defined as taking anywhere from three to five trips to the sauna every week. So, that’s to mean three to five sessions where you spend long enough in the sauna to get sweaty. Specifically, the scientific studies on serotonin increase asked their subjects to take three to four sessions per week and they found great results. But just as well, in today’s quick-moving world, it can be quite difficult to find time for three or four trips to the sauna especially if you don’t have a sauna in your home and you need to walk or drive to a public club or spa for your sessions. With that in mind, don’t get overly upset if you miss a session or two. The goal is, instead, to make going to the sauna something you do without thinking. You’ll make yourself breakfast in the morning without having to remind yourself and your goal ought to be making sauna use just as habitual as making a meal or taking care of your personal hygiene.
Conclusions on Saunas and Depression
Those suffering from mental health problems like depression know best that every little thing helps. Adding a new fun activity into your life can be more than enough to make a change in your attitude and mood, so why not let saunas be the thing that makes that difference in your mood and depression? Making trips to the sauna part of your routine can make a meaningful difference in your mental health in minor and major ways as seen by the reasons above. But more than anything: saunas are just fun and relaxing! Sometimes all we need to get out of a mental health slump is a new hobby or activity and saunas are ready to fill that hole for you without a doubt.