People go into an infrared sauna with the goal of reaping its many benefits, from helping the body relax to improving blood circulation, skin, and overall health. There’s also the flushing out of toxins from the body through sweating, one of the best infrared sauna benefits. However, some people go out of the sauna feeling like crap.
One of the common questions, especially among first-time infrared sauna users—why do I feel worse after infrared sauna?
You’re probably familiar with the many home sauna benefits. But what you might not be familiar with is the process your body has to go through to get to that point of feeling relaxed and healthy. Some would experience flu-like symptoms after they leave the infrared sauna, sore muscles, stomach ache, and lower blood pressure.
Although not everyone will experience it, feeling worse after a session is often part of the process of experiencing the therapeutic powers of an infrared sauna.
In this article, we’re going to make sense of why you might feel sick after using an infrared sauna, the symptoms you might experience, and a few points to help you feel better after your infrared sauna session.
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Why Do You Experience Flu-Like Symptoms After Infrared Sauna Use?
The best infrared saunas are known for their health and wellness benefits, but there might be a small chance that you’ll feel worse after a session. Unlike a traditional sauna that heats the air, which only warms the skin surface, an infrared sauna is a combination of heat and light therapy that heats up the body directly. Infrared sauna treatments produce a deeper-penetrating heat, which raises your core body temperature.
As a result, an infrared sauna promotes more intense sweating and a deeper level of detox. And as the body flushes out toxins via sweat, which may range from heavy metals and chemicals to radioactive particles, it’s not uncommon to experience flu-like symptoms. You may experience muscle pain, headaches, dizziness, clammy skin, and fatigue, and these symptoms may appear as soon as you get out of the infrared sauna and may last for quite a while.
Additionally, fluctuations in blood pressure, enhanced blood circulation, and varying heart rates can result in the same flu-like symptoms after infrared sauna. That said, experiencing such symptoms immediately after infrared sauna use may also be a result of the following:
- You’re new to infrared saunas, and your body isn’t used to infrared heat yet.
- You’ve set a too high temperature in the sauna.
- You stayed for too long in the sauna.
- You’re dehydrated.
Why Does the Body Detox After Infrared Sauna Use?
The deep-penetrating heat you get from infrared light, especially from a far-infrared sauna or a full-spectrum infrared sauna, causes your body to sweat, which studies have shown to increase detoxification and lower circulating levels of certain toxins in the body.
When you enter an infrared sauna, which typically operates between 115°F to 135°F, it heats your body deep inside without dramatically warming the air around you. Basically, 80% of the energy is used to heat the body, and the rest is used to heat the air. The result is heat that can penetrate the inner layers of the skin up to 1.5 inches deep beneath the skin. In other words, infrared saunas can heat not only the skin surface but including the tissues or fat cells and muscles.
Using an infrared sauna facilitates excessive sweating by heating the body from within. And sweating, in general, has many health benefits, from helping cool down the body and maintaining skin hydration to detoxification. Heavy metals like cadmium, aluminum, lead, and cobalt, phthalates, PCBs, and Bisphenol A (BPA) are among the toxic materials excreted through sweating.
In the same way, intense sweating in the infrared sauna helps flush out toxins clogging your pores, including dirt, oil, bacteria, and dead skin cells, promoting clear, healthy-looking skin.
But besides sweating, the body also detoxes after infrared sauna use because of the increased blood circulation. The heat from the sauna dilates the blood vessels and improves lymphatic function, increasing circulation throughout the body, which helps remove waste products and toxins.
Most Common Sauna Detox Symptoms
As you sit inside an infrared sauna, the infrared heat soaks deeper into the skin, warming your body, increasing blood circulation, and causing your heart to pump rapidly, inducing more sweat, then releasing toxins. So, as you can see, while you’re relaxing in the sauna, your body is anything but.
And as explained above, deep detoxifying sweat from an infrared sauna can sometimes leave you feeling sick. Of course, symptoms may vary from person to person, but below are some of the common sauna detox symptoms you may experience.
Headache or Dizziness
Lightheadedness and a headache after sauna are common symptoms that you may experience a sudden change in body temperature, an increase in blood circulation, and detoxification while in the sauna. Nausea, often accompanied by headache, is also mostly the aftermath of intense detoxification and overexposure to heat.
Sitting inside the sauna will also cause you to sweat. And losing bodily fluids from excessive sweating in the sauna can lead to electrolyte imbalance and dehydration, which can also cause dizziness or mild to moderate headaches.
Stomach Ache
After an infrared sauna session, stomach aches are another side effect as your body undergoes intense detox. Infrared sauna use helps release toxic wastes, which are eliminated through different channels like the intestine and kidneys. And when it does, stomach ache or diarrhea after sauna is a common symptom your may experience.
Lowered Blood Pressure
Heat exposure in the infrared sauna dilates your blood vessels, leading to increased blood flow throughout the body and decreased blood pressure. So, if you have pre-existing cardiovascular issues or any blood pressure-related health conditions, it could be exacerbated the longer you stay inside the infrared sauna.
Dehydration
Overheating and dehydration are other common sauna detox symptoms. The primary reason is that you’re going to sweat profusely while in the sauna. Over time, your body’s store of water depletes.
So, once you get out of the sauna, you may experience extreme thirst, dry throat, and overly dried, cracked, or irritated skin, which are all signs of dehydration.
Muscle Pain
While inside an infrared sauna, expect to sweat profusely. But while that helps with flushing out harmful toxins from your body, excessive sweating also gets rid of salt and other essential minerals. And it can sometimes cause muscle cramps.
Additionally, as your body works hard to get rid of those toxins, it’s fairly common to feel fatigued and sore muscles after a sauna session.
Sore Throat
If infrared sauna use causes dehydration, it can also lead to irritated airways. You may experience coughing from time to time or develop a dry or sore throat. A sore throat after sauna is also one of the flu-like symptoms you may experience because of increased detoxification.
Chills
As your body flushes out toxins, one of the symptoms you may experience is chills. This infrared sauna detox symptom also happens as your body starts to cool down after the intense heat of your sauna session. The blood vessels on the skin constrict, and the blood flow slows, causing the skin surface to feel cold.
Sweating
One of the common ways your skin shows signs of detoxing is that you sweat more than usual. Also, by boosting your core body temperature, using an infrared sauna is like inducing an artificial fever. And it can cause sweating as your body tries to lower its temperature.
Tips for Feeling Better After Using an Infrared Sauna
Feeling worse after a sauna, especially as your body still tries to get used to the infrared heat and the high sauna temperature, is often normal. And thankfully, the negative symptoms you may experience are almost always short-term.
That said, there are several ways you can make your sauna experience more favorable, minimize the possibility of experiencing sauna detox symptoms, and make yourself feel better after using an infrared sauna.
Drink Plenty of Water
Hydration is key to making sure that you feel better after using an infrared sauna. Although the heat in an infrared sauna is far more tolerable, you’re still going to break a lot of sweat. So, to avoid dehydration, drink enough water even before your sauna session starts. After your infrared sauna session, a couple of glasses of water will also help replenish lost fluids and restore water balance in the body.
Avoid Alcohol
Avoid consuming alcohol before or during your sauna session. Alcohol can only dehydrate you further, making you more susceptible to general dehydration. In addition, drinking alcohol can significantly affect your body’s ability to maintain blood pressure during the sauna.
Sauna bathing can already cause low blood pressure. Adding alcohol to the mix can only further lower your blood pressure to dangerous levels.
Cool Down
Having a rest period after an intense sauna session is necessary if you want to feel better after your sauna. Most of the sauna detox symptoms you experience are often due to the change in core body temperature and blood flow. Spending a couple of minutes to cool down after each session helps bring your core body temperature back down from high to normal, making it less likely for you to catch flu-like symptoms after sauna.
Eat a Nutritious Meal or Snack
Eating a nutrient-dense meal or snack after using infrared sauna supplements your body after breaking a sweat and burning calories. Anything light, nutritious, and contains electrolyte is a great option to replenish the body of depleted resources. Stay away from high-fat foods as they take longer time to digest and may cause indigestion after a sauna.
Take a Nap
During the sauna, your body works hard to sweat and flush out toxins. So, if you feel tired after a sauna, it’s essential to rest. Relaxing or taking a short nap after your sauna session will give your body time to recover, and you’re more likely to feel better afterward.
Conclusion
Whether you prefer indoor or outdoor infrared saunas, or a portable infrared sauna, any low EMF infrared sauna at home is a surefire way to relieve stress, relax, and detoxify the body. But you might feel worse before you feel better after an infrared sauna session.
Hopefully, this article answers your “why do I feel worse after infrared sauna” question.
Flu-like symptoms after an infrared sauna session are typically a normal and natural part of detoxification. That said, drinking plenty of water before and after the sauna is one of the simple steps you can do to ensure that you feel better after infrared sauna use.
