Llwellyn Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 At the YMCA where I am a member, there is a steam room and a sauna just off of the locker room. I have a couple of friends who like to sit in the steam room, so I've done that a couple of times with them. I've stepped into the sauna, but it was too hot and dry and I didn't like the smell of burned wood in there. I was wondering if any of you guys have used these kinds of facilities? Why did you do it? Are there any health benefits from sitting 10 minutes in either of these kinds of rooms? What's the point of them? I haven't found much useful information about this on the internet, so I thought I'd try here. Love and blessings from the God, Llwellyn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 Saunas and steam rooms are more used to help you relax and loosen your muscles after a workout to keep them from tightening up. The heat is also really good if you have a cold and want to loosen your sinuses. It is also said that it's good in the wintertime even if you don't have a cold to go to them because they can help kill off cold and flu causing germs in your nasal passages. I don't know about the veracity of that though. Personally, I'm with you, I don't like sitting in very hot rooms. Many find them relaxing, I find it incredibly uncomfortable. So I just avoid them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 the cold and flu thing, based on Israeli research in the late 80s, is pretty much correct... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Wolf Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 I like sitting in one for about a half hour to let my muscles relax after a good workout. It does wonders for me so I am not sore and dead after a workout. Also, they can accelerate weight loss, but I don't reccomend that. They may do it often of Ultimate Fighter, but that runs some extremely high risks of many health problems, including severe dehydration, which can lead to a multitude of other health problems. Ohhh, and, they can help you pass a drug test, by making you sweat (which is composed of essential nutrients and waste products alike) gallons, which cleans out your system. I'm not sure how many hours it takes to be fully clean for a urine or blood drug test though. I just know they help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 the cold and flu thing, based on Israeli research in the late 80s, is pretty much correct... I wouldn't base my healthcare on research from the 80s. That was long before SARS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 SARS is still sensitive to elevated body temperature. Take it or leave it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 SARS is still sensitive to elevated body temperature. Take it or leave it I don't know enough about the topic to argue that. My point was that serious illnesses have broken out since the 1980s, and that these illnesses probably prompted much new learning about the human body. This being the case, I cannot recommend that anyone base their healthcare on research of the 1980s. You said that according to research done in the 1980s, the info was correct that sauna, etc. helps fight the flu and cold. I would encourage people to find out from a healthcare professional today on how to take care of themselves, rather than base major decisions on twenty to thirty-year-old research. I was taught that hot, humid air is a great carrier of disease. For that reason, I question how a sauna and hot baths can help prevent it. But what I was taught may be incorrect. That's why I say to ask your doctor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 The base biology of influenza or the common cold doesn't change much... it's not like, say, ebola or HIV going air born... basically a body temp of 100F to 103F causes the protein shell to break and the DNA strand really isn't that robust. However, you DO feel like shit on a stick. If you can get a controlled 'burn' at the prickle stage, it can really lower the viral load. Hit it with Ascorbic acid with to bowel tolerance and you've cleared the common cold, with minimum cellular damage. Influenza is also prone to Ascorbic acid, and elevated temperatures. H5N1 is just another flu virus. Same base biology, it just does it faster and harder. However, it's really not suited to humans as an environment... a lot like Ebola. We're too hard to infect, and when infected, we're die too fast to spread by infection or contagion to any great distance. Maybe H5N1 will be the next 1918 pandemic... maybe it won't. I know that shit they peddle as the vaccine may as well be sugar water, since if H5N1 mutates to be a human infectious agent, you can't predict it's precise vulnerabilities. Interesting thing about 'Hot Zone' influenzas, the prime and the fit are the ones it kills... infants, children and the elderly and infirm don't have the extreme immune reaction that renders one's internal organs to lumpy soup in an auto-immune frenzy. Of course, it will kill those with seriously impaired immune systems also... HIV, AIDS, Organ recipients, weakling children, people in care homes, chemopatients et seq OK, I've just itemised a near extinction level event, if mishandled, but hey, we all have to go sometime... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted July 16, 2007 Share Posted July 16, 2007 The trick is to sit in the banja as long as you can stand, then make a wild naked sprint across the street to the hole cut in the frozen lake and jump in with gusto. Afterwards you will feel like a million bucks. I can swear to it. Yeah, I really did that. Here we use a bundle of leaves from an aspen tree, soak them in hot water and beat each other's skin with it while inside the Russian steam bath. It sounds like torture, but it's anything but. The banja ritual here is fantastic IMO and if you have a cold or a cough it clears it right up. You are supposed to jump in the ice cold water in between sessions. Russians say it shocks your immune system. I haven't seen any verifying studies, but as I said, you feel like a million bucks after. You also sleep like a baby that night. Those with weak hearts and high blood pressure need to be careful though. Every winter scores of middle aged men die in the banja after they get drunk, heat up their body temps and then fuck the prostitute they brought along. Just too much stress on the heart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted July 17, 2007 Share Posted July 17, 2007 I can partly second Vigile's hot steam/cold plunge anecdote, though I've never done the whisking-with-birch-leaves thing. Plus mine was a run from a hot, steaming Jacuzzi bath and leaping buck-ass naked into Puget Sound, just outside the door, in January. No hole cut in the ice, but much the same effect... I can vouch for how relaxing it is. I slept like a log. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted July 18, 2007 Share Posted July 18, 2007 After a long session working in a dry suit (my ass, dry.. Less than soaking wet, but ugly damp and cold anyway, despite heating under garments..) underwater construction, the best damn thing I've felt is hot, blazing, almost skin burning, make my ass and nuts shrink up water.. Doesn't take much at a good temp, 120+ or so to warm up the coldest joints, hurt back, and tired playing in fins all day legs. The usual self perscribed bolus of ETOH helps circulation and mental acuity.. As in "JeZUS KRYYAST you are one DUMB SON OF A BITCH again!" After being warmed up and back to functional, walking on terra firma steady, then a quick cooling shower to equalize temps internal and ex-, stave of chucking up the steak that'll be eaten an hour later.. 'course the quinine cocktail of tonic water and pills to stave off the leg cramps and spazzing later is always helped flavorwise with some form of high octane additive.. Then its off to bed so ya can do it all over tomorrow, ... Heat good if you can take it.. kFL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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