Healthy Living Blog

Sauna therapy is not new. It’s been used for many, many centuries as a way to detoxify the body, relax, and seek relief from aches and pains, among many other things. However, Infrared sauna therapy is relatively new on the scene. Infrared sauna therapy is more deeply penetrating than a traditional sauna, and its applications are many. Because it is more deeply penetrating than a traditional sauna and because it is also much more effective in its heat application, it can be easier to use than a traditional sauna.

One of the newest things being touted for the infrared sauna is the use of it to activate heat shock proteins. Heat shock proteins are also called stress proteins, and these are beneficial proteins that are activated in the body under conditions of stress. One of the ways these proteins can be activated is through infrared sauna therapy. What can this do for you?

First, let’s talk a little bit about how the infrared sauna actually works and how you can use it in your daily life. In general, infrared sauna therapy is a little easier to use than a traditional sauna, because infrared cabins only heat objects. Therefore, you can use it while keeping the surrounding air at a normal temperature, so that only your body heats up. The Infrared sauna also provides a deeper and more penetrating heat, so that a session will take less time for you. Nonetheless, you may be able to help stave off illness and disease by regularly activating the heat shock proteins with the infrared sauna to help keep you healthy.

Now, here’s how heat shock proteins function in relation to the use of the infrared sauna.  Although using infrared energy as a means to activate the heat shock proteins is a relatively new area of study, it’s been known for some time that heat shock proteins have a beneficial role of "chaperoning" cell proteins to make sure that they stay or become the right shape and can function properly. They also help "clean up" by disposing of proteins that are no longer useful, and can also help peptides on the cells’ surface recognize diseased cells and get rid of them, for better immune function.

All of this is exciting news as a means to help fight diseases. It’s also thought that heat shock proteins can take abnormal peptides within cells and give them over to a group of molecules that will then move them to the surface of cells. These cells are then recognized by the immune system as cells that are sick. What does this do for your immunity? It alerts your immune system that something is wrong and a cell has died, so that it can then take care of it.

Infrared therapy can help activate heat shock proteins and thus mimic this natural function. For example, when you become sick, having a fever can activate a heat shock protein response. However, if you can do this through infrared energy and slightly elevate your temperature temporarily on a regular basis, you can trick your body into thinking that you have a fever so that your heat shock protein response is activated without actually having to become sick. This can mean that you can help stave off disease by activating heat shock proteins so that they move "sick" peptides from within to outside of cells. These cells are then recognized as diseased cells and are killed off. This can help keep you healthy, and may even keep you from getting sick altogether.

Simply, regularly taking an infrared sauna session and elevating your body temperature regularly will not only naturally detoxify you and help keep you well by reducing aches and pains, but it can also activate your heat shock proteins; these heat shock proteins can then "clean up" sick cells in your body before they actually cause you to become ill yourself, including even such things as cancer. What could be better than that? Keeping ahead of any disease before it ever takes hold of you is one of the easiest ways to stay healthy and keep your immune system functioning at optimal levels. You can do just this by activating your heat shock proteins.

Tags: infrared sauna and pain relief | infrared sauna and pain relief | infrared cabin | infrared cabin | Infrared sauna | sauna

del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Natural health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.