Far Infrared Sauna Benefits – 4 Reasons why you should Detox in a pleasant way

Enjoying the benefits of an infrared sauna!
Me trying to strike a pose for a selfie while melting under heat

You probably have heard of a normal sauna but what about an infrared sauna? While the end result seems very similar (a lot of sweating) the composition of the sweat is different and contains a lot more heavy metals which are removed from your body this way (~15% of your sweat is heavy metals/other toxins), instead of 1%. You basically sweat from the inside –> outside due to the infrared light heating the surface of your skin which makes it more effective at removing toxins stored in your body and at levels of heat more manageable consciously. For a more detailed explanation on the working part, Wikipedia is always there.

Here are some of the benefits, optimal usage guidelines and dangers of infrared saunas:

What are the benefits of far infrared sauna that made me want to try it?

1) Heavy metal detox and a way to remove BPA from the body, while my diet is very clean when I stay in a country over a few weeks and can find local sources of organic vegetables and meats, I still accumulate toxins from restaurant food, the air I breathe and just from days I did not eat a perfect meal. One of the greatest benefits of infrared sauna is that, as I mentioned above, it detoxifies your body of a lot of heavy metals and other toxic stuff. Also if you read my post on finding a plastic free electric kettle, I am very concerned with the dangers of BPA and how to remove BPA from the body (while traveling I drink a lot of water from plastic bottles). Infrared saunas, it turns out, probably is a great way to remove BPA since a pubmed study shows how BPA is found in human sweat. Finally, being in a cabin 30 minutes a day is pleasant to get some reading done. Just make sure to bring a good old paper book, as my phone and kindle seemed like they could overheat and I did not want to risk it.

2) Enhanced endurance/muscular performance. While not entirely a far infrared sauna benefit, I did read on Tim Ferris’ blog a guest post from Rhonda Perciavalle Patrick, Ph.D about how Saunas probably have been underestimated for a long time in how they can benefit performance. One of the coolest benefits is how as she mentions in another study “One study demonstrated that a 30-minute sauna session two times a week for three weeks POST-workout increased the time that it took for study participants to run until exhaustion by 32% compared to baseline.

Post workout is key here, as I tried it PRE WORKOUT a few times and I had a terrible gym performance, the same as the week before or worse, which is unusual since I’ve been using Tim Ferris’ Occam protocol to add on weight each week to all my exercises.

3) Far infrared sauna does help with weight loss not only due to calories burned (perhaps up to 800 calories per 30 minutes) but also due to the toxins removed from your body and fat cells. However this comes with a possible short term danger that I mention below for overweight people.

4) Possibly fights off cancer as you can see a better explanation of in the video below. Personally, I think just the fact that it detoxifies your body of heavy metal probably makes it prevent many cancers in the first place.

How to optimize your “FIS” experience for the most benefits

1) do your infrared sauna session AFTER a workout, for more benefits AND a great detox tool.

2) As for time length and heat, I personally pushed the unit I could test in Bangkok at the maximum of 66 Celsius/150 Fahrenheit starting at my third session, Dr Clement from the Hippocrates institute recommends a “FIS” session of 70-80 Celsius/160-180 degrees Fahrenheit, for 15-30 minutes. I would love to go higher but I definitely feel its still quite an experience so far in the last 5 minutes to hang in there. I can definitely see how this is not only a great detox but a great stress on the system (that will make you stronger, like conventional exercise).

I’ve done it both while eating a meal before and fasting, I did not see a difference in my well being (I was thinking maybe I would be completely drained and exhausted when doing it on an intermittent fasting day which means I did not eat in the last 12 hours at that point). Just in case anyone was wondering.

Portable far infrared sauna can be used in your homeFar Infrared saunas are portable and can be built in your home

Nowadays infrared saunas are affordable to anyone (under $100 if you google a way to make it yourself at home), as long as you have the room in your home. Sadly a (rare I guess…) disadvantage of being in my 20s and traveling the world is I do not have a “permanent” home so I usually go to clinics and get it done there. When I’m in a city like Bangkok where I can walk there, its no problem and I get a few sessions a week done with a solid 30 minute reading experience. I bring books in paperback, as I feel like my kindle or phone might burst into flames, but more seriously I worry on the lifespan of the conductors inside.

Some people have “near”/portable infrared saunas by using blankets they wear on their body and such, but I wont comment as I never used it.

Finally, there are a few obvious and less obvious infrared sauna dangers that I will mention:

  • Overheating (heat exhaustion and heat stroke)

Top 3 Lessons From Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind from Napoleon Hill

Grow Richfirstpart infograph

Grow Rich with peace of mind second part infographic

These are my notes from reading Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind from Napoleon HIll
which is definitely under appreciated compared to the popularity of his very successful “think and grow rich” classic. This book was written towards the end of his life which is great as you can see a lot of his reflections on his own life and the thinking of what makes someone happy (especially himself and many of the rich people he consulted at this point in his life), which is hard to entirely correlate with money past a certain point. Some research shows that past a certain income, something like $80,000 I believe, happiness barely goes up as income goes up, the law of diminishing returns kicks in very fast.

This is something I noticed within myself in 2013-2014 which were amazing years in online income but at some point I was thinking “so what?” considering I am not very interested in luxurious cars or homes (especially since I like to be a permanent traveler and I have not found a country to live in “permanently”). Do I really just want to hoard money for a “what if” scenario? Its not very fulfilling.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Autobiography – Total Recall. My notes on achieving big goals

These are my notes from reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Autobiography – Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story which is quite long at around 650 pages but is an amazing read showing life lessons from Arnold we can all use to make our life better, from setting big goals and dreaming big, taking care of our physical and mental health and finally how perceived weaknesses in our character can become massively beneficial!
Total Recall book inforgraphic

Arnold Schwarzenegger total recall book review and notesI read a lot and this I figured I will start putting my notes from these books that range in topics such as Finance, health, relationships & recently many biographies to remind myself of the up and downs of many of the great people of ages past. Biographies make great bedside stories too since they are not as dense in specific information as other non fiction books I read.

What I liked about reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s life story was how much more he was beyond the movie star I knew from my childhood. Some of his key achievements have been:

The importance of Vitamin K2 & why you need to eat fermented foods now!

What is vitamin K2 and Benefits HeadlineA lot of “westerners” have never heard of Vitamin K2 because this particular vitamin is rare in our diet since it comes from fermented foods which make it very rare in modern “western” diets. It is very important and one of the key nutrients behind bone health (calcium alone is not very good!) and more. It also plays an important role in many aspects of our overall health.

What is vitamin K2?

Like Vitamin B, which has different forms, Vitamin K has been found to have different forms as well. In the past, vitamin K1 and vitamin K2 were only considered as vitamin K but a dentist by the name Dr. Weston Price, found that non-industrial diets were high with a nutrient which he called “Activator X” which seemed to provide protection against tooth decay and chronic diseases.

This nutrient was later identified as Vitamin K2. Since then vitamin K has 2 main forms, K1 and K2. Our liver uses vitamin K1 to activate calcium-binding proteins involved in blood clotting. Vitamin K2 is being used to activate proteins that controls where calcium ends up in the body.

Vitamin K1(phylloquinone) is mainly found on plant based foods like anything that is leafy and green. Vitamin K2 (menaquinone) is mainly found on fermented and animal foods. Vitamin K2 has been divided into 2 types known as MK-4 and MK-7. MK-4 are found in animals that are purely grass fed based and MK-7 are found in fermented soybeans or certain types of cheese.

Vitamin K2 benefits

Vitamin K2 acts as an activator of nutrients such as vitamin A and D so that our body can actually take advantage of the benefits from them. It is also an activator of calcium so that our bones can absorb the calcium. It is also responsible for vibrant health and high resistance to degenerative diseases and aging. It might be a reason the Okinawa’s from Japan who often live above 100 years and can stay healthy and active. Fermented foods (like Natto) are very common there.

Bone Health

A study conducted to 244 healthy women, who are on postmenopausal stage, receiving a 3-year low dose menaquinon-7 supplementation has proven to help in preventing bone loss.

Another study conducted on 13 Japanese women using higher dosage have shown similar benefits. It was found that vitamin K2 reduced hip fractures by 77%, spinal fractures by 60%, and all non-spinal fractures by 81%.

 foods with vitamin k2 are important to prevent calcium buildupHeart Health

According to the studies (1,2), calcium build-up in the arteries around the heart contributes to a huge risk factor for heart related disease. On the other hand, this study shows that vitamin K2 helps prevent calcium from being deposited in the arteries around the heart.

  Dental Health

There is a study linking that vitamin K2 may help improve dental health. One main regulating protein in dental health is osteocalcin, which stimulates the growth of new dentin. Osteocalcin is a that protein critical to bone metabolism and is also being activated by vitamin K2.

Fights Cancer

Another clinical study conducted to about 11,000 men found that taking high dosage of vitamin K2 has lower the risk of advanced prostate cancer by 63%.

Sources of Vitamin K2

As mentioned above, vitamin K2 is mainly found on fermented and animal foods. Here’s a list of vitamin K2 foods that were measured by the USDA as foods high in vitamin K2 according to Chris Kresser.

 

  • Butter (Ideally from grass fed cows)

Eating Paleo in Bangkok + Finding cheap protein powder in Thailand

Eating paleo in BangkokI’ve been living in Thailand for around 6 months now and I really enjoy how easily accessible grass fed meats & organic vegetables are in Bangkok especially thanks to the resources I found and listed below. Its best if you have a kitchen so you can avoid the constant bombardment of rice and vegetable cooking oil with MSG and sugar (everywhere). I also list some places to buy protein powder onlinGrass fed Meats & organic vegetables are easy to find!e for cheap all over Thailand (because its massively overpriced in stores, double+ normal “western” prices).

Grass fed Meats & Organic vegetables in Bangkok (both with delivery to your home!)

 

Meat for Bangkok, I had a kitchen so I was ordering my grass fed meat and wild caught sockeye salmon (which is a type of salmon they cannot farm so you know its wild) wholesale from http://paleorobbie.com/mealplan/wholesale.php. If you do not have a kitchen, you can order pre made paleo meals from their main website, http://paleorobbie.com/en/ and at least avoid some of the rice, MSG and sugar in all the street food of Thailand.

Why Your Toothpaste is Important – Finding an SLS Free Toothpaste Without Fluoride

Finding an SLS Free Toothpaste Without FluorideToothpaste is something that was always an easy decision for me as I never gave it any thoughts. As I learned about some of the harmful chemicals in foods we commonly eat and many household products we take for granted I started looking more into toothpaste and how to find one that will keep my teeth white with minimal long term risk. I figured it’s a good long term decision, sure it took me some time to find a SLS free toothpaste that also does not contain fluoride but now the research is done and I will share some of my findings and share the toothpaste I’ll probably always use in the foreseeable future, it’s also not even more expensive than the ones you can find in stores.