Traditional Saunas vs. Infrared Saunas

The word ‘sauna’ originates in ancient Finnish and refers to both a traditional Finnish bath and the bathhouse itself. The first saunas ever built were used as dwellings during winter time, and they were actually pits that had been dug in a slope in the ground. Pretty much like today’s traditional saunas, those saunas had a fireplace where people heated stones to a high temperature. When the stones were hot enough, they would throw water over them in order to produce steam, which would also give the sensation that the heat was increased. After a while, the temperature would be so high, that people would start taking off their clothes. The next step in the evolution of traditional saunas was represented by the metal woodstove, which featured a chimney. Those were also the times when the air temperature inside the sauna could reach as much as ninety degrees Celsius, although the average temperature was somewhere around seventy degrees.

The purpose of traditional saunas was, and still is that of releasing toxins and impurities from the body. But the Finns used it for a lot more than just that. They also regarded their saunas as places where they could clean their minds, refresh and rejuvenate their spirit, but also a place where they would prepare their dead for burial. Just like back in those old days, traditional saunas are still an important part of everyday life.

Saunas became available to people all over the world, once the Finns began migrating, and let all the other people in on their ‘little secret’. Their sauna traditions and the benefits that come with them were gradually introduced to other cultures, and they quickly developed into the highly popular saunas that we know today. Those traditional saunas evolved very much, going as far as the advent of the electric sauna stove, introduced somewhere around the 1950s, and the infrared saunas, whose popularity experienced a tremendous growth over the last decades.

Modern saunas are present in many physical education complexes today, as well as at private or public swimming pools. In today’s traditional saunas, the temperatures approach, or even exceed 100 C, which is completely intolerable. However, this is no longer a problem, because the level of humidity inside the saunas can now be controlled.

Since the steam generated by pouring water over the heated stoned created humidity that was sometimes hard to control, people thought of smarter ways of heating up the traditional saunas, and this is how the infrared saunas were born.

The infrared saunas feature a special type of heaters, which emit infrared radiant heat. Unlike traditional saunas, the infrared saunas make no use of steam, which they replace with infrared radiation, which heats the user of the sauna directly.

Infrared saunas are usually small wooden rooms, or wooden boxes, which contain several infrared heaters. If the environment this type of sauna is placed in is a warm one, it could be open air, with no change of the level to which the users are being heated. The traditional sauna atmosphere is created by the sauna box, while the therapy is actually provided by the infrared heaters.

Now you can have the benefits of traditional saunas or infrared saunas in the privacy of you own home, or anywhere else, by ordering such sauna boxes online.

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