Jumping in a sauna/hot bath has a heap of evidence-based benefits for health and recovery.

The heat stresses our body in a good way (kinda like exercise). Which our bodies love.

The benefits are based on research involving sauna use (for adults young and old) in:

• 🌡 Temperatures of 80-100˚C
• ⏰ 5-20 minute sessions
• 🗓 1-7 times per week,

But the more, the better (⬆️ frequency and duration = ⬆️ benefits).

It's been shown to help:

• 💜 Heart health – the way our cardio system reacts to heat (increased heart rate, blood flow, plasma volume and stroke volume) essentially mimics a cardio workout
• 🏄 Longevity – boosts heat shock proteins and a gene called FOXO3, which help protect our cells
• 🧘 Reduce stress – lowers cortisol
• 😃 Mood booster – pumps happy chemicals like endorphins and dynorphins (to help our bodies deal with the uncomfortability of it)
• 😴 Sleep (when done in the arvo/evening) – our bodies are still in cool-down mode even after we get out of the heat, which drops our body temp (needed for us to get off to sleep)
• 💪 Recovery (great straight after training) – increased blood flow gets the good stuff in and the bad stuff out + releases HGH 👇
• ⬆️ Increase Growth Hormone (HGH) – HGH helps muscle growth, tissue repair, bone strength and metabolism
  

More on Growth Hormone:

Regular heat exposure (multiple times a week) could double or triple your HGH levels.

But a study found a specific protocol to increase HGH levels by 16x !!

The protocol was 2 hours of deliberate exposure (30 min sauna, 5 min cool off, repeated 3 more times).

But the 16x results weren't replicated with frequent sauna use. So for these effects, you're probably only doing this every 7 to 10 days.

This could be great for dealing with an injury or recovering from a super high-intensity effort (e.g. once a week, the day after a game).

Other notes:

• 🔥 Dry sauna vs steam doesn't matter, it's all about the temp (80-100˚C)
• 💦 You're gonna sweat so hydrate (+ electrolytes) before, during and after
• 🛀 The research is on sauna use but you'll likely get a lot of the benefits from a hot bath (and to an extent, hot shower)
  

The minimum effective dose for the above benefits seems to be about 60 mins per week (in 3x 20 min sessions) at 80-100˚C.

But even once a week is better than nothing.