I’ll admit that I have turned more and more into a “hippy” since moving to Boulder 11 years ago. My parents valued eating well and being active when my brother and I were growing up and I guess I’ve been building on this for some time now. My newest “hippie” secret is the sauna. The sauna is not very popular in the United States yet seems to be standard practice in many European countries. Regular use of saunas has been proven to have many health benefits. Saunas induce perspiration, which helps in ridding the body of toxins.  This must be the reason for my youthful skin, oh wait, I’m 29, I should still have youthful skin anyways right? Saunas also increase circulation and raise body temperature, inducing an artificial fever and stimulating production of disease fighting white blood cells. Whenever, I feel like I’m coming down with a cold I jump in the sauna to try and fight it off and have often won the fight against the germs by doing this. Studies also show that use of saunas help to relieve muscle tension by speeding up the disposal of by-products that are produced during exercise. I’m not a scientist so I can’t explain any  of this but I know my muscles really loosen up after using the sauna and I often am left less sore the next day. There are claims that the sitting in the sauna for 15 minutes burns as many calories as running 3 miles. I’m not sure about this one but I do get the same sense of well being after sitting in the sauna as a do after running.

So either give the sauna a try or make fun of me for my odd ways, I can take it. Be sure to drink lots of water during and after using the sauna. And, don’t try to win in the sauna like I do until you are used to it. I’ve been known to try and beat other sauna users, even if they come in 15 minutes after me. I think my record is just over 30 minutes…I thought I might not be able to drive home afterwards and felt like this guy, but I won… 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Athlete Blog, Sara Tarkington. 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.