A far infrared sauna can offer several health benefits, but must be carefully evaluated. This guide provides an understanding of far infrared radiation, along with the benefits (pros) and disadvantages (cons) of owning a far infrared sauna.
As with any health related topic, its critical to work with a trusted health care provider to determine if a far infrared sauna is right for you.
Understanding Far Infrared Radiation
The wavelength spectrum starts with cosmic rays and goes on to:
- X-rays.
- UV rays.
- The weaker visible waves like visible light.
- The even weaker infrared waves like far infrared.
- And microwaves and radio waves that are even weaker.
Infrared is not that powerful of a wavelength. Infrared waves are few and far between, and they also come at you slower. Compare this to an X-ray where the waves hit you really fast. If you increase the power of the infrared rays, the same number of waves are still hitting you. It’s still not hitting you with that many waves, but the amplitude of the wave is increasing. And that’s how these IR waves penetrate through your skin.
To understand far infrared radiation, recall that there’s visible light and then the weaker near-infrared rays. Weaker still is the far infrared spectrum. Lastly, there are microwaves, radio waves and even weaker waves. So FIR is a far weaker type of radiation.
There is a paper called Far infrared (FIR) radiation, it’s biological effects and medical applications. It concludes that far infrared radiation has become safe, effective and widely used to generate therapeutic effects.
Far Infrared and Water in the Human Body
Far infrared rays are even weaker than near-infrared. Now we’re finally ready to touch on why far infrared saunas are becoming more and more popular. It turns out that the far infrared spectrum is filled with many health benefits. And many of these health benefits stem from how the far infrared rays stimulate water molecules.
Far infrared energy is absorbed by the vibrational bonds in molecules. There is a high concentration of water in biological systems. One such system, the human body, is quite sensitive to the impact that far infrared rays have on water. This also means it’s having an effect on the molecules of water throughout the human body. FIR is charging the water in our bodies in a way that’s beneficial for our health.
