If you're going to use a sauna for detoxification

There are two important factors one needs to understand to get the most out of a sauna session for detoxification purposes.

Firstly, the idea is to sweat and anything that will encourage sweating will help remove impurities and toxins from the body. The best way to encourage sweating is via using a small boar's hair brush. You can pick these up at any major store. They come in soft, medium, and hard bristles. I would suggest getting all three types. If you can't find natural boar's hair, then get a brush with bristles made of synthetic fibers.

Once you've been in the sauna about five minutes and begin to see the sweat collecting on your body, then start with the soft brush. Brush your skin from your toes to your head. Pay special attention to the armpits. Scrub you scalp, too. If you have sensitive skin, take it easy at first and see how your body responds. Realize that a sauna is intended to be taken in the fully nude. This is a problem with public saunas in North America, as one's sexual regions must be clothed. If you have to wear a bathing suit in sauna, make sure it is of natural fibers and not synthetic, as synthetic fibers can create dermatitis.

Once you've scrubbed with the soft brush, move up to the medium brush, and then the hard brush. This will stimulate increased blood flow to the skin and encourage sweating. Again, take it slowly at first and see how your body responds. Always wash and rinse the brushes after your sauna session.

The second important thing to do to get the most out of sauna is to alternate between hot and cold. Let's explain some of the physiology behind this. When one sits in a sauna you create increased vasodilation (blood flow) to the largest organ of your body - that's your skin. The increased vasodilation will result in a redness to the skin. After you have been in the sauna about 15 minutes, then you want to get into cold water as soon as possible. Be it a cold spa, a cold lake, a roll in the snow, or into a cold shower.

It sounds scary but it is extremely pleasurable. I can't prove it, but I believe when the body goes from a state of extreme vasodilation to a state of extreme vasoconstriction (blood flow is restricted, this is what happens when you enter the cold water after sauna) that certain sensory receptors related to pleasure are set off. It makes sense, as your body sees the extreme heat of sauna as a dangerous environment, so it would seem that it would reward the body with pleasure, if it removed itself from this environment into an environment that would stabilize the vascular equilibrium. But this is just a theory.

Anyway, by entering a cold environment after the hot environment, something important happens. The sudden vasoconstriction in the superficial vessels sends blood rocketing back to the core of the body. But this is the thinner blood. The blood which is thicker contains the toxins you want to remove - And this stays in the skin.

The next step, then, is to re-enter sauna. As the thicker blood is still trapped in the superficial dermal tissues, once you start to sweat again; well, guess what, the toxins are going to be excreted with the sweat.

Alternating hot-cold, hot-cold, hot-cold, is the best way to use sauna for detoxification.

This article is not meant to provide medical advice. Speak with your doctor about using sauna for detoxification.

Thank you for reading this article. If even one person reads this and it helps them learn about true-sauna culture and helps them detoxify their body, then it would make me very happy.

Good luck to everyone.

Georg von Neumann