Is Infrared Light the KEY to Longevity? Detox, Recovery, and Increased Energy with Sunlighten Saunas : 1223

Infrared sauna really does drive metal detox way more than hot, dry saunas.

Infrared removed more mercury, cadmium, lead compared to traditional. And exercise it 54% decreased hospitalization and death.

So it's like having a recipe for how to get the right sweat out of the body. When I get in my infrared sauna, I feel more energy. One of the things that infrared saunas do is they have the same cardiovascular effect as exercise. You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. Our guest today is Connie Zach, who for 25 years has been a leading voice in the infrared sauna movement. And she's got a lot of new research for us to talk about aging and five hallmarks of aging. In the world of biohacking, one of the primary things that we look at is temperature. There's cold and there's hot and the extremes. And you could say, well, let's, you know, get in liquid nitrogen or into a volcano. So maybe it's not the extremes. It turns out it's the dose, the frequency and the timing that gets you the most results. And we always knew there was something going on. And for that, just go to Scandinavia, like a few hundred years ago. We know getting hot is good for you, getting cold is good for you. But now that we have the ability to, with a lot of science, to manipulate exactly what's going into our body. And we can now, with AI and data, we can figure out, okay, what exactly is the right dose and how should I get into the body to get this result versus that result. So we're going to go through that with Connie and talk about the very specific details of infrared saunas. Connie, founder of Sunlighten, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Dave. Happy to be here. I always love coming to Austin.

Are you going to go get some barbecue before or after the show, or did you get some.

We have some recommendation that we're going to do. I'm not exactly sure the name of the restaurant, but we love our barbecue in Kansas City City. So we're kind of snobs a little bit with barbecue.

Those are fighting words.

I know. Sorry.

Gosh.

People are passionate in Kansas City about the barbecue. People actually are passionate about everything in Kansas City.

So one of the things I've noticed, and I do have a smoker in the backyard, is that if I eat smoked meat very often anyway, I tend to get inflammation. And it's because of heterocyclic amines and advanced glycation end products from getting those basically food toxins into the food. Delicious Flavorful food toxins. What does infrared do to get rid of toxins from eating barbecue?

Infrared is going to get those toxins out of your body. So we know for sure with lots of research that it's going to heat up your core temperature, you're going to sweat at the cellular level and you're going to pull out those horrible toxins that are stored in there. For example, there was a bus study that was done in Canada showing that infrared removed mercury, cadmium, lead, and in fact infrared compared to traditional and exercise removed more than exercise in traditional saunas in their sweat because they measured sweat, urine and blood. The really powerful thing while we're on the detoxification piece is really impressive is that there was 15% of the people who had no detectable levels of mercury in their urine. 100% of that 15% have high levels of mercury in their sweat. So it just shows you the A, the power of measuring sweat and B, the, the, the necessity to take time to sweat at the cellular level with infrared.

There's a really robust science out there that shows infrared sauna really does drive metal detox way more than the hot dry saunas. And I've also seen a lot of people saying, well, we have the most data on, on dry sauna at 167 degrees. And I'm actually like a nice dry sauna. I have no issue with that. Are you getting the same heat shock protein benefits from an infrared sauna that you're getting from a dry sauna?

You are. Yeah, we, we know there's actually Dr. Cole just talked about this recently as far as the heat acclimation study, that there's plenty of data including like a hot bath, which you're not getting that cellular level, you're not getting all the things you're getting with infrared, but you are getting the heat and it's activating heat shock proteins and you're still getting the same results as you would in really heated environment.

So a hot bath and a dry sauna kind of do the same thing for heat shock. But infrared sauna does detox and heat shock.

Correct.

So on a permanent basis you get a lot of extra benefits for doing infrared.

Correct. It's kind of like your book, you know, just taking that concept of being smarter versus having to be extreme and having to do something for long periods of time. You don't need to do that with infrared.

So my 14 hour, 167 degree heat sauna wasn't a good idea.

Well, it's a personal preference, by the.

Way, that's called sous vide. I don't think anyone should do that. That would be bad.

I like soupy.

It's one of the benefits of an infrared sauna is the auto turn on and shut off. Right. Because if you did pass out in a sauna, you want one that turns itself off automatically. Which is a good idea.

Yes, that is a good idea. It's something I don't think about that much as an advantage, but it absolutely is. Because when the. When the program's done or when the time is done, it. Yeah.

It turns off when it comes to something like blood pressure regulation.

Yeah.

Which is a big thing that happens when you're in an infrared sauna. What's the difference between doing infrared sauna and a super hot sauna? Does one work better for blood pressure than the other?

Yes. And there was a study done by umkc. It's been a while ago, but it was such a robust study. It was a placebo controlled, double blind randomized trial comparing two different types of heat. And they had the rsun lighten solo. And it was without the pad, which is extra impressive because after that we launched the solo pad, which also has four heaters in it.

Okay.

So it just. It just had the five heaters in the dome and then the other sauna and it was double blind, placebo controlled. Means that it looked like. Exactly. They looked exactly the same.

So one person got in a solo that worked, another one got in a.

Solo that had different heat source.

Okay, got it.

And the results were that the solo was the one that had stat sig and the stat 6 statistically significant results were extremely impressive on lowering blood pressure, and the other one did not. And I've also seen a lot of retro analysis data on cardiovascular, on blood pressure, on chf, on cad. And there is a difference between infrared and hot, like high heat.

So you see, okay, more detox and improvements in high blood pressure. More in infrared saunas than in just high temperature saunas.

Correct? Yeah. In Asia, they use infrared as the first line gold standard for chf, which.

Is congestive heart failure.

Congestive heart failure, Correct. Yeah. And there is also, while we're on the cardiovascular piece, there was a study done in, in Asia called the weigh on study, which stands for soothing warmth. And that was with 129 patients for five years, only 15 minutes a day. It's one of my favorite things about that because I think it just supports the fact that we don't need to do things forever in order to get results. And the Results of that summary, the study was that it 54% decreased hospitalization and death. So the people that didn't use infrared, you know, had more.

Wow.

They died more frequently and they were in the hospital than the people who used infrared.

Now, I really don't like to waste time. The sunlight and that I have downstairs has the LED emitters in it, which means, like, if. If I go back 25 years, we're going to go back in a little while and talk about the history of infrared. But the old ones used to have ceramic emitters, I think, and they took a very long time to get going. And this one, I sometimes just turn it on and go right in. And you feel warm within a minute because the light sources turn on instantly. In order to get those 15 minutes of benefits, do I have to wait until the inner temperature is 140 degrees, or is it mostly just the radiant heat? So I get in there right away.

You can get in right away. It's one of my favorite.

And you still get the benefits.

You still get the benefits you actually get. I'll go sciencey for a second. So the way specifically far infrared works well and mid infrared, but let's just stay with far infrared for a second. So that wavelength is the. It is the longest wavelength, and it absorbs into water molecules and your mitochondria. And in order for it to impact the body at the most effective level, it needs to be the coolest surface temperature. Not air temperature, but surface temperature of the heater. And when the heater is at its coolest temperature is when you just turn it on. So as soon as you activate it, you are having this really long. I always picture kind of this just beautiful ocean wave, but it's like, really, it's just like, just barely. Like, if you're out in the ocean and you have just a really, really smooth wave, it doesn't knock you. You just feel that you're interacting with the wave versus fighting and having friction with the wave, if that makes sense. And as it heats up, the wave gets shorter and choppier. So picture the ocean as like, with really, like, robust waves. And so when you're trying to jump them, it's hard for that wavelength to interact with the body.

That's for older ceramic emitters, though, with the new LEDs, isn't always the same waveform all the time, which is an advantage.

No, we're talking far infrared, so we're talking two different things. So. Sorry. So the LEDs. Yes, and so we have near infrared LEDs, and we have red light, which we can talk about separately. What I was referring to specifically was the far infrared, which is delivered by heat. And that wavelength does change as the surface temperature increases.

Okay, got it. So if you're listening to that going, that was a lot of science. It's not like heat is all the same. You can cook with a microwave or a steam oven or an air fryer, and they're totally different. And the bottom line is, how do you want to cook humans the best in order to get the most health benefits in the least amount of time? And I think you've been spending 25 years on that problem. What's changed since you started sunlight? And 25 years ago, just how's the industry shifted? How's the technology shifted?

Oh, my goodness, so much has changed. And I would love you to share because I love your story about, you know, your first infrared. And, like, I mean, when I think about that visual, I have such a visual of your story. I mean, that just takes me back to, you know, when we first started and the. The very first sauna actually had steel rods. Ceramic was an advancement a couple years later. So as far as your question, there's been so many, so I'll just highlight maybe a couple. Um, it's kind of. That's hard to do that. But probably the first one, the first one back in the basement when we were struggling to pay the bills and to pay for the saunas to ship, the first one we discovered was that quantity of infrared, specifically Farad back at that, back then in the basement matters. And the more that you can get into the body, the better benefit you're going to have. And not all infrared is the same, and not all heat is the same. So the breakthrough specifically was that we developed a heater that at that time, 95% of the heat was absorbed into the body. And that was unique and breakthrough, and we patented it. And that was our foundation for many years, until the next breakthrough, which was 2008, is when we started on the journey to understand the other parts of the infrared wavelength. And we work with Dr. Harry Whelan, and he introduced us to the concept of near infrared and mid infrared and how if you convert near infrared to LEDs, which he learned from NASA and he studied, then you can get some really transformational light benefits. So we started doing a deep dive, and then eventually, several years later, brought the first product on the market that had three separate independent wavelengths. We isolated each of them separately, and then we found science to connect each one to deliver optimal health benefits. So there were six different programs that we developed with the control panel that still exists today. We have added red light therapy as well to the two that now. So now we have. You have everything in one, in one tool. And then another breakthrough was the six programs, because a lot of times people want the easy button, right? They just. They want to be able to go in. They don't want to think. They just want to be able to go in, you know, and press a button and know that they're getting all of the benefits. So we brought six different programs, cardio detox, relaxation, pain relief, to market, and that was a massive breakthrough. So that's. Those are. Some of. We've. We've done a lot of, you know, trying to really understand the science and understand what people want and making sure to marry the two. Because it's not just about the science. If people don't care about it, and then it doesn't really matter.

It's really a what's in it for me kind of thing.

Exactly, exactly. And there's still a lot of people that use our very first. Not our very first sauna, because that was a ceramic. Well, steel first and then a ceramic. And then we were. A company in Taiwan reached out. I haven't shared this story in a long time, but this was in the basement, and this was really transformational. They sh. They reached out to us and said, you know, we've seen you guys online, and we would like to send you a. We call it now the Sunlight in Solo, which is a dome, two domes. That was the study that was done by umkc, and when they shipped it to us and we all used it, I had never experienced anything like it. I mean, it was completely different experience than the wooden cabins. The sweat was different, how I felt was different, the texture of my sweat, the change in circulation, everything was so different. And that was really a trajectory changing in the industry, because then we learned all about why was it different and what are we going to do about it and how are we going. Not everybody wants to lie down in two domes. So how do we take that understanding? How do we apply it to wooden cabins? And, you know, okay, so it's been a lot of happenings over the past.

25 years, Dave, because Connie's awesome. She's giving you $1,000 off if you want to get us on light. And you can use code.

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All sweat isn't the same. You'll see fitness influencers. Oh, just got to sweat it out because sweating is good for you. And that's sort of like saying all proteins the same. But it turns out that spider venom and a lot of plant toxins probably aren't the proteins you want. So specific wavelengths of light matter. If you're looking at red light, you say, well, I just got a Red tint that I put over my thing, it doesn't work. So there's very narrow wavelengths. And what you've done is go through for heat and identify the little narrow wavelengths of heat and how to use them to get different results. So it's like having a recipe for how to get the right sweat out of the body. And this is something that kind of drives me nuts. In biohacking, if something's good, more must be better. A sweat is good. But if your sweat has 5% of the heavy metals in it that it could have had, that's why it wasn't as good of a sweat. So the idea is, how do I sweat in a way that actually works versus just sweat? Because I heard sweating was good and I like sunlight and a lot. Because you've really gone into the science behind the different programs and you keep innovating, which is cool. I had to get a new one when I moved here to Austin because my old one was the model before. I'm like, I need the new stuff. What has LED done for the infrared saunas that you make at sunlight?

And LED was such a powerful tool because it takes the heat and converts it to light energy. And light energy, I mean, I could talk about this all day long because it's so powerful. And I know, you know, you have a deep understanding and as well. But having the light energy, the ability to deliver it to our body, like you said earlier, it right away, as soon as you get in, then the LEDs, the near infrared and the red light, when they're on, they immediately start working with your body. And so there is no waiting time. And the other thing I love about LEDs that is done for infrared is a shorter timeframe. So you don't have to be in there as long because it penetrates the skin. And so it works with your mitochondria in a different way than heat does. So that's another thing that's just really on a side note. It's great about infrared in general. What sunlight has done over the past 15 years, specifically because that's when we launched impulse, is we've combined the power of heat and a lower temperature and light. And it's really the only place where you can get both in one place. So LEDAS has made a significant impact on infrared in general, as well as providing people with the opportunity to have something that they didn't have before.

I am really impressed with LEDs now. Listeners know I hate LED lighting. And it's because when lighting designers use LED bulbs and now, in the US you're not allowed to sell incandescent bulbs. They made it. So there's about a 400 fine per bulb a company sells, except in a few special reptile cases or something. And this is ridiculous because LED lighting designers don't pay any attention to the therapeutic effects or the negative health effects of light. So the stuff that's in your home, in your workplace is bad for you. But I'm also a huge fan of LEDs, because light emitting diodes allow you to specifically say, I only want this tiny little slice of light. And there was no way to do this before, so now all of a sudden, we have scientific precision. So I only want this nanometer bandwidth, and you get it. And when you apply this to invisible light, like infrared, it means you can take slices of it. Now that's useful. I just don't like it when someone's giving me a really misshapen light from an LED light bulb that, well, you can still see. Yeah, but you're missing half the slices my body needed. So when you go into an LED sauna, you're getting LED technology, but you're not getting the downside of LED lighting. Same thing if you're using light therapy, like the red lights you have in it. Those red LEDs are good for you, but the LEDs that you're staring at all day long are bad for you. So some people will just say all LEDs are bad. And they get confused and just want to say, if you're using LEDs to make heat or therapeutic lights, it's different than trying to use them to see.

It is. And we have really dialed in, as you said. We, we know precisely the nanometers that we're delivering, you know, and, and near infrared. So while we're on this topic of LEDs, it can be really confusing to people because it's invisible. And so when they see the LEDs, they don't see anything. Right. And it's not heat, it's light. So it's really counterintuitive because while it's light, you're not seeing light because it's, it's invisible, but it's at the exact right frequency that is needed to go as deep as possible into the skin. So the near infrared LEDs are, the invisible ones, are extremely powerful for transformational, you know, wellbeing and to increase your longevity. So that's just a side note. Cause we get a lot of questions of how, you know, we've evolved over the years. We've put a. Another bulb in there so that people can see when it's on. Cause they're like, how do I know if it's on and working?

Those are the little blue LEDs. I hate blue LEDs.

We have to do that, too, so that people know. People will get so confused.

Make it red. Well, I'm. I'm just. I'm only kind of joking. So I use my sunlight at night, and blue light, even small amounts, mess with my eyes. So I will admit I opened up the fabric panels on my sunlight and I put a little bit of electrical tape over the single blue LED that tells me it's turned on. Because I'm just going to believe it's turned on. Because I trust you. Yes. But I didn't want those shining my eyes. Can we make those red, please?

I couldn't see what I can do.

You're like, damn it.

I'll put. I'll put. Putting an egg in my sauna and investigating the color of the on light to see if there's a reason. My answer is, I don't remember why that we chose blue, because blue's cool. But I'll investigate, okay? I promise I will do that.

So I bring this up because I actually do use my sunlight a lot, right? And it's something that I notice. And I was also just doing some research on the amount of lux or light exposure it takes to set off circadian rhythms and things like that. Because of TrueDark, my glasses brand, I'm like, what's the exact amount of tint that you need? So I'm a super nerd on this stuff. And I'll just say that I do use the sauna all the time. I also funded research years ago with Dr. Jerry Pollack up at the University of Washington, and he identified that the body will put water, the water that you drink, up against cell membranes made out of fats. And when it's exposed to infrared light, it changes the viscosity or the thickness of the water so that it's more useful for making ATP and essentially turns on biological processes. And I was interested because it drove me in. Just drove me crazy. Why? If I put butter in, what is now my danger? Coffee. I'm not with bulletproof anymore, but with coffee and butter, why do I have to blend it for it to feel good? I can't just eat a stick of butter and drink some coffee. It does not work. And just what the hell. It turns out it's the structuring of the water from the blending and the infrared light there is hot Water. But if you're getting infrared light into your cells, this is why infrared light therapy and infrared saunas, well, maybe it's not the only reason, but I believe it's why the detoxing is better and you get that better tissue flow. And it's not just blood flow, it's actually lymphatic flow and it's water that's between the cells, the extracellular water. So you see huge shifts if you're measuring this stuff with medical equipment in wellness and ATP formation. And a lot of this has to do with infrared. Not just making you let go of toxins, but actually making the water inside your cells work better. And this is sort of nerdy stuff, but I'm. That's why I think there's a good reason you should get in your sunlight.

Yeah. And so a practical. I have two things to say about. So something I think everybody will understand and relate to is when we talk about infrared versus the like hot high heats or what we call in the infrared space, traditional saunas is when you use a high heat sauna, most people will comment that they feel drained and that they at the end are just like, okay, I've got to get out. And infrared is the exact opposite where to your point, with the water changing, your energy is restored and you, it actually produces more energy. And so you have two completely different experiences. Kind of similar to also a day at the beach where a lot of times people, when they're outside all the time, they'll be at the end of the day like exhausted, where infrared is. If you were able to harness the sun like we have with infrared and you get in, you're actually going to feel more energetic and produce more ATP and feel like I always say, well, when I'm done, I'm like, I can now go do anything. It's like the perfect refresh tool for so many different reasons. But I wanted just to mention that the example of the practical things that everybody I'm sure has experienced at high heat sauna or being at the beach and how they felt afterwards. A lot of people maybe have not experienced infrared, so they don't know that feeling of increased energy yet. But I will say to tell the feeling, speaking of the beach, if you are like, so say you're at the beach and it's cloudy and all of a sudden the sun, you know, pops out of the clouds and you're just like, oh my God, that feels so good. You just want it to like stay like, like that. That's, that's the feeling of infrared. It's just that, that gentle, that feels so good feeling. And then the longer you stay in it, the more energy and the more that feeling, you know, perpetuates.

I saw the most ridiculous study ever. This was from some researchers that found out that sunlight, which contains infrared, obviously that it raised dopamine levels. And they said, therefore, sunlight's addictive, and we need to make sure people stay out of the sun because they might get addicted. And I'm like, these researchers. I wouldn't normally say this, but are these deranged individuals, like, oh, let's do things that lower dopamine in humans, which lowers testosterone, lowers happiness. What does infrared do for dopamine levels in humans?

It increases them. It absolutely increases your endorphins. You feel so much better. That was the number one when we surveyed. Oh, gosh, it probably was five years ago. Cause it was before COVID our database for a project. And the number one feedback that we got from everybody was, I feel great afterwards. So it's mood changing and it's hormone changing. And, you know, it. It helps with dopamine, it helps decrease cortisol. It helps with a lot of hormones in your body.

It's definitely good for de stressing. One thing that I do when I get in my infrared sauna is I will take activated charcoal before I get in, Because I know that it's not just the sweat in my skin that's dropping heavy metals, it's also toxins in the gut. And I notice that I feel even better the next day and right afterwards if I have a toxin binder present. So I turn on my sunlight and I get in and I take the charcoal either right before I walk in or even right after I get in and I take it with electrolytes. And that seems like the best combination of detoxing that I know how to do in that amount of time. When I'm done, I like to take some glutathione as well, which helps the body mop up any other toxins, because you're not just energizing the body, you're actually detoxing. So you might as well bind and upregulate detoxing so that you're getting the energy effects and you're getting the detox to the very maximum without any downside. Any other things you like to do before or after you get in your sunlighten?

Before? I always have hot water with lemon. There's lots of benefits of hot water with lemon. It kind of helps me get my body ready for my sauna experience when I am in there. I also do the electrolyte hack as well and I highly recommend that for sure. And then when I'm in there, I really focus on doing habit stacking and doing multiple things and just depends on what's going on in my life of which other habit that I'm stacking with with with infrared. But I very rarely anymore. I used to years ago just do that, but now I just, I strongly feel that I want to be efficient. I don't want to waste time. If I can stack it with two things, sometimes three, sometimes four, then I'm going to do that. So that's my biggest hack of that I do.

Personally, I do notice that when I get in my sunlighten and I use my phone, sometimes it overheats and I used to just get a little bit like, oh, that sucks. But now what I do is I'll go outside and I'll get in the cold plunge. I just put the phone in with me to cool it off. Right. And that means I'm ready and then I go back into the.

Oh, wow. That's a good tip.

This works pretty well and I've done it hundreds and hundreds of times until that one time when I. I was on. I was in Turkey and I didn't have an infrared sauna, so I used a hot sauna and then I did that and after that when I squeezed my phone, water came out and well, that was not good. But I've never had an issue with doing that and my sunlightened with literally hundreds of times. So for people, if you're worried and, and at least if your phone's waterproof, which most of them are today, if your phone gets too hot, just go do that. I've also taken an ice pack in with my phone when I was doing, you know.

Oh, wow, that's a good one. I like that.

Yeah, sometimes it's. If you're. Yes. I've done long phone calls and video conferences in my. So at that point you're going to have to do something about the phone to make it work.

Yeah, no, that's a really great tip. I've always wondered because there's been times where I'm on a roll, like creatively while I'm in there. And so I don't want to stop that role. So I just want to stay in there.

Right.

So I like, I like your. I've never brought cold in and I can't say that I've ever jumped into a cold plunge with my phone. So I. But the ice pack I would totally do. I think it's great.

One of my favorite things to do in my sunlight now too is I'll bring my phone so I can do chatgpt. And I'll do chatgpt. But what I'll just, I'll just ask it a bunch of weird biohacking questions and just do really deep thinking while I'm there. The whole body's relaxed and you got nothing else to do, so you can just be curious. And sometimes I have really good breakthroughs and just understanding something or just, just. Oh, a thought came in. Right. Let me just check in on that. And so it's become a very valuable creative time for me.

Yeah, me too. It's it. The data suggest. And that's something also. When I think back about the last 25 years, the question you two asked. So much of what I knew at the beginning in the basement was just. Was experiential, intuitive or people sharing. Right. It wasn't. We didn't really know why like your water was with pollock. Like that's, that's an actual science. I mean he studied that. So it, your. The water does change your sweat is, is different. And I noticed that, but I didn't understand why is this happening, you know, but you know, now we understand the science, we understand why so many things are happening, which is just. It's mind blowing to me.

The cool thing about the scientific method is that everyone's a scientist. If you know how to do it, it's you observe something that you make hypothesis and then you test it. And the observation could be when I get in my infrared sauna, I feel more energy. And then how would you test that hypothesis? Well, you would do it and see if you had more energy. Right, Done. And now you've done science and that's all you need. Now you can make another hypothesis that this is caused by heat shock, proteins or water structure or something like that. That's different science. But the first thing is science. And even if you never know why something works, you can determine that it works. And it always makes me laugh because there are some people who've I think, been a little bit brainwashed or gaslit by science or something where they're saying, well, I'm not going to do anything unless I know the mechanism of action exists. I'm like, you need a mechanism of action to try it. Even though we have studies that show it works. Right? Yeah. Okay. Your mechanism of action is leprechauns. Ah, that's not a good enough method.

Of it turns out you can do.

Something and know that it works using science without knowing why it works. And you can use science to believe that you know why it works. But even when you get it, well, Newtonian physics says this, like, dude, quantum physics underlies Newtonian physics. And Newtonian physics is just a model. It's not even a fully accurate model. So, you know, I just like results. I also love telling myself stories about mechanisms so that we understand more about the world. But I don't need to know the mechanism. If, if I do A, and I get B, maybe it's leprechauns. I can't see. I don't think that's likely. But I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna worry because it's important to get results. And as more and more science comes out, we can say, oh, now that we understand this, here's some other predictable things. So fear of trying something that works without knowing why stops a lot of people from feeling really good.

Yeah, no, I agree. That's such a great tip. I'm so glad you shared that on this podcast because we get asked so many questions and people really digging and digging and, you know, it's. It's really valuable to hear you, you know, talk about that fact that if I feel more creative, which I do, I feel more creative when I'm inside my sunlight and I, my, my brain is different when I'm inside my sunlight and then if I'm not. So I have researched a lot about the brain as you have, as you know as well. But I don't really, ultimately doesn't really matter. All I know is when I go in there, I like, I want to make sure that I have some. Either my phone or a notebook or some way to document everything that's going on in my brain. Because it, I know that once I leave, it'll stay there for a bit. But it's. I'm not as. I'm not as. My brain is not as high functioning outside the sauna as it is inside the sauna. So I'm so glad. Thank you so much for, for bringing that up.

Sure.

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One of the things that infrared saunas do is they have the same cardiovascular effect as exercise. So you see your heart rate go up and it's funny if you're wearing your levels, which I have on the back of my arm somewhere right here. Oh yeah, getting your blood sugar, your continuous glucose monitoring. What did I do, just eat a pop Tart? No, it's because you exercise. When you exercise, the body releases cortisol to create blood sugar, which raises your blood sugar, raises your cortisol, raises your heart rate. And that's funny, you're not on a treadmill or something, you're just sitting there. But you have the blood flow of exercise and more blood flow in the brain. As Daniel Amen and others will tell you, you, that's good for thinking, so it all makes sense. But maybe that's just our story of the mechanism of action. Because when you're in there, you're really, you know, mind melding with the galactic Pleiadian. Whatever, dude. I don't know. But I like my story better than the galactic one.

I like your story better too. So does your, does you, does your glucose. Because we get this question all the time. So another thing that I'm glad you brought up. Does your glass glucose spike when you go in sunlighten?

If your glucose doesn't spike when you get in your sunlighten, you probably have a problem with your ability to produce cortisol. It should spike. And when you exercise, your blood glucose should spike. It should go right back down because you're exercising. And it does for me. But if it doesn't do that, it means your body can make cortisol under demand. And this means you have adrenal dis dysfunction. So don't worry about it. If it goes up. And there are some people say, well, your blood sugar should always be under 85 if you wanna live forever. And that's nonsense. Healthy people can have their blood sugar go up briefly and come back down. So average glucose matters. And a large spike in glucose that sticks around after a meal, that's one thing. And that creates advanced glycation end products. Brief cortisol induced spikes from exercise or sauna are not something that you should worry about. If it spikes and stays up for six hours, you got a problem. But I've never seen sauna do that for anyone.

No. And that's not the feedback that we get. But we do get a lot of people that are like, whoa, why in the world this passive, this passive activity that I'm doing, you know, I'm not exercising. They don't really understand that it is, it's an exercise mimetic. Like, it does do the same benefits. And so their glucose spikes up and they just, they, they, they freak out. And it does go by, everybody says, like, you know, then it goes back down. But that's a very common. Especially now that a lot of people are wearing the monitors.

You know, we're just gaining more awareness of how our bodies work because we have more data. Isn't that amazing? Speaking of how the body works.

Yeah.

There are five major longevity actions of infrared saunas. Can you tell me what they are?

Yeah. So Dr. Hamblin helped us with this. Really understand the connection between longevity and aging and how infrared can help. And the first would be the mitochondria dysfunction. We spent at PLMI so much. I mean, literally, I don't think there was one speaker in two days that did not talk about the importance of mitochondrial health and having great mitochondrial function for the body. I mean, it was just. It was. It was every single talk. So infrared, you know, is like the energy that helps your mitochondria produce more energy. And so I kind of think of it. My visual in my head when it comes to mitochondria is infrared helps your bodies become energizer bunnies. So it helps to, like, make more engines. It helps to fuel the engines and give you as much energy as possible, which is really important for aging. So that's the first. Then there's cellular senescence. This is one of my favorite favorites. I'd love to hear your thoughts on zombie cells and, like, how you look at that, because I just think it's so fascinating when you think about how our cells, they regenerate and die off, and you have new ones that come in, but there's a lot of cells that if they're dysfunctional, they don't. They. They don't ever leave. And so especially what I think is so fascinating is the ones in the brain. A lot of times they'll cause, you know, mind fog and just the ability to, like, remember something because you have these. These guys just, you know, these senescent cells, zombie cells that are just hanging out. You know, my other. My. My. My visual is that you're on. You're in traffic, and all of a sudden, like, a car accident or whatever. And then, like, you're stuck. You need. You know, you're just like, oh, my gosh, is there, like, some helicopter or something that can, like, get us unstuck? And that's the value of infrared is it's a zombie slayer. And it just gets those guys like, let's go, let's move. Let's get out of here. You're done. And that's the power of infrared light and heat and how it helps with longevity because you need them out so that you can get new ones. Then cellular senescence, inflammation, which we've talked about. Infrared significantly helps with inflammation. We have a program designed for that that you don't have to even think about. You just press a button. And then there's gut health. So making sure that your gut is balanced. And infrared helps with detoxification. It helps with, you know, balance with the gut.

What could infrared saunas possibly do to help with a gut microbiome?

Like, you just Said helps with detoxification and decreasing inflammation.

Okay, there's something called lipopolysaccharides. These are inflammatory molecules made by bacteria in the gut that are a primary cause of inflammation and cognitive dysfunction. What does it do for those?

Well, through the decreasing inflammation, it's going to help remove them. Also, it helps to boost the immune system, which should aid in that as well as detoxifying, helping to improve the flow and getting everything moving, get the bad stuff out.

I notice that if I do a sauna and my gut's off, it does get better. Or if I just use infrared light directly over the gut, you see a pretty fast reduction in symptoms. So there's something going on in there. And I haven't seen a study, but there might be one about the change in the microbiome as a result of infrared light exposure. You see anything like that?

I haven't seen a study on the change in microbiome, but I know from so many people, they feel better, specifically as it relates to their gut after using a sunlight and sauna session.

All right, what's the fifth effect on longevity from infrared saunas?

Is that infrared helps with your stem cells. It really helps revitalize them and helps turn them over and activate them so that back to cellular senescence, back to the zombie cells. You want everything moving and you want when something. When your cells are dysfunctional, you want to help make them functional, and you want to help them regenerate, and you want to have the best new cells come in, the healthiest new cells.

And.

And infrared helps with both zombie cells as well as stem cells.

It makes a lot of sense because you're heating up the whole body, including the bone marrow, which is where stem cells live. And if they have more exclusions on water, they're probably going to be healthier. So there's a proposed mechanism of action.

Yes, yes. I think Dr. Hamblin also talks about the studies with infrared moving and transforming them from the bone marrow as well.

What does an infrared sauna do for your skin?

It helps with two ways. One is the far infrared detoxifies the body, so the skin feels better and glows. We say purify the body and the skin will follow. So it really rejuvenates and detoxifies the body from the inside out, and your skin looks healthier and more radiant. And then near infrared and red light penetrate the skin directly, and they have a significant impact on increasing collagen and elastin as well as the tissue repair on the skin. So if you have A wound or you have scar, you have issues with your skin, it's going to help accelerate cell turnover and make your skin look smoother and younger.

Okay, and are there specific studies on wrinkles or anything like that?

There's lots of studies on wrinkles with near infrared and far infrared. Directly applying it to the skin that it helps to reduce, you know, wrinkles and fine lines and really give to me the perfect combination for like the ideal looking skin is combining far infrared and near infrared together because you get the inside out as well as the outside in.

I can't say that I've done this, but it seems like a good idea to use like a clay mask or some sort of detoxing mask. Maybe not even just on the face, but just on the body. Because if you're sweating that much, you can probably bind the toxins on the surface.

Yeah, I've used, I've used. I have a hydrating mask. I have a green, green clay mask that I use. So, you know, my kids always tell me, you know, I look like, wicked because it's that color, it's Halloween. Yeah. But I love, you know, doing that. And that's another habit stack. Right. Like going in there and putting masks on or doing, know, dry brushing. I mean, there's so many different things you can do to aid in your, you know, flow of your body while you're also getting the energy into your body, into your mitochondria.

If you wanted to do the ultimate detox protocol in a sunlight and sauna, you can do anything you want while you're in there. You have any compounds, any other things you can paint yourself with, whatever, you can smoke, whatever, like the whole world. What would you do? The most extreme thing you can think of?

Well, I'm not an extreme person.

Yes, but you could imagine extreme.

I can't imagine. I would probably do as like the most intense binders. I would do a lot of jumping up and down, like a lot of like, increased flow, like a lot of cardiovascular activity while I was in there. I would probably do whatever I could to elevate my core temperature before so that like I am accelerated before I get in there.

I'm just thinking, what would I do?

Yeah, that's a better question to you. What would you do?

Here's a new idea for what you can do.

Extreme detoxification in an infrared sauna.

Yeah. All right. So I get in the sunlight and I haven't tried this, but I'm going to now, if you read smarter, not harder. There's blood flow Restriction bands. And these are things you put on your arms and your legs that slow blood flow but don't fully cut it off. And this makes small amounts of exercise have a much bigger effect. So you don't have to lift something heavy. You go lift something light, which is good if you're injured or you just want more results. So possibly doing that for a few minutes might be really beneficial. And I'd probably then get a grip strength trainer, because this is like a whole body release of things like bone, morphogenic protein. Lots of good things would happen while the body's in that state. And I think I would do rectal ozone therapy first.

Oh, wow.

Rectal ozone is profound for brain fog and activating mitochondria. Since you're going to be giving them all the exclusions on water from the infrared, you might as well have ozone present. And I have done rectal ozone before I go in to my son Leiden, and you'll definitely get some good detox effects from that.

Wow, that's a huge tip. But you've never done it while you're. Can you do it? Can you physically do it while you're inside the sunlight and do the rectal ozone?

You could, but it only takes, like, one minute to get the ozone into your butt.

So you don't need to do it while you're in there.

Yeah, just do it before.

Right before you go in.

Yeah. And then.

And you noticed a difference?

Oh, yeah. And people who do rectal ozone for the first time are like, did I just have coffee? Like, my brain turned on in a new way because it. It tells the mitochondria to upregulate their own production of antioxidants. So if you were to do that and hop in, I think you get a lot more benefits, which is why I have done that before, but I've never tried it. In combination with grip strength and blood flow restriction. But I'm down.

Yeah, I think you should do that. Grip strength is on my list, so I want to tackle that, but I haven't done that yet.

You know what's crazy? If you do a DNA methylation longevity clock test, like True Age, and those guys have been on the show, they can predict from your DNA methylation what your grip strength is, and it's like 90% accurate. And they can also predict your gait speed, and that's how fast you walk.

Right.

So in the world of longevity, there's expensive tests, but the stronger your grip and the faster you walk just naturally, the younger you are biologically and now they can show this. So you might as well train your grip strength. Who knows? I don't know that there's any evidence that says training your grip makes you younger. I think it's if you naturally have a stronger grip. But I have an 18 year old's grip strength last time I checked. Not because I do a lot of grip strength training, I haven't done it in at least a year, but just because when your mitochondria work and your muscles work and your nervous system works, that's a side effect. And I'm constantly annoyed at the airport by all these people who I'm like, are you asleep? So I'm like, maybe those are the zombie cells just shambling through the airport.

Get in your sunlight and sauna. Get those zombie cells out, Dave.

Like, I do not want to be in this airport for more than one minute. Let me get out of here.

It would be interesting to see you do grip strength inside the sauna and outside the sauna and see the difference based on the impact of the heat and light on your mitochondria.

So it makes a lot of sense that if you're already mimicking exercise in the sauna, that if you do additional exercise on top of it, you're going to get a stronger stimulus. As long as you recover afterwards. I think it would work better. But someone out there is going to do this and probably like start a billion dollar company. Send me a cup of coffee when you're done, Connie.

It's a great idea.

Thanks for all your work with sunlight and, and I've been using your saunas for 10 plus years now. I don't know how many hours that is, but a lot. And it's part of my biohacking routine. So I genuinely appreciate your contributions and the fact that they get better and better. And I have to say, the new model that you sent me, I guess new two years ago with the LED emitters, it is, it's a game changer. It's so much faster and you feel the difference right away. And my final question for you is, okay, there's a bunch of programs in there and I wrote a custom program and it's called Dave and I just like turn everything on and leave it on the entire time I'm in here. Is there any downside to doing that?

No, I love that. I love that you did that. I mean, I think it's awesome. That's what you bring up is such an important part of, and I'm sure you feel the same way of like bio individuality, right? Of like, everybody is unique and different and how you are going to respond to one of the programs is going to be different than how I would respond. And so creating your own, you know, for your own personal experience probably secures the fact that you're going to do it more often because you enjoy that experience. So I think it's great.

You can go to sunlighten.com, use code Dave and get $1,000 off. There's really good longevity research on this and there's really good detox research on this, and it's a biohacking tool. If you have a lot of space, the Solo bundle works. See you next time on the Human Human Upgrade Podcast.

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