well if you're comfortable Sharon I would love to get into details about your specific sauna protocol that you've adapted in your life how often do you use the sauna uh what temperature what humidity um you know how long do you stay in there so let's get into some of those details and I I'll preface this by saying this is not medical advice anyone that is considering using the sauna good idea to check it out with your medical professional first in case you have a health condition that may make SAA use dangerous but um with that said yeah let's hear about what what you've uh uh incorporated into your life sure well let's start with the studies um and the data that I referred to and and what the temperature duration Etc I talked a lot about frequency four to seven times a week but I didn't talk much about temperature or how long people were in the sauna so in almost all of those studies the temperature of the sauna um these were these were saunas in Finland and and they were 174 Dees fhe around um and the humidity was between between uh 10 to 20% humidity I think something like that and so um what was very interesting to me when I was looking at the data coming out of Dr Yari lacan's lab is that dur duration in the sauna seemed to matter with respect to robustness of um of the results so I mentioned for example you know people that use the sauna four to seven times a week were 50% less likely to to die from like you know cardiovascular disease related death well that number was referring to people that stayed in the sauna greater than 19 minutes so this was about 20 minutes so 20 minutes is this is is The Sweet Spot at about 174 degree Fahrenheit you know humidity 10 to 20% um people that sat in the sauna for like 11 minutes on average their their reduction in cardiovascular disease related um death from cardiovascular disease was like 8% 8% versus 50% big difference there so um duration definitely matters uh with respect to the sauna so that's kind of where I started out with my my sort of okay what am I what am I going to do and then I also mentioned earlier about heat chock proteins I'm also very interested in activating my heat shock proteins um and so the the 163 degree Fahrenheit for 30 minutes activated them by 50% over Baseline levels and so um typically what I do my protocol is I do um typically when I go for my long runs I don't I don't do sauna after but I'll but um I do do a Jacuzzi at night so um when I'm doing my pelaton bike I do a lot of high-intensity interval training you know uh pelaton and I crank the the sauna up you know about an hour an hour and a half before I'm going to get on that pelaton and I get on the pellaton and then I go into the sauna immediately after and I'm I'm in the sauna for the sauna is typically around 186 degrees Fahrenheit for me when I get in there and I stay in there anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes depending on um Pro mostly depending on how intense my workout was because I'm already elevated my core body temperature from my my high-intensity workout um and then there are times when I don't work out I just get in this on I end up staying there longer for sure I'm in there for 30 minutes about 186 Fahrenheit but I'm heat adapted like I I can't tell you like when I first started doing this I certainly um did not start out doing that uh so so um definitely uh keep that in mind I also like to to put hot water so I have um I have my little bucket and um I do I do put some hot water on the rocks my hygrometer like broke um when I when I was measuring it uh I was getting about 20 to 30% humidity and then once I got 30% I was like I couldn't handle it so I went back down to 10 to 20% humidity because it just feels so hot so uh that's typically those are my settings that I do and um I like it frequency how how often I do it it really depends on what I have going on so there are times when I'm like you know I'm doing it five days a week um but then there's other times when I'm like twice a week you know so um I I do try to my my my you know my Baseline I try to keep is four I try to do about four times a week but I have been um doing a lot of jacuzzi so I've been doing jacuzzi at nighttime um it's it's like the only time my husband and I have to ourselves um you know once once our son goes to bed and and so we like to go out in the jacuzzi look at the stars and it's very relaxing and time spent together but um our jacuzzi is about4 degrees Fahrenheit and there have been a lot of people have asked me you know can you get the same benefits from the sauna as you do from a hot path and we don't have all the empirical evidence to say that yes for sure but we have quite a bit that seems to be accumulating so a lot of the you know heat Shack proteins have been shown to be elevated with hot bath brain Drive neurotrophic factors increased with hot baths um there's been some effects on um depression as well and cardiovascular health and so you know I I I might be going out on a limb here but I would say I really think that hot baths and jacuzzi um can have a similar effect now staying in there staying in the jacuzzi for 20 minutes with your shoulders submerged down is kind of key and some of the hot bath studies were the same the hot bath studies used 104 degree Fahrenheit water and they were people were submerged from from their shoulders down as well but that's kind of my protocol that I that I follow so you're typically using it to extend your workout you're getting your heart rate up on the bike or or going for a run and then your heart rate remains elevated once you get into the sauna I do yeah that is that's that's kind of my jam I do but there are times when I I I get in there without without working out but like yeah that's some you know sometimes it's like okay if I'm going to get in the sauna for 20 to 30 minutes like I can I can hop on my pelaton and just push it for 10 minutes do a 10-minute high-intensity workout um and and just and take you know so basically what I'm doing is I'm taking my workout to the next level you know that's that's what I feel like the sauna is doing where it's like all right I did my workout and boom I'm gonna go to the next level so um and I always go back to that cardiio respiratory Fitness study where it's like better you know better better than exercise alone yep and you mentioned the hot bath could potentially be a replacement for the sauna how about just a long long extended hot shower for people that don't have a bath yeah that's interesting question you do I mean you get a lot of steam from showers as well so um you know I do think steam showers um can have some beneficial effects I don't think it's going to be nearly anywhere near like the the data that I mentioned you know just because you're just not getting as hot when you're taking a hot shower like even like when you're in a hot bath like you can get really hot um just not getting quite as hot with with a hot shower but I do think there can be some some some benefits perhaps um I I would I would tend to go for the hot bath though if you have most people do have a bathtub I know not everyone does uh but if you do have a bathtub I would go for the hot bath over the hot shower got it and how about hydration how do you what's your kind of hydration protocol before and after the sauna yeah that's a good point um you know you do lose a lot of sweat in the sauna and um with sweat you also can lose a lot of sodium uh and sodium is the main one but you can also lose you know some other electrolytes like magnesium potassium so um I definitely try I definitely stay hydrated and I I switch between um sometimes I'll have like a green a green juice that I make um with like some kale a little bit of lemon um some cucumber um or so you know I'm getting some of the magnesium and pottassium and stuff or I'll do um the noon the electrolyte supplement noon they have like a a sugar-free version of it or sometimes I do um some keto it's a it's a ketone salt and it's called keto start and um it has a lot of it has like magnesium it has potassium it has a lot of electrolytes in it and so I I'll I'll use that in fact I'm drinking that right now um but so that's that's typically what I do cool after after the sauna not before got it and speaking of after the sauna I know this is a whole another discussion but um cold therapy you know do you ever get in the cold shower or do a cold plunge jump in a frozen lake after the sauna definitely don't jump on a frozen lake um unless I'm visiting another country like Finland um but uh yeah I do so um I I do have a cold plunge and I also do like cold showers as well I don't do it as frequently as I should um you know there's a lot of benefits to to the cold as well and and in fact a lot of these cultures that we talked about earlier like Finland and Russia like they they a large percentage of them go from hot and then into cold um I don't go immediately into it um I because when you're when you're under when you're in this in the heat in this like a sauna or a hot bath vasod dilation is occurring um you're increasing your blood flow um you know you're you're you're getting Vaso dilation and then the complete opposite happen happens when you go into a cold plunge or cold water cold water immersion to in some shape or form you're you're getting Vaso constriction is happening and so um I've had I've had some scary incidents where going from one extreme directly into the other without waiting like five minutes or a few minutes you know where my blood pressure or something just goes really low and I just like I get super dizzy and it's a little scary so so um I I do think that EX in caution when going from extremes like that uh is important uh so but I do especially in the summertime I like to to run run out into the the cold plunge like you know a couple minutes after I do the sauna after I like rest for a few minutes two to five minutes you mentioned that you're really well heat adapted to the sauna because of all your regular use um for someone that's kind of building their heat tolerance up is there a way that they can kind of tell how long is too long in the sauna are there any kind of signs they should be looking for Like O I should probably take a break and not push it yeah I think you know your heart starts to really your heart rate starts to get elevated and you know you you definitely want to to push past that point um once you're heat adapted but you know and you start to feel uncomfortable but you reach a point where your heart's going really fast and you just feel you just feel really really uncomfortable and I think that's that's that's the time I usually like to get out I think people people should definitely listen to their bodies I mean getting out when you just experienc most slight bit of uncomfortableness maybe not the way to go but like you know when you're in there you know like you're feeling like this is I've I've I'm getting really hot and again like once you hit the 20 minute Mark that's really all that's needed you know 20 minutes 174 degree Fahrenheit um that's what all these Studies have shown have been beneficial for reducing cardiovascular disease mortality and all cause mortality and Alzheimer's and Dementia at risk so so that's I think a pretty good rule of thumb as well you know 20 minutes and you can also have a timer outside of your sauna I used to do that I used to have a timer clock and it's like okay I reached my time um so so that's also another option