The Sauna and Russian Roulette

One of my favorite things to do after a hard workout at the gym is to sit in the wet sauna for 10-15 minutes. The warm steam seems to just melt away all my aches and pains. I usually follow this by walking around the indoor pool 4 or 5 times to cool off before showering.

The other day, as I was cooling off after coming out of the sauna, I saw someone do something that brought the game of Russian Roulette to mind – something anyone over 50 should keep in mind.

What I saw was a guy about my age (50+) come out of the wet sauna sweating profusely and immediately go jump into the cold pool. His head broke the surface, he shook it once or twice, and said, “Man, that felt great!” My thought was, “Man, what a dumb thing to do!” Here’s why.

First of all, my field of study in college was engineering so I tend to think of everything in terms of pipes, connections, and mechanical systems – including the human body. When you sit in a wet (or dry) sauna, your body reacts to the elevated temperature by trying to keep itself cool. The first indication of this, of course, is that you begin to sweat.

In a dry environment like a dry sauna, the sweat on the surface of your skin evaporates removing heat from the skin and helping to keep it cool. In an effort to remove heat that is beginning to build up in your body’s core, your blood vessels dilate (expand) in order to get more blood moving near the surface of the skin so that the heat it’s carrying it can be removed through evaporation. This movement of blood near the surface of the skin is what makes people appear flushed or red-faced when they get too hot.

Now, since your blood vessels have dilated, your blood pressure drops. In order to maintain your blood pressure more or less constant, your heart rate increases. And that’s the condition of most of us sitting in a sauna: sweating pouring out of us, face flushed, heart rate elevated, and feeling very relaxed due to the increased blood flow.

OK, here’s where things can get dangerous, especially if you’re over 50, and why I thought what my friend did was like playing Russian Roulette. If you begin to cool the body down too fast, like jumping into a pool for example, the dilated blood vessels that are near the surface of the skin begin to contract very rapidly.

Since your heart rate is already elevated, constricting the blood vessels sends your blood pressure through the roof. This is like putting a kink in a garden hose when you’re watering the lawn. Actually, this is what gives you that invigorating jolt. However, if you have a weak spot anywhere in your circulatory system or if you’re over 50 and your blood vessels aren’t as pliable and elastic as they used to be, you risk rupturing a blood vessel. If that blood vessel happens to be in your brain, well, you get the picture.

So how can you enjoy a sauna without playing Russian Roulette at the same time? Here are a couple of tips:

1. Drink plenty of water before you enter the sauna. Many people risk dehydration by not drinking enough water or by trying to stay in the sauna too long.

2. Bring a water bottle in with you and use as needed. Take frequent drinks in addition to pouring some of the water over your head or onto your face if you get too hot.

3. Spend no more than 10-15 minutes in the sauna. This is a rule of thumb only but use some common sense. Spending too much time in a sauna doesn’t really do you any good health-wise and can quickly drive your body into heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke.

4. If you begin to feel light headed or faint, get out or ask for help immediately. It goes without saying that you should never use a sauna alone.

5. Never sleep or nap in a sauna. I know it’s really relaxing in there but if you fall asleep, you might wake up knocking on the Pearly Gates. Your sleeping body can go from relaxed to overheated to heat stroke to a coma before you know it.

6. Cool down slowly. After reading this post, it should be obvious why. You need to give your heart a chance to slow back down and your blood pressure to return to normal.

In my opinion, there’s nothing that feels better than a good steam bath after a hard workout. These tips should ensure that you enjoy using the sauna – without the Russian Roulette.

Hiram

The Balanced Health Guy

Technorati Tags: russian roulette, sauna, heart rate, blood flow, blood pressure, steam room, cool down, health

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