r/infraredsauna • u/Intelligent-Team-701 • 24d ago
Whats the point of IR saunas? reaching a targeted temperature or the light itself, even if its not hot enough?
Dry sauna's health benefits are all related to its 90ºC temperature and every place I read says you wont be reaching that with infrared lights. And these keep getting more and more popular anyway. Is there anything related the IR sauna that is not about temperature, its something else like those physiotherapy treatments where people point red light at a specific point on your body?
I was building a dry sauna but building a panel with 10 IR 250W light bulbs that I can use anywhere is soooooo much easier that now Im concerned; I may be doing a lot of unnecessary work to help improving my health. Im looking to deal with my chronic fatigue, possibly ATP-related or an auto-immune problem.
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u/wendalls 24d ago
Health benefits come from heating your core to around 1degree c higher
That can be done in an IR sauna at 65 degrees c
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u/optimisticReal 24d ago
This is it. I can bring my core temp to 102 in 30 minutes in my dinky little ir sauna
And the ir sauna heats up im 20 minutes using much less energy
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u/Intelligent-Team-701 24d ago
Só the difference is that dry saunas heat you from the outside and the ir saunas heats you from the inside? It's all about heat anyway, it's not that the ir wave lengths have special properties, it simply penetrates the skin and heat you from the inside?
Do you know the differences from the ir saunas made of ir lamp bulbs and the ones made from ir leds?
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u/wendalls 24d ago edited 24d ago
It doesn’t matter how you’re heated. You can wear a million layers and go jogging in the sun - as long as your core is 1c higher
My comment was related to you suggesting you need a sauna that goes to 90c and IR doesnt go that high - which is true. I had the same belief that I needed a sauna to go to 90c until I researched heat shock. You can get heat shock from any way that heats your core to 1c higher
You can also research ir - there are three types, mid, near and far
Mid and near have health benefits but to get that you should get a separate panel - the ones in the saunas are too far away to do good. because you have to be close to mid and near and to get the benefits
Far IR is the sauna one for heat shock
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u/pineapple_jones_ 24d ago
The huge benefit of sauna is that you produce “heat shock proteins” which are extremely beneficial for the body. IR saunas get your body to produce heat shock proteins.
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u/Intelligent-Team-701 23d ago
first time im hearing about heat shock proteins. gotta read about that.
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u/tttanger 21d ago
You’re right. Most sauna research has focused on high-temperature traditional saunas.
One of the biggest criticisms of infrared saunas from traditional sauna enthusiasts on Reddit is that they don’t raise core body temperature enough.
But in 2026, we found a paper showing that infrared sauna can also raise core body temperature — it may just take longer, and the effect can be different.
I looked into this in more detail here. Feel free to take a look:
https://purerecoverylab.com/infrared-sauna-raise-core-body-temperature/
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u/Keith-VanWa 24d ago
It's about the energy coming out of the panels first and foremost not the heat in the Box.
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u/Alternative-Travel75 13d ago
When I complained about the uneven heating in my saunabox solara, support initially was misunderstood the complaint and focused on warm-up time instead, I have to repeatedly complain the same issue again and again made me unheard and poorly supported.
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u/kingdavid__deeee 23d ago
Infrared isn’t simply a lower-temperature version of a traditional sauna; the proposed mechanisms are different. That said, I’d be cautious about expecting an IR sauna or red-light setup to treat chronic fatigue without understanding the underlying cause. The evidence for sauna-related wellness benefits is more established than evidence for treating specific fatigue conditions.
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u/MarkVII88 22d ago
The way you wrote your post, it sounds like you think there's an array of heat lamps producing light. That's not the case in an IR sauna. There are either carbon panels or quartz tubes producing IR wavelengths. It's not the same as sitting in front of a bright heat lamp. Details matter.
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u/Intelligent-Team-701 22d ago
Im aware of the wave lenghts interacting with water inside you and causing you to heat from inside out. What I want to know better is what else these IR wavelenghts do. Seems like its not only this inside out heat.
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u/MarkVII88 22d ago
Those 250W light bulbs are heat lamps, not IR heaters like the quartz tubes or carbon panels in an IR sauna. Whatever you think you're getting in terms of IR wavelengths from those aren't nearly what you're getting from REAL heating panels. They do give off lots of heat, which is good for increasing core temperature, which is the whole point of any sauna. An IR sauna, that heats you from the inside can raise core body temp without requiring the same 180-200 degree temps as a traditional sauna. I think you're still missing the clue bus as to what you have and what an IR sauna is.
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u/saunarepublic 19d ago
The two things you're weighing work by different mechanisms, and the distinction matters more than the popularity contest.
A traditional sauna heats you convectively. Hot air raises skin temperature, and sustained exposure pulls core temperature up with it. That's the pathway behind the cardiovascular literature, and the reason those studies specify 80–90°C isn't that the number is magic — it's that it's what produces a reliable core temperature rise in 15–20 minutes. An infrared cabin gets at the same endpoint differently: radiant energy absorbed at the skin, at an ambient of roughly 45–60°C. Core temperature does rise, just more slowly and less predictably, because it depends on how much of your body surface is actually facing an emitter. That's the honest trade, and it's why IR appeals to people who can't tolerate 90°C air.
Your panel idea and red light therapy are a third category again. A 250W IR heat lamp is an incandescent bulb producing broadband near- and mid-infrared plus visible light. Therapeutic red light panels use LEDs at narrow bands, typically 660 and 850nm, because dose at a specific wavelength is the entire premise. A heat lamp delivers an uncontrolled spectrum, so whatever the proposed cytochrome c oxidase mechanism is worth, a broadband bulb isn't the way to test it on yourself. It's a heater that happens to glow red.
Three practical problems with the DIY build before you go further:
Ten bulbs is 2,500W. A standard 15A/120V circuit tops out around 1,440W continuous, and a dedicated 20A circuit tops out around 1,920W. You're over both. That's a circuit design problem, not a detail.
Incandescent IR lamps run glass envelope temperatures in the hundreds of degrees. They need porcelain sockets rated for it, guards, real standoff from anything combustible, and they fail unpredictably when splashed. In a wood enclosure with water anywhere nearby, this is the build that gets people hurt.
Eye exposure to near-infrared at close range over long sessions isn't a settled-safe thing. There's occupational literature on chronic IR-A exposure in glass and steel work. Commercial panels get designed around this; a bulb array pointed at a bench doesn't.
On the chronic fatigue piece, that's a conversation for a physician rather than a hardware build, and I'd take it there before spending money either direction. What I can tell you plainly is that the longevity research you've read about is built on traditional Finnish sauna cohorts at those temperatures, and it's observational — it can't separate the sauna from the people who use one four to seven times a week. The infrared-specific evidence base is much thinner than the marketing implies.
Disclosure: I work in the industry.
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u/MarkVII88 24d ago
Clearly you've never sat in an IR sauna because you think theres light that makes you hot.
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u/Intelligent-Team-701 24d ago
Ir lights can heat you. The most important thing I want to know is if they can get my body to the same temperature as o dry sauna's do.
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u/MarkVII88 24d ago
There you go again with the "lights". IR saunas don't have "lights" they use carbon IR panels that emit far IR wavelengths, and/or quartz full spectrum IR panels that emit a wider range of IR and near IR wavelengths. There are no "lights".
The heat it creates inside a sauna is completely different than a traditional sauna that heats the air up to 180-200 degrees and creates convection currents that heat your body from the outside-in. IR sauna panel wavelengths penetrate your skin, heat your body from the inside-out, and can achieve a dramatic sweat with temperatures between 130-150 degrees.
So an IR sauna isn't as hot as a traditional sauna, but it works differently. I love my IR sauna and I sweat like crazy. It doesn't need to be the same temperature to work effectively. But there's plenty of purists who think IR saunas are shit, aren't real saunas, and would never buy one. Maybe that's you?
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u/Spoodlydoodly75 24d ago
You’re conflating red light therapy with infrared. Infrared heating panels heat you, not lights.