#14 Sauna Use and Building Resilience to Stress with Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Posted on
January 3rd 2016
(over 9 years)
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This episode is a presentation Dr. Rhonda Patrick delivered at the Biohacker Summit in Helsinki, Finland in 2016.
In this episode, Rhonda discusses...
- How heat stress, particularly from sauna use, makes the body more resilient to biological stress.
- How cellular stress creates what we call aging.
- The potential healthspan boosting effects of sauna use and how one study associated sauna use with up to a 40% lower all-cause mortality as well as a 50% lower cardiovascular disease related mortality.
- How sauna use has been shown to enhance athletic endurance in humans, stave off muscle atrophy, and improve the regrowth of muscle after disuse in animals.
- The potential for brain benefits, including the growth of new brain cells, improvements in focus, learning, and memory, and even potentially ameliorating depression and anxiety.
- How endocrine disrupting chemicals, such as BPA, PCBs, phthalates, and also metals are excreted through sweat. - Practical details like temperature and duration of sauna use, the difference between a dry, wet and infrared sauna, sauna timing, as well as other forms of heat stress such as steam showers, hot baths, and hot yoga.
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- Hours of deep dive on topics like fasting, sauna, child development surfaced from our enormous collection of members-only Q&A episodes.
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Heat stress News
- Regular infrared sauna use increases blood vessel density in aged muscles by 33%, though muscle size, strength, and protein synthesis remain unchanged.
- Post-exercise hot tubs and saunas show minimal, inconsistent benefits in exercise performance enhancement, despite potential physiological effects.
- Warming muscles prior to high-intensity exercise boosts power and performance by 11%, suggests a small study on cyclists.
- Resistance Training in the Heat: Mechanisms of Hypertrophy and Performance Enhancement
- Female sex hormone influences Alzheimer's pathology in mice, with implications for prevention and treatment.