A good sauna session feels simple from the outside. Sit, heat, sweat, leave. Underneath that simplicity, the body is coordinating circulation, temperature regulation, cardiovascular effort, and nervous-system recovery.
hello this is Dr mcole and today we're here to talk about a topic that many people in natural medicine are aware of and personally use and that's uh saunas uh and here today joining me to elaborate on this topic is Steve Benda who is a some has training in uh Power sourcing Power Systems not power sourcing Power Systems and nuclear engineering so Steve welcome to uh our studio and thank you for joining us thanks and I'm wondering if you can tell our viewers how you first became interested in this topic and how your journey was that led you to the position you are now well the the SAS in the uh that my Heritage I'm a Finnish and German background and it seems like every finished home has a sauna in it in in some degree and and R so just about everyone everyone I I think it's very interesting the tradition is that the SAA gets built often times before the home and in in light of that we've uh I've been raised with SAS since I was a small child and were you born in Finland I was no I wasn't I was my mother was uh uh from a Finnish uh Heritage and her mom and dad were directly from Finland okay and so the sounds were always in my family and and they became part of our life and so that I guess spawned an early interest and now with the Advent of some of the newer technology like the infrared SAS or the traditional type SAS where they'll electrical energy provides the heating mechanism uh these become more and more available to the common user in their homes could you expand on the use of saunas historically obviously you mentioned it was it's common in Finland in my experience common in many Eastern European European countries and many Asian countries and uh how far back does it go and do you have any um perspective on you know when it
started and then how it became widely adopted within the culture well I I can't speak as an expert for when the days were of the early days but but uh the some of the old Finnish Sounders were building fires under piles of rocks and then inside of a room that was very smoky and then the people would come into those rooms and throw water on that pile of rocks and and get the steam he eat in the room and sweat and sweating was a mechanism that uh I would say is very common attribute of SAS it evolved into into contained wood stoves where the wood stove would heat the pile of rocks and and more of a contained smoke being that they have chimneys um and then the same water on the Rock sit in the room and experience a sweaty very warm environment uh and that evolved into um electrical SAS which which are more traditional now where the electric heating elements will heat the rocks in a small stove and very typically found in basement or little recck centers in homes and uh lots of clinics and they again the same thing heat throw water on the rocks and and the the bther will experience the uh the warm Heats of the Steam and the and their body will sweat and I say profusely but what a great experience and that then has led to more recent years and probably 10 or 15 years ago uh the evolution of the infrared SAA which is a a different kind of heating mechanism that that relies on the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to provide heat and radiation uh radiant heat so it was it's really an important innovation and and evolution of the technology because certainly mean the basic goal is
to generate heat and you can generate heat from burning wood but the problem with burning wood in confined space of course is that there's toxic byproducts like carbon monoxide and smoke which are not very good for your health the sweating C may be but certainly the toxic byproducts are not so it's nice to have an alternative strategy and and certainly using the Rocks as a way to capture and store that energy and then transfer it certainly useful so basically we have evolved now to the point where you have two safe ways to heat the internal environment of the sauna which would be the traditional more is that classically called the Finish sauna I I would call it finish I I would traditional finish which would be the electrical heat yes okay it's electrical heat and then we have the newer uh more 21st century versions which would be the infrared Sona so I'm wonder if you can discuss the traditional saas First maybe the type of heating elements they're doing and then the difference between the wet and the dry then we can go and discuss the infrared absolutely the traditional which is very typical found it's not a very big stove but it has uh radiant heat Elements which are resistive elements that will heat when current flows through um that they'll heat heat up under the Rocks will become warm from that uh the room will be regulated by a therm thermostat um and that the bather will go in and and initially the room will f dry and warm um comfortably warm and you'll throw water on the Rocks which will then release an explosion I'll call it a fun explosion of of Steam Heat uh where where that instant that moment when it goes from dry to to more of a humid environment thousands of pores are popping at the same time on your body and it feels really really nice as your sweat mechanisms turn on um and that that's a traditional sauna uh that that we throw water on the Rocks we get the Steam Heat in the room and we experience
a lot of sweating that would be considered a wet sa that be considered a wet SAA and what what typically happens is you'll you'll go in take take a few ladles of of water on the rocks and experience the steam blast and enjoy the the warm sweaty heat and then maybe go into a cool down mode after that in the changing room and then probably shower and I I'll say it's the best recipe for ready to go to bed um when when uh you lay down to go to sleep that night you're very very relaxed and and Clean from the SAA skin is Silky Smooth oh it is so wonderful and being that that's such a a nice way to to close the day day out we like my sound at home is heated every night my my traditional um in the basement so I'm wondering if you can describe your transition into your current position which is with a company that as I understand is the largest producer of saunas in the world yes I I uh being that my my background in nuclear nule nuclear power uh is um deals with radiation deals with Power Systems deals with the control of of certain uh electrical properties um the gentleman asked me to be involved with the with some development and in doing so applied some of those theories and processes to the infrared sound of rooms and uh right now we we have uh effectively built some of the first low electromagnetic radiation rooms as well as the first low electrical field rooms and both both and I'll speak to that a little bit that electromagnetic um fields which which are all about electrical energy um are a form of of um I'll call it like the force components that come off of
electrical energy um the the for the force equations uh are set up where electrical fields are are everywhere around us if there's energized wires electrical fields are are around us and well potentially because they could the electrical Fields can be fairly easily mitigated they can be absolutely so but it's certainly it's potential and and for most most of us we are exposed to them we are and and being that they can be mitigated through shielding electrical fields are probably one of the areas that we can easily contain um but the other component that's in the electrical field is the electromagnetic radiation field the M for the EMF is magnetic which is the bugger that's the tough one yeah but but actually when you think about it both are very uh um Bad actors I'll say because they they act on on our bodies where our bodies are are filled with charged particles we're made up of charged particles and the an electrical field will out will act with a force on those charged particles depending on its magnitude and and over time May Al alter the way that our bodies behave um C cellularly well because many people don't realize that we are fundamentally electrical beings we are that's the way our cells communicate they communicate El electrically and if we're exposed to some external field that could interfere with that cellular communication and wreck havoc with our system it sure can and you're probably closer to those physical effects than I am but but I from the electrical side I know that if if I have an energized source which is an EMF which is Electro motive Force volts volts we all know volts um that that's generating or emitting an electric field we we measure that by volts per distance and and that's that's what our meter will tell us um but the
other part of that Force equation would be the the electromagnetic part which is the when a a Charged particle Moves In The Wire meaning now current so volts and current um that it'll generate a magnetic field around the wire and that magnetic field will also impart a force on those same charged particles in our body so when when there there's an an electromagnetic field uh present then possibly an electromagnetic field will be present if there's a current flow and in in both cases we've developed some technology that we can effectively mitigate or eliminate the electric field piece and we've we have technology that will mitigate or minimize below um acceptable standards the electromagnetic piece well thank you for setting that that frame and that perspective because it is an issue as I mentioned um when I first started doing saunas it was about 15 years ago and the first generation saunas and they they I believe now these panels that are being used to generate that infrared heat uh initially were carbon or I think ceramic and then it progressed to carbon or is it the converse I think you're right it started ceramic which much hotter yeah progess so the first one I had one of the first ones was a ceramic and the newest one of course are the carbons but the ceramic were relatively safe but as they progressed to the carbons my understanding is that the initial technology the second third and fourth Generations actually were very high in emfs and so essentially almost any sauna that was made in the late 90s to just recently is likely infrared sauna is going to be high in EMF and there's a very simple way to test for this it's not like something you have to call call a manufacturer you could just get an EMF meter and you could pick up ones you can get an electrical meter for like $ 10 or a more sophisticating me one for maybe 100 or 150 like a trifield and actually
measure these yourself I mean you don't need to someone to tell you you could see exactly where it's coming from where it's hot uh I mean the uh one of the ones I recently looked at just within the last few weeks I mean it was off the chart even outside the sauna 120 yeah and I mean normally she be below three I think it's m micross micro yeah Migos so 3 Migos and this was 120 so um wasn't that because these these fields weren't mitigated because of the way they construct it so I wondered if you could comment on what I just said and then what uh changes you made in your newest Technologies of infrared saas well the the if I walked around the room in here with a a migous meter that I I could go to cords electrical cords uh lamps whatever the case may be and I could find hotpots and and hotpots would be ranges of 100 200 300 migal um I'd call those hot however um the interesting thing on that radiation piece is that as you move away from the source the the uh the the measured field drops off by one over the the distance squared so drops off relatively quickly however we don't have the luxury when we're sitting in one of these rooms to have to position ourselves just right to be just far enough away we we go in there it's virtually impossible to be less than a foot or two away from the source yeah you'll go in and and most likely I'll be leaning against the source my body you're you're a little bit further away so you'd be if I metered where you sit would be less than mine but not much not not much but nonetheless um that when there is an electric field um a and there's an electric current flow we will be generating electromagnetic radiation EMR and in in when being that electric
fields and electromagnetic radiation Fields um are are vector meaning that they they have a direction and they have a magnitude any combination of of um an electric field plus other components that add up will end up to be the resultant of the many not just one and and so what happens is if we don't effectively control all the sources of of the electric field or all the sources of the electromagnetic radiation we we aren't really taking care of the problem and so the Technologies we've developed are that we can uh effectively eliminate the all the um uh induced electromagnetic or electric fields in the room so that the entire environment is below our acceptable standards and we've also created the Technologies to um mitigate through through some of the configurations we've used on uh the magnetic portion can you just touch on how you've mitigated against the electrical fields and how and and adopted technology within your sonus to to essentially eliminate the electric Fields are more um there we we can shield on those that we can how do you Shield we we have uh effective materials for shielding and we've we've taken great great care things like conduit or um actually we've gone to uh U some patented technology that we've developed on ways to Shield our our uh power sources um through through probably a Year's worth of work and testing we uh we've taken care of we think to be all the different areas in the room that will have electrical sourcing okay so Essen some type of shielding it's a type of shielding yeah electric fields are are effectively reduced by shielding magnetic fields on or they can counter each other out too can't they uh electric fields are well the answer
would be yes if you could layer them and and line them up properly because they are vector meaning that they're directional however uh when you're running power wires through different areas in the room to do that would be uh probably impossible okay uh being that uh well just I'll just say it'd be impossible based on a power feed being two wire okay um on the other hand the magnetic fields are are um induced by current flow in in that same conductor and and we have ways that we can cancel the the magnetic field so again being that they Vector meaning meaning length and direction we we have U effectively placed our Power conduiting Systems in a way that will provide uh Vector cancellation Okay so and this takes some extra time effort and energy and resources to construct a SAA this way right well actually the not not to construct it but what we we took some all those energies and time and resources to develop it okay so so now they putting it together is is the same as the the other there's no special changes to the wiring or the shielding or same issue actually some of our goals here were to make the installation easier and we have accomplished that as well okay great so but in your experience I mean there's a number of Sonic companies out there maybe you can relate to compare your company that you work with with some of the other Sonic companies and have you seen any other companies that really have even thought to address this issue there there's some out there that are addressing it and and being that I'm very electrically oriented um to to hear their presentations about chemical processes and and things that they're using to minimize the electromagnetic radiation um it's either way Beyond me or it's just not true and I
happen to believe that it's just not true because of my experience with the electrical fields and this is relatively easy to measure it's not like rocket science I mean you can almost take any grade school child and give him a meter and he can check and see if the fields are there or not yes they can yeah so I mean developing and designing systems to mitigate against that is is certainly a challenge and requires professional expertise like yourself but to actually measure that is a pretty simple process yeah very it is very simple you'll you could give the child the meter and tell them to to interrogate the room um and put the meter on the wall and flow the wall and and see what they come back with and so I I think you know I'd like to have people understand as a result of this interview is that there is indeed sort of a public health warning that people do use for relaxation as you mentioned but many people perhaps in my my experience even more use saunas for health benefits for detoxification and things like that so if they're doing that it would seem counterproductive to employ a device that is actually aiding one aspect of their health but hurting them in another I would agree so it's kind of like driving down the road with your foot on the gas and the break at the same time it's not an efficient way to do it yeah and it's it's hard to say which I mean you might get benefit it may actually make you worse depending on your specific individuality you know that again I look at this this Force equation which is the total net force and this is force on our cellular body is is the net force is a is an electric field Force the static that that's the volts part plus the magnetic part which is the two very distinct components in that equation and and to to address only one of them and assuming that only one exists such as the the magnetic part can never exist without the um the electric field
part the electric field I use it as a like a water analogy where if a garden hose you had a garden hose and you had a a water source and you saw pressure gauge the pressure gauge pressure is volts in the electric analogy and when you turn it on the flow of the water is the current in the electric analogy and so you can't have current flowing without volts the electric portion and so to address only one and assume only one exists is missing half of the equation and if if we're truly addressing the the all aspects of the electric field the the electromagnetic field um we need to effectively address both interesting Dr the um the standard that we use as as our Target is one that has uh developed in Sweden which they has effectively been called the Swedish standard the electromagnetic Swedish standard where um you can visualize how it was born and that that a um a computer monitor would be in front of a person and that computer monitor would be a certain distance realistically from that person and that they've developed a standard where at 30 or 50 cm from that screen there would be a certain amount of migous reading or maximum or a maximum electric field and so what we've done based on that study and and The credibility of that study is we've said okay let's take that same Benchmark that same standard and apply that to our soundus here here's what we have to make the Assumption we don't care really what distance it is that they're measuring we care about what the migous reading is that they set as their maximum Benchmark and so what we've done is we've said okay let's take that Swedish standard and apply that to be to everywhere in the room that that a hum
part of a human body could realistically exist your back your foot your legs wherever that may be and and we've taken that standard to be the our maximum acceptance and what was the standard again uh the standard currently is two 2. 0 m um at 30 cm but again I don't care about the distance I care about the number yeah where where your body is exactly exposure if your head's going to be there your hand your foot absolutely and and then I've also taken the the Swedish number of 10 volts per meter as the electric field piece and so wherever you interrogate that room um those are the numbers that we've used as the acceptance and the interesting part about the Swedish standard is that that's the 2. 0 milligals is is the the number that would be added milligals reading to that of background so so if I took my meter I have to make this assumption that the meter is going to automatically have background which which my experience is 04 to 6 in an area that's generally Mill that's generally if I can interject here is a that's a pretty clean area that is clean more than likely most people watching this the vast majority I would guess live in environments that are beyond that two to three Absol if they're under three they're doing pretty good you bet so so but your point is that you have to add the background radiation on top of this so before you would turn whatever you're measuring before you're measuring whatever it is you have to make sure it's off measure all around it so you know understand the background is then turn it on and then the difference is what the actual that's right amount is coming out of it and but you still are concern it's sort of a mood issue because it's a fine point because you really bottom line is you still want it down to below 2. 5 no matter what's contributing to it that's right background or or a new new addition based on that the the science that went
into the Swedish standard and and we do use that as our Benchmark and we we find that here here's kind of the an interesting uh event that I see in our testing but when we test and someone will will say oh got high readings the first thing that I'll do is take my meter and I'll walk around the the external environment and and see what the ambient is and and often times what happens is somebody has laid a power cord near the test room or something changed in the environment to make a high environmental EMF and uh you eliminate those external sources and and isolate just the room that's what we're really looking at is the isolated room room and and our our the sciences that we've added to the room and the design attributes have really brought all aspects of that room under under good control I'm glad you have because it's it really is an important detail and the Devil is a detail many many areas of life certainly here and what I would encourage the viewers to do is actually uh get an EMF meter I happen to personally like the trifi I've used them for 15 years or so it's there are others there are certainly less expensive ones more expensive ones but it's you know you get one that works is that that you can trust and measure it regularly uh interestingly just last night I for whatever I was using a device that I was concerned about had some emfs so I grabbed my meter and measured and it was actually okay but what kind of shocked me is that my ambient radiation in my bedroom had gone up I measured it like when I first moved in several years ago it was really low in fact I had one of the president of biob biology in North America come out and measure it got pass with fine colors but now there was a it was like the five or six Migos not too far from where I was sleeping which shocked me but on the other side of the bed it was low so I still have to figure out what that is but what the reason I'm mentioning that
is that my new strategy now is I'm always going to travel with my EMF meter because when you're traveling at a hotel or something it's a lot of times all you have to do is move sometimes you won't be able to but move the headboard out or sleep on one side of the other of the bed or or change rooms because you never know what's going on the only way to know is to measure it and fortunately these things are very simple they typically require a 9vt battery you know that lasts for years and as long as you turn it off and uh you know it's easy to measure as I said a gr School child can do it and and you really want to minimize your exposure because these these exposures are not going to H hurt you in the short term there's just no question you know it's kind of like smoking you can smoke a pack of cigarettes you're not going to die from it but it's what you do over the long term these exposure to these C chronic exposure these fields that can have really very significant adverse consequences on your biology you know in my Nuclear background we we dealt with three aspects and I've added a fourth but we deal with time distance and shielding and and apply those same things to our our infrared rooms well you say time can't really fuss with that too much because the user is going to use it for as long as they they feel but the distance piece yes you can we try to find uh ways to maximize our distance remember it drops off at 1 over the R squar so we can distance is is most definitely in our favor uh and and then the shielding piece of course we can Shield where we can or or we can mitigate by by uh cancellation and other other techniques um but then the other is is my mitigation is where I I look at ways that in combination of different things I can take and minimize the fields because again I I think of all these little EMF and E EF generators is all these little magnitude and and directional additives and that every piece is adding to some meter reading somewhere and if I can configure and and
uh uh lay out the room properly that I can deal with reducing the pieces by um in essence minimizing their the the net effect so thank you for describing the the details of of the EMF process and how you reduce it in the saunas I'm wondering if you could address some of the other areas of bilding AA because obviously the power supply is only one uh and how your company might differ some of the other companies being it's the largest and one of the oldest I would imagine well they're they're a very seasoned company and theyve you go what what factors make it different distinguish it from other companies and and uh maybe even comment on the types of materials you use well the company in itself is is very uh well healed with in regards to the culture in regards to the the technologies that that are exist in the different uh sound of type rooms and they're also I'd call them a leader in Innovation we we have not only gone and solved many of these little problems but we're we're building a good intellectual base as we're moving forward that um some of the discoveries are are you know again we're not generating the new wheel but we're generating some techniques of of uh existing pieces bringing those together to to effectively achieve the results that we want and um the so we're we're very Innovative we we protect by patents and and we are looking past this generation to the next um the next version of this that will have more more whistles more buzzers more Sizzle to it uh um uh in terms of its technology we we are also the first to to truly effectively deal with um redefining the infrared on signature that that we we have turned from the the TR typical 50% on infrared
signature to one that's about 96% on now can you elaborate on that more uh what what it is is that when an infrared room nears the set point uh uh the thermos at 150 ° F setting let's say um that it begins to cycle on and off based on on the the controls and the set points um we've done some some very interesting high performance aspects that that will uh more effectively keep the infrared signal on 96% of the time versus only 50% and to the bther that means a lot because the bather is going to feel they'll they'll feel warmed and they'll feel like they're in an experience when the infrared is on again the Heat Signature coming from the the electrical energization whereas if it if the room is turned off their bodies will start to feel cold cooler almost instantaneously well if the temperature is still 120 or 150 it's not going to be that quickly it will be very quickly very interesting what what happens is as soon as the infrared turns off their body uh starts to cool down based on not getting that heat signature from the the infrared uh Ray um I've seen some companies and some people to keep the infrared signal on they'll open the door um so that the room is so the thermostat is sitting there thinking I got to be turned on so I'm going to stay on yet the room is cooling down and to the bther they feel like they're exposed in the uh the nice warm uh radiant heat are there any other ects you wanted to comment um well I guess those are some really some big items in terms of our IR engine and what's what's nice about it is we we truly believe that we're the First on some of the little intricate details on on making these pieces come together the IP associated with it
perfect well thank you for joining us today appreciate that appreciate all your time effort and energy to help produce a useful device to help us reach our goals and take control of our he excellent thank you Doctor appreciate it
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
Sweating is the visible part of the science of sauna, but it is not the whole practice. Heat increases heart rate, expands blood vessels, and asks the cardiovascular system to move blood toward the skin. That controlled demand is one reason sauna has become such a compelling longevity ritual.
The feeling afterward is familiar: looser tissue, slower breathing, and a body that feels less defended.
Sauna gives the vascular system work to do without requiring movement. Blood flow rises, pressure patterns shift, and the body practices regulation under thermal load.
This does not make sauna a replacement for exercise. It makes it a complement. Training builds capacity through movement; sauna supports recovery and adds a distinct heat-based signal.
The productive sauna session is the one you can return to. Duration, temperature, hydration, and cooldown should match the person in the room, not an abstract ideal.
Consistency turns heat from an occasional indulgence into a deliberate practice for resilience, restoration, and calm.
Sauna is not just sweat. It is cardiovascular practice in stillness.
Use sauna as a complement to movement, not a substitute for it.
Choose a temperature and duration you can repeat comfortably.
Give the cooldown as much respect as the heat.
The useful lesson is not intensity for its own sake. It is designing a practice the body can absorb.
