Dr. Rhonda Patrick on Infrared vs Traditional Sauna Benifits

by Ben Burger, Sauna Marketplace

If you care about sauna the way we do at Sauna Marketplace, stop what you’re doing and watch this: Dr. Rhonda Patrick on heat exposure, depression, heart health, and performance. The clip is called “The Hidden Sauna Benefit That Science Just Uncovered” and it’s from FoundMyFitness Clips (Sept 19, 2025). The full conversation with Rhonda is on The Diary of a CEO and it’s absolutely worth your time.

• Full interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTb3QSrGMQ
• Rhonda’s heat-stress protocols: https://bdnfprotocols.com/

Below is my summary plus a few notes from what we see every day helping customers choose between traditional and infrared.

Full Video

Infrared vs. Traditional: Similar goals, different loads

Infrared (IR) saunas heat your body primarily with IR wavelengths. Ambient temps tend to be lower — often around ~140°F — than a traditional Finnish sauna at ~175–180°F. Because the heat load is lower in a typical IR session, you generally need to stay longer to achieve comparable physiological stress.

Translation for buyers: If you love IR and you’ll actually use it consistently, great — just plan on longer sessions to match some of the traditional benefits. If you want the strong “moderate exercise–like” stimulus in shorter bouts, a hot traditional sauna is the straightforward path. For best of both worlds, check out the new FD-4 and FD-5 hybrid models from Finnmark.

The big clinical curveball: IR heat as therapy for depression

This was the most eye-opening part of the clip.

• Dr. Ashley Mason (UCSF) uses a “head-out” infrared heat bed protocol. Participants stay well over an hour — long enough to raise core body temperature by ~1–2°C (think feverish zone).
• In people with major depressive disorder, multiple sessions of this IR heat protocol + CBT produced large reductions on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale — about 16 points, which massively exceeds the ~3-point shift often considered clinically significant.
• The schedule was 4 or 8 rounds over ~1–2 months. It’s intense, and some participants couldn’t finish — the heat dose here is not your casual 20–30 minute IR sit.
• This builds on earlier work (Charles Raison, 2016): a single core-warming heat session produced a measurable antidepressant effect for ~6 weeks vs. a sham condition.

Takeaway: Don’t write off IR. With sufficient dose (long enough to raise core temp), IR heat can be powerful — especially when paired with therapy in clinical settings.

Traditional sauna: the “moderate exercise” mimic with big associations

Rhonda highlights strong observational associations for hot, traditional sauna (again, ~175–180°F):

• Frequency matters: 4–7 sessions/week (~20 minutes each) is associated with about 50% lower cardiovascular mortality and ~40% lower all-cause mortality compared to once weekly.
  Important caveat: These are associations, not proof of causation.

Mechanistically, why might this help? In a hot sauna you see a physiological profile that mirrors moderate aerobic exercise:

• Core temperature rises
• Heart rate and cardiac output increase
• Peripheral blood flow increases
• Heavy sweating to cool the body

There are even head-to-head comparisons with moderate cycling showing similar acute responses. In a standard-length IR session, you typically don’t hit the same intensity — unless you extend the duration substantially.

Add heat to exercise for more upside

One elegant finding Rhonda cites: when people exercise and then add ~15 minutes of hot sauna, they see greater improvements than with exercise alone:

• Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF)
• Lipids/cholesterol
• Blood pressure

In other words, exercise + hot sauna seems additive, not redundant.

Brain, memory, stress resilience, and sleep: what might be going on?

Rhonda shares personal practice from grad school: pre-lab sauna made her more resilient to stress and rehearsing talks in heat seemed to boost recall. She still leans on hot baths in hotels for the same effect when traveling.

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This is catching on for prep before talks, etc.

Potential mechanisms she discusses:

• Growth hormone (GH) can rise ~2× to ~16×, depending on temperature and duration.
• IGF-2 (supported by animal data) is linked to learning and memory — heat exposure may nudge this system.
• Somnogenic cytokines (inflammation-related molecules that promote sleepiness) increase with deliberate heat exposure (sauna or hot bath), which may improve sleep for some.

Timing: Rhonda uses heat before bed (sleep/relaxation) and post-workout (to extend the training stimulus).

What we see at Sauna Marketplace (quick field notes)

We help North American customers every day who are deciding between IR cabins, traditional electric heaters, wood-fired, or hybrid setups. A few patterns:

• Adherence beats everything. The “best” sauna is the one you use. Electric heaters with Wi-Fi enabled controls are more likely to get into your routine than an outdoor wood-fired sauna.
• Chasing the “exercise mimic”? If your goal is that moderate-exercise-like cardiovascular stress in short sessions, a properly-heated traditional room (we like ~175–185°F with real thermal mass and enough stone) is the straight path. Any proper sauna heater can reach these temps, you don’t need 230°F.
• End the debate, get a combo. A lot of homes are divided over infrared vs traditional saunas and we’re glad to have good hybrids now.
• Sleep is the undeniable benefit — We hear this over and over, and think sleep is likely the pillar benefit that makes sauna so good for you.
• Don’t think you like a sauna? Try a Saunum. Whenever someone says they don’t like a sauna, this heater wins them over. Your head is your thermostat, and the top part of the sauna gets the hottest in traditional saunas. Saunum redistributes the hottest air to the floor for a more comfortable, enjoyable experience. It turns the session into something you can enjoy instead of endure. Note their new Saunum Air Perfect (our favorite) is only available by calling Sauna Marketplace.

(Standard disclaimer: anecdotes ≠ clinical evidence. Listen to your body, hydrate, and talk to your clinician if you have medical conditions.)

Safety, dose, and expectations

• The depression protocols Rhonda described are clinical-grade: long IR exposures designed to raise core temperature by ~1–2°C. That’s not the same thing as 20–30 minutes at 130–150°F. Consider a Finnmark IR room that can reach 170°F or plan on spending more time in there (without overdoing it).
• Hydration and cool-downs matter. Start conservative, progress gradually. Replace your salts.

The bottom line

• Traditional hot sauna delivers a robust cardiovascular-style stimulus in shorter sessions and is observationally linked to lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality with frequent use. Most sauna benefits you’ve heard of have been studied in Finland using traditional saunas with rocks and steam.
• Infrared can share benefits — but you typically need longer sessions to match the physiological load. In clinical IR heat-bed protocols, core-temp elevation paired with CBT has produced striking antidepressant effects. There’s less good research done with IR.
• Exercise + sauna looks additive for CRF, lipids, and BP.
• Cognitive and sleep effects may be supported by GH, IGF-2, and somnogenic cytokines — and yes, plenty of people (including Rhonda) rehearse in the heat for better recall.

Go deeper (seriously, watch/listen)

This is one of those conversations that cuts through the noise and gives you actionable, dose-specific insight — without overpromising.

• Full interview with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTb3QSrGMQ
• Rhonda’s heat-stress / cognition protocols: https://bdnfprotocols.com/
• What everyone has wrong about inflamation and why heat helps: https://saunamarketplace.medium.com/

If you want help translating this into the right build — traditional vs IR, heater sizing, ventilation, bench heights, thermal mass — we do this all day at SaunaMarketplace.com. Tell us how you plan to use your sauna, and we’ll match you to the setup you’ll actually use week after week.