Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The radiation penetrates the body and heats through a process called conversion, instead of heating the air around you.

What is an Infrared Sauna?

An infrared sauna is a sauna that heats its occupants with heaters that emit far infrared radiant heat. Unlike traditional Finnish Saunas, infrared saunas do not use steam, (which heats the air, and thereby the user) but instead use infrared radiation to directly heat the user

• Palm healing, a type of healing in which one person lies their palm on the “patient,” has a 3000 year old tradition in China. This technique is based on the healing properties of the natural infrared rays that we as humans give off.
• Sauna use was popularized by the Finns. It seems that the saunas were originally used for bathing, as well as childbirth and some ceremonies. The tradition came with the Finns when they migrated from an area northwest of present day Tibet, between 5000 and 3000 BC, to their present location in Finland. During travel, the sauna probably resembled the sweat lodges of the American Indians – holes dug in the ground covered with a cloth. The first recorded wooden saunas date to sometime between the 5th and 8th centuries. Today, there is one sauna for every two to three Finns and sauna design is a revered art.
• Numerous saunas appear along the Mediterranean and the world’s first bathtub appears in the palace of King Minos of Crete in 1700 BC.
• Native American sweat lodges have been used for thousands of years in North and South America and were documented with the European invasion of the Western Hemisphere.
• Whole body infrared therapy has been used for greater than 80 years by German physicians in an independently developed form.
• Dr. Tadashi Ishikowa of Japan received a patent on the zirconia ceramic infrared heaters in 1965. These were mostly used exclusively by medical practitioners in Japan until they were released for public use in 1979.
• The infrared sauna idea has been further refined and sold in the United States since 1981.
• Chinese researchers consider the band from 2 to 25 microns as the most therapeutic.

What is Infrared?
Infrared (IR) radiation is electromagnetic radiation of a wavelength longer than that of visible light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The radiation penetrates the body and heats through a process called conversion, instead of heating the air around you.

Infrared Saunas:
An infrared sauna is usually a wooden box, or small wooden room, containing several infrared heaters. In a warm environment, an infrared sauna could be open air and still heat the users in the same manner, since the heaters don't rely on the air being hot, but only hot enough such that the body doesn't cool down without sweating. All the same, normally the units are contained in a room, allowing the air to heat and in effect simulating the feel of a traditional sauna. In other words, the sauna box creates the atmosphere of the sauna while the heaters provide the actual infrared therapy.

In an infrared sauna, the infrared heater produces radiant energy, which is the same as the heat from the sun, only without the harmful ultraviolet rays. Most of these heaters draw on technology developed in 1965 by Dr. Tadashi Ishikawa, a member of the Research and Development Department of Fuji Medical.