If you have been diagnosed with or tested positive for mold illness, you may wonder about the safety of using an infrared sauna for mold detox. You have likely read about the benefits of infrared sauna for general detox, but with mold illness, you have to be even more mindful of the steps you take to heal.
One way to detox mold and mycotoxins out of your body is through sweating. This can be done with exercise, but most people with mold illness (CIRS=Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) just don’t have the energy to even think about working out. Or if you do, you might overdo it, making your symptoms worse.
So infrared sauna to the rescue.
What Is An Infrared Sauna?
An infrared sauna is a sauna that uses infrared heat to deeply penetrate the tissues of your body and mobilize the mold and mycotoxins stuck and stored there. (Mold toxins are not water soluble so if they are not excreted in your poop or urine, then they are sequestered in the fat cells.) However, the infrared sauna will help you excrete them through sweating!
You must use a dry sauna only, however, because it’s the only sauna that gets you sweating from your deep fatty tissues. (Plus a regular wet sauna may make your symptoms worse or even add to your mold toxicity.) If you’ve used a regular sauna before, the infrared sauna is a much different experience and easier to tolerate.
In fact, an infrared sauna will increase your body’s core temperature by about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, without heating the air as much.
What Are the Benefits of Infrared Sauna in Mold Illness?
Besides releasing the mold mycotoxins from your body, an infrared sauna benefits you in other ways too. Some of these benefits include:
- Improved ability to breathe deeply with less effort (remember lungs are also a detox pathway)
- Diminished pain including emotional (think anger, depression, body pain especially)
- Diminished fatigue
- Decreased chemical sensitivity
- Heightened cognitive function
- Improved sleep and relaxation (less tired-but-wired feeling)
- Better circulation (more ways to get the mycotoxins out)
- Reduced inflammation (the biggest problem in mold illness)
- Boosted immune system
- Slowed aging and tighter skin
- Improved tissue regeneration (healing)
- Boosted mitochondria function (energy)
How to Use an Infrared Sauna
You can find an infrared sauna either for purchase, or at a health club, spa, or doctor’s office (I use one at the gym). But to be safe, use these guidelines when using an infrared sauna for mold detox.
- Make sure you are well hydrated before, and after, going into the infrared sauna.
- If you are new to saunas, start with just 5 or 10 minutes or exposure. If you have not started sweating in the first 5 minutes of sauna use, get out and do it again the next day. Add 2-5 minutes a day until you can do at least 30 minutes per session.
- Use the sauna 3-4 days per week, as you can tolerate.
- When you are done with your sauna session, sit outside of it and cool down. Drink some mineral infused water and take a binder like a good clean zeolite. This is key because the sauna has mobilized the mold mycotoxins and if you don’t take the binder, those mycotoxins can recirculate and make you worse! Then take a shower to wash off the toxins, ending with cold water.
- Take an extra fatty acid supplement sometime after to replace lost fats (fats fight inflammation).
How NOT to use an infrared sauna for mold detox
- You can read, meditate, listen to music, and talk with others but don’t go to sleep in the sauna.
- Don’t take your cell phone in – it will melt your phone parts and ruin it.
- Do not use a sauna if you have been drinking alcohol.
- Don’t wear contact lenses in the sauna.
- If you have a fever, don’t use the sauna.
- If you aren’t pooping regularly, don’t use the sauna. You need to get that pathway open first!
Using the infrared sauna for mold detox makes a great choice as you begin to heal. Not only will it help you get rid of the mold mycotoxins, but it will also support your other bodily functions which have likely been compromised.
One conversation can change your life. If you have been dealing with a mold illness and want to regain your strength and energy so you get your life back, Click here to set up a complimentary Breakthrough call to see if we could work together.
