Two saunas, two completely different jobs

Walk into a Finnish sauna, then walk into an infrared one half an hour later, and you’d swear they were doing completely different jobs. The Finnish room hits you like a wall. Dry, intense, the kind of heat that makes your first breath feel deliberate. The infrared room is calmer. Air warm but not punishing. You can hold a book. You can hold a conversation. You’ll still be drenched in twenty minutes.

Most spa marketing glides over the difference, or worse, treats the two as interchangeable. They aren’t. They heat you in fundamentally different ways, the research base behind each is different, and the right one for you depends on what you’re actually trying to get out of a sweat session.

Here’s what’s going on, and what the science says.

How a traditional Finnish sauna heats you

A traditional Finnish sauna heats the air. Stones piled on a heater hit somewhere between 80°C and 95°C, the air radiates into the room, and your body warms via convection. Same way an oven cooks a chicken. Your skin goes first. Sweat starts pouring once your core temperature begins to climb in response.

It’s an intense, demanding heat. Most regular Finnish sauna users do 8 to 20 minutes per round, often with breaks and cold exposure between rounds.

How an infrared sauna heats you

An infrared sauna heats you directly. Infrared emitters produce wavelengths of light (you can’t see them; you feel them as warmth) that penetrate the surface of your skin and heat your body tissues directly. The air in an infrared room typically sits much lower, around 50–60°C. The room never feels punishing because the air isn’t doing the work.

That single mechanical difference cascades into everything else: how long you can sit there, how it feels, who can tolerate it, and what it does in your body.

Infrared vs traditional sauna: side by side

	Traditional Finnish sauna	Infrared sauna
Heat source	Hot air (stones + heater)	Infrared wavelengths
Air temperature	80–95°C	50–60°C
Heat mechanism	Convection (heats skin first)	Radiation (heats tissues directly)
Typical session length	8–20 minutes	25–45 minutes
Tolerability	Intense, demanding	Gentler, more accessible
Sweat onset	Heavy and fast	Heavy but slower onset
Strongest evidence base	Cardiovascular, longevity	Pain, fatigue, sleep

The takeaway: traditional sauna is a short, sharp cardiovascular event. Infrared is a longer, gentler heat load with deeper tissue penetration claims (manufacturers cite up to 1.5 inches; the science on exact depth is more contested than the marketing suggests).

What the research says about traditional Finnish sauna

The strongest sauna evidence sits with the Finnish stuff, and it’s genuinely impressive. The Eastern Finland prospective cohort work led by Dr Jari Laukkanen has followed thousands of middle-aged Finnish men over decades, and the headline numbers are hard to dismiss.

Men using a traditional sauna 4 to 7 times per week had roughly a 50% lower risk of fatal cardiovascular events compared to once-a-week users. All-cause mortality dropped meaningfully too. The same group’s later work has linked frequent sauna use to lower risk of dementia and reduced incidence of pneumonia.

This isn’t a single noisy study. It’s a sustained body of population research, and although it’s observational rather than randomised, the dose-response relationship is the kind of pattern that makes researchers sit up. More sessions, lower risk.

For pure cardiovascular benefit and the longevity outcomes most people want from a sauna, traditional Finnish heat has the deepest evidence base.

What the research says about infrared sauna

Infrared is newer and the literature is thinner. But it’s growing, and the picture is genuinely interesting in places.

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Small Japanese studies (Masuda et al) have shown meaningful symptom reduction with consistent infrared use over several weeks.

Fibromyalgia

Pain scores have improved in several trials, particularly when infrared is combined with other treatments. The gentler heat load is part of why these populations tolerate it better than traditional sauna.

Mild depression

Limited but real signal in early trials, with the heat-as-treatment angle now being explored more seriously in psychiatry. Not a substitute for proper care, but worth knowing about.

Sleep and recovery

Emerging data, often anecdotal at this stage but supported by what we know about heat’s effect on the parasympathetic nervous system. Many regular infrared users report better sleep on sauna nights.

Infrared also wins on accessibility. People who can’t tolerate the air temperature of a Finnish room — older adults, anyone with cardiovascular caveats, people new to heat exposure — can usually sit comfortably in an infrared sauna and still get a real session in.

The honest comparison

If you want the most decorated cardiovascular and longevity evidence, traditional Finnish heat is the answer. The trials are bigger, longer, and the effect sizes are striking.

If you want comfort, longer sessions, easier tolerability, and a heat experience that’s friendlier to people who don’t enjoy being cooked, infrared wins. You can read in there. You can stay 30 minutes without grimacing. You’ll still leave drenched. Infrared can produce sweat volumes comparable to traditional saunas at much lower air temperatures.

For most people, the question isn’t really “which one is better”. It’s “which one will I actually use four times a week”, because consistency is what drives the outcomes in the data.

Which sauna is right for you?

Go traditional Finnish if

• You’re heat-tolerant and like an intense session.
• Cardiovascular and longevity outcomes are your priority.
• You want the option of contrast therapy (sauna followed by cold).

Go infrared if

• You’re new to heat, or your tolerance is limited.
• You want longer, gentler sessions you can actually sit through.
• You’re working on recovery, sleep, fatigue, or general resilience.
• You’d rather sit in 50°C for 30 minutes than 90°C for 12.

The two aren’t competitors so much as different tools. Plenty of regular sauna users alternate.

How often to use a sauna for best results

The research is consistent on one thing: frequency matters more than session intensity. The strongest health associations in the Finnish work showed up at four or more sessions per week. Less than that and the dose-response curve flattens fast.

Session length depends on the format. Finnish sauna users typically do 8 to 20 minutes per round. Infrared sessions of 25 to 45 minutes are standard — long enough to drive a real heat load, short enough to be sustainable.

The trick is making it routine. Once-a-month sauna is a nice afternoon. Three or four times a week is where the data starts to bend.

Pairing sauna with a float

If you’re stacking heat with a float in the same visit, the order matters: float first, then sauna. Your body needs to be at ambient temperature for the float to feel weightless and seamless. Coming out of a sauna into a skin-temperature float pool makes the water feel cold rather than enveloping, which ruins the experience. Float first, drop the nervous system, then warm up afterwards in the sauna.

Try the infrared sauna at being

Our infrared sauna room is built around accessibility — long enough sessions to drive a real heat load, low enough temperatures to feel comfortable from the first minute. It’s the right format if you’ve never used a sauna before, and equally useful if you’re a regular looking for something that fits into the rest of the day without flattening you.

Find out more about the sauna at being and book a session.

FAQs

Is infrared better than a normal sauna?

Neither is better outright — they’re different tools. Traditional Finnish saunas have the strongest evidence for cardiovascular and longevity outcomes. Infrared has more accessible heat, longer sustainable sessions, and emerging evidence for pain, fatigue and sleep. The right one is the one you’ll actually use consistently.

Does an infrared sauna get you to sweat?

Yes, and at the same volume as a traditional sauna over a full session — it just takes longer to start. The air is much cooler, so the warm-up phase is gradual. Most people are sweating heavily by the 15 to 20 minute mark and stay sweating until they leave.

Is infrared safer than a traditional sauna?

For most people, both are safe with sensible session lengths and hydration. Infrared is gentler on the cardiovascular system because of the lower air temperature, which makes it the more accessible option for older adults, people with low heat tolerance, and anyone new to heat exposure. Specific medical conditions need a GP signoff either way.

How hot does an infrared sauna get?

Infrared saunas typically run around 50 to 60°C, compared to 80 to 95°C in a traditional Finnish sauna. The lower air temperature is the whole point — the infrared light heats your body directly rather than the air around you, so you can sit longer and feel comfortable while still driving a proper heat load.

Can I use an infrared sauna every day?

Yes, with sensible session lengths (25 to 45 minutes) and good hydration. Daily use is well within tolerated frequency in the research. The longevity evidence from Finnish cohort studies actually points to four to seven sessions a week as the sweet spot for health outcomes.

What’s the difference between a near-infrared and far-infrared sauna?

Most commercial infrared saunas use far-infrared wavelengths, which penetrate the skin slightly and warm the body’s tissues at a shallow depth. Near-infrared (and full-spectrum) units include shorter wavelengths that some research suggests may have additional cellular signalling effects. The practical experience is similar; the marketing around depth-of-penetration is generally more confident than the underlying science supports.

Can I sauna if I’m pregnant?

Conventional advice is to avoid sauna entirely during the first trimester and to be cautious throughout pregnancy. If you want to use a sauna while pregnant, talk to your midwife first. Infrared at the lower end of the temperature range is generally considered more accessible than traditional Finnish, but the same caution applies.