“Infrared saunas are better for you than traditional saunas.”
No study has shown that infrared saunas are healthier than traditional saunas, and the long-life findings come from traditional Finnish saunas.
Pick the sauna type you enjoy and can use safely. Infrared saunas feel milder because the air is cooler, but milder is not the same as healthier, and the studies linking saunas with longer life used traditional saunas.
If you are choosing between the two, choose the one you will actually use regularly, and start with short sessions.
Safety note: Any hot sauna, infrared or traditional, makes you lose fluid through sweat, and blood pressure can drop after a session, which can leave you dizzy or faint. Avoid alcohol before and during a sauna: in a study of 103 sauna deaths in Korea, 76 of the people had a blood alcohol level of 0.08% or higher.
Talk to a healthcare professional if: you are pregnant, have heart disease, low blood pressure or fainting spells, or take blood pressure medicine, and want to start using a sauna of either type.
The only well-controlled study we found that compared the two sauna types directly showed no extra benefit for infrared, which heated the body the least. Confidence is limited because these comparisons are small and short, and no long-term study has compared the two.
No study has shown that infrared saunas are healthier than traditional saunas, and the long-life findings come from traditional Finnish saunas. In a 2025 study of 20 healthy adults, a 45-minute infrared session did not raise core body temperature on average; the sauna was set to climb from about 115°F to 149°F, but the air inside averaged only about 113°F. In the same study, three 10-minute rounds in a traditional sauna set to 176°F raised core temperature by about 0.7°F, and a hot bath raised it the most. A 2025 review of 20 randomized trials of heat therapies, including both sauna types, found no clear effect on most heart and blood sugar measures, with a possible small drop in blood pressure from whole-body heating.
Infrared saunas run at lower air temperatures, so they feel milder. How much they heat the body depends on how hot the air actually gets. In a 2026 study of 12 healthy adults, an infrared sauna was heated for an hour first, and the air stayed at about 147°F for the 45-minute session, about 34°F hotter than the 2025 study's infrared sauna. Core temperature rose about 2.5°F and heart rate roughly doubled, similar to other heat therapies. People in that study drank nothing during the session, and the sauna was donated by its maker. In Japan, a far-infrared sauna treatment called Waon therapy has been tested in people with heart failure; that is a medical treatment for a specific disease, not a comparison showing infrared is better for healthy people. The main Finnish study that linked frequent sauna use with a lower risk of death followed 2,315 men using traditional saunas.
- Atencio JK, Reed EL, Wiedenfeld Needham K, Lucernoni KM, Comrada LN, Halliwill JR, Minson CT. Comparison of thermoregulatory, cardiovascular, and immune responses to different passive heat therapy modalities. American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. 2025;329(1):R20-R35. DOI: 10.1152/ajpregu.00012.2025. PMID: 40332494. PMCID: PMC13178818
- Hamaya R, Joyama Y, Miyata T, Fuse SI, Yamane N, Maruyama N, Kanazawa H, Morishita K, Sesso HD. Non-acute effects of passive heating interventions on cardiometabolic risk and vascular health: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. American Journal of Preventive Cardiology. 2025;23:101082. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajpc.2025.101082. PMID: 41049507. PMCID: PMC12490526
- Laukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, Laukkanen JA. Association between sauna bathing and fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2015;175(4):542-548. DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.8187. PMID: 25705824
- Jenkins EJ, Killick JA, Grimm SR, Davies SR, Benson JA, Tremblay JC, Stembridge M. Far-infrared sauna exposure at 65°C elevates core temperature. Experimental Physiology. 2026 (online ahead of print). DOI: 10.1113/EP094028. PMID: 42533687. PMCID: PMC13424908
- Yang KM, Lee BW, Oh J, Yoo SH. Characteristics of sauna deaths in Korea in relation to different blood alcohol concentrations. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology. 2018;14(3):307-313. DOI: 10.1007/s12024-018-9993-7. PMID: 29926439. PMCID: PMC6097023