Not Just Any Sauna

by Quantify Fitness | Last Updated:  July 13, 2016

The sauna we use at Quantify Fitness is not just any sauna, it's a Sunlighten Sauna with the only infrared technology backed by clinical data shown to reduce blood pressure, increase core temperature and aid in weight loss. It is also the #1 recommended sauna brand and our favorite functional medicine doctor from the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Mark Hyman, recommends it to his patients. In his book, Ultrametabolism, he addresses the use of saunas as a means of practicing active relaxation to reduce stress and lose weight.

But wait, there's more to this sauna! Every sauna session at Quantify Fitness also comes with Acoustic Resonance Therapy (A.R.T.) and Chromotherapy. Feel the music move through your body as you reach a deep state of relaxation while the colored lights adjust body vibrations to frequencies that result in health and harmony.

A.R.T. and Chromotherapy definitely sound somewhat woo-woo, but there's something to adding sound vibrations and colored lights while healing and relaxing in the sauna that amplifies the experience!

How Does A.R.T. Work?

Just as the infrared sauna surrounds you with soothing, relaxing heat waves, so too does Acoustic Resonance Therapy surround you with resonant harmonic energy to increase the therapeutic effects of your sauna session.

Sit Back, Relax and Feel the Music

Think back for a moment to the last time you heard a song that instantly reminded you of a special moment. How did it make you feel?

Music has been used throughout the ages to help shift our focus and awareness. It is used to uplift, relax, energize, inspire, unify and transition us. Many of us can relate to the experience of being gently rocked to sleep as our mother or grandmother sang us a lullaby.

While using music to support the natural healing process is nothing new, quantum physicists and researchers are now proving what ancient seers and spiritual masters of many cultures appreciated for thousands of years. Music has a profound effect on your body and mind. Therapists in the re-emerging fields of music and sound therapy are finding benefits in using music to help with pain management, warding off depression, relieving anxiety, calming patients during painful procedures, increasing range-of-motion and easing muscle tension.

Acoustic Resonance Therapy is designed to deliver the healing benefits of music based on over twenty-eight years of research and development in the field of sound and music therapy. Hearing music provides one level of experience; feeling it adds an entirely new dimension that promotes sensory integration and full body/mind harmony.

Brain Waves: Through a process known as entrainment, research has shown that music with a strong beat can stimulate brainwaves to resonate in sync with the beat, with faster beats bringing sharper concentration and more alert thinking, and a slower tempo promoting a calm, meditative state. Also, research has found that the change in brainwave activity levels that music can bring also enables the brain to shift speeds more easily on its own, which means that music can bring lasting benefits to your state of mind, even after the acoustic resonance experience.

Breathing and Heart Rate: As brainwaves change, changes also occur in other bodily functions, given that they are all governed by the autonomic nervous system. For example, breathing and heart rate can be altered by the changes music brings. This can mean slower breathing, slower heart rate, and activation of the relaxation response, among other things. This is why music can help counteract or prevent the damaging effects of chronic stress, greatly promoting not only relaxation but also health.

State of Mind: Music can be used to bring a more positive state of mind, helping reduce depression and anxiety. This can prevent the stress response from wreaking havoc on the body and can help keep creativity and optimism levels higher.

Other Benefits: Music and A.R.T. have also been found to bring many other benefits, such as lowering blood pressure (which can reduce the risk of stroke and other health problems over time), boosting immunity, easing muscle tension, and more. When we feel music resonating through our body, it naturally brings deeper body awareness. Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, but it also strengthens the immune systems and supports your body's ability to heal itself.

With so many benefits and such profound physical effects, it is no surprise that so many are seeing music with A.R.T. as an important tool to help the body stay (or become) healthy.

What is Chromotherapy?

Besides being able to feel the effects of music, every sauna session also comes with Chromotherapy lighting.

Chromotherapy is the science of using colors to adjust body vibrations to frequencies that result in health and harmony. According to some of the literature, humans need the sun's light, which is broken into seven distinct rays, to live. If there is an imbalance in these colors within our bodies, it can manifest itself in mental or physical distress. Each color possesses frequencies of a specific vibration, and each vibration is related to different physical symptoms. Chromotherapy works on various energy points to help your body re-establish its natural balance. It accomplishes this via the full spectrum of visible light, each color of which addresses a separate bodily need.

The sauna lights can cycle through 16 different colors:

• Red: Activates the circulatory and nervous systems of meditation.
• Strong Pink: Acts as a cleanser, strengthening the veins & arteries.
• Pink: Activates and eliminates impurities from the bloodstream.
• Orange: Energizes and eliminates localized fat. Helps address asthma and bronchitis.
• Strong Yellow: Strengthens the body and acts on internal tissues.
• Yellow: Reactivates and purifies the skin. Helps with indigestion and bodily distress.
• Strong Green: Provides anti-infectious, anti-septic and regenerative stimulation.
• Green: Acts as a nerve relaxant.
• Strong Blue: Lubricates joints & articulations. Helps address infections, stress, and nervous tension.
• Blue: Stimulates muscle & skin cells, nerves, and the circulatory system.
• Indigo: Helps address eye inflammation, cataracts, glaucoma, ocular fatigue or nasal bleeds.
• Violet: Relaxes the nerves & lymphatic system. Addresses inflammation and urinary illness.

The PubMed paper A Critical Analysis of Chromotherapy and Its Scientific Evolution describes it like this,

“The quantum mechanical dipole moment as a result of the absorption of different colors, we conjecture, produces charge quantization phenomena. This review illustrates that the development of science in the field of electromagnetic radiation/energy can be very helpful in discovering new dimensions of this old theory…

…these visual colors with their unique wavelength and oscillations, when combined with a light source and selectively applied to impaired organs or life systems, provide the necessary healing energy required by the body.“

“The human body will not devote resources to healing when it thinks it's being chased by a tiger.” – Dr. Raleigh Duncan

Like we mentioned at the beginning, A.R.T. and Chromotherapy do sound a wee bit woo-woo, and maybe they are, but it was only recently that neuroscientists discovered how meditation, something viewed by many as only for hippies or mountain retreats, changes the brain and influences good health. So while we wait for the science to continue evolving, we'll keep relaxing in the sauna with a little sound vibration and color!

And don't underestimate the need to relax. Many of us are constantly in a state of stress and even the little things, like being stuck in traffic, can cause us to spend too much time in a sympathetic state (“fight or flight”), which places undue strain on our bodies and chronically elevates the stress hormone cortisol – too much exercise or overtraining also places many people in this category. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are helpful to deal with acute stresses, like being chased by a lion, but it isn't uncommon in our modern-day world to not allow enough time for unwinding, resulting in chronic stress and the host of associated health problems that go along with it. Spending time in the sauna activates your parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system, helping to balance hormones and allowing us to unwind, and a lot of other health benefits.

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