Three Doctors who Sauna discuss the health benefits of sauna

Welcome to the Doctors who Sauna series, where I get to ask Doctors of different disciplines and backgrounds three questions about the health benefits of sauna. Let’s meet our three panelists, as we look into sauna health benefits through the lenses of their professional practices.

1. Dr. Brennan Dodson

MD, FACS practices otolaryngology (“ear, nose and throat”) with an emphasis in rhinology (“the treatment of nasal and sinus disease”). He originated his solo, Bozeman-based practice, Bridger Ear, Nose & Throat, in 2006 after completing his residency at University of Colorado-Health Sciences Center. He was drawn to Bozeman for the mountain lifestyle and tight-knit community within which to raise a family. Dr. Dodson considers himself lucky to have a busy practice, a (usually) understanding wife, two ornery teenagers, and two unique labradoodles.

2. Dr. Jeremiah Eisenschenk

Dr. Jeremiah Eisenschenk is a graduate of St. John’s University, University of Minnesota Medical School and St. John’s Family Medicine Residency where he also served as Chief Resident. He is board certified in Family Medicine and Obesity Medicine and practices both for Essentia Health – Brainerd where he also Division Chair of Hospital Medicine at St. Joe’s Hospital.

He is the co-founder of Essentia Health – Brainerd Weight Management Department and Lakes Area Metabolic Health Symposium, the first low-carb conference in Minnesota.  Dr. Eisenschenk was recognized as a “Top Doc” in Family Medicine by Minnesota Monthly Magazine and quoted by DietDoctor.com on his clinical approach to low-carb medicine. He is a guest lecturer at University of Minnesota Medical School where he presents on metabolic health and financial literacy for medical students and residents.

Jeremiah and his wife Ashley live in Crosslake, MN with their two children and enjoy exploring the outdoors, time with family, sauna, and growing and cooking real foods.MD. Medical Weight Management and Metabolic Health Clinic Director, Hospital Medicine Division Chair. Essentia Health – Brainerd, MN. His “Food as Medicine” lecture can be viewed here.

3. Dr. Jonathan Bricker

You may remember Dr. Jonathan Bricker from our 2022 Sauna Talk Podcast. As highlighted in his Wikipedia page, he is a clinical psychologist, academic, and scientist. Dr. Bricker is a Full Professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences (PHS) at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Psychology, and a Member of the Graduate Faculty at the University of Washington.

Throughout his career, Dr. Bricker has led an NIH-funded clinical research team, provided clinical intervention and supervision, and given invited keynote lectures internationally on topics including behavioral interventions, tobacco cessation and substance addiction, and weight less. His TEDx talk, the Secret to Self-Control, has been viewed over 8 million times and translated into 10 languages. Recently, he was interviewed by Trevor Noah about his work on AI chatbots for health behavior coaching.

Jonathan spends his leisure time enjoying his backyard sauna and cold plunge with family and friends, running long distances, and weight training at his local gym. He and his wife of over 20 years are raising two daughters who love soccer.

Now… onto the show:

How do you view wellness as it relates to sauna through the lens of your particular medical practice ?

Dr. Dodson: Concentration and focus are essential tools of mine as a surgical specialist. Long hours in the OR, in isometric activity (holding one body position for hours, like a human statue), are fatiguing in ways different than lifting weights. In my field, in particular, the neck and back suffer most as ENTs are usually wearing heavy headlights to look into dark places or holding a nasal endoscope to illuminate the surgical field in nasal and sinus surgery—all while standing for 10-12 hours.

Sauna-based therapy, after the OR, is a wellness “reset” for me- to allow me to get to “zero”- to think about nothing for an hour or two- a gift to myself and my tight muscles.

Dr. Eisenschenk: I recommend sauna as a tool for those looking to optimize their mental, physical, and metabolic health. I educate patients on sauna as a space for meditation, for muscle recovery after exercise, as a practice to improve cardiometabolic function, and a place for “social fitness” given its ability to support connection with others. The addition of cold exposure allows one to focus on the breath and the present moment, augmenting the aforementioned sauna practice and benefits.  

Dr. Bricker: I am both a scientist and a clinician. In my practice, I view sauna as a one of the legs of what I call the “wellness stool.” In the stool legs, you can have a healthy diet, exercise routine, strong relationships, and a stress management routine. And without sauna, you can be missing a leg of stool which itself provides several functions that contribute to overall wellness:

• a) Improving mental health and addictions. A highly understudied aspect of sauna is its effects on anxiety, depression, and addictions. I encourage my patients with these disorders to try sauna even as we are only in the beginning of learning how sauna might improve these conditions. 
• b) Improving our blood health. Our blood pressure and cholesterol can decrease, which in turn improves our heart functioning. As the engine of life, we need a healthy heart to for our physical and mental well-being.  To me, its the impact of sauna on our blood that leads to a myriad of downstream effects on health. 
• c) Distress tolerance. Our willingness to experience intense heat and steam is an acquired skill that translates over into the willingness to feel intense emotions, pain, and other bodily sensations. 

Tell us about your favorite ritual during a typical sauna session (eg. first löyly, first cold plunge, etc.) And, could that ritual moment have any connection to your specific medical practice?

Dr. Dodson: I like to use one or two Himalayan salt rocks soaked with essential oil in a hanging stainless steel oil cup above the rocks. I usually use eucalyptus oil. It’s just enough aroma to enhance the experience of the first löyly. Olfaction is so intimately tied to cognition and memory- I’ve gotten so used to the cedar aroma of my sauna that I don’t perceive it anymore- I need a boost from something else. This essential oil ritual helps me deepen my focus on nothing.

Dr. Eisenschenk: I really enjoy lying supine on the crispy cedar bench, allowing the heat to penetrate and relax my back musculature, especially after a workout. I encourage patients with chronic back pain to add this to their exercise and recovery regimen. I really enjoy lying supine on the crispy cedar bench, allowing the heat to penetrate and relax my back musculature, especially after a workout.

Additionally, sauna became a sacred space of psychological respite for me during peak pandemic days when caring for critically ill patients in our intensice care unit. I continue to think of sauna as an important tool for my mental health.   

Dr. Bricker: I have always enjoyed the extremes of heat to cold so my favorite ritual is sauna at about 210-220F with 20% humidity (löyly) for about 15 minutes and then cold plunge (50-55F) for about 3 minutes. To me this practice is directly tied to learning the skill of distress tolerance. Having done this for many years I have seen that my ability to deal with conflicting ideas, intense emotions, and pain has significantly improved. I am more willing to try new things, to literally get out of my comfort zone.

Likewise, I encourage my patients to gradually try this practice at the local saunas as a very physical way to learn to tolerate discomfort. Let’s face it, life is full of extremes so the hot-cold practice is a kind of metaphor for this fact of life.

Again, through the lens of your practice, what topic might you suggest for a presentation at a wellness conference?

Dr. Dodson: Through scientific literature reviews and my own experience, I’ve understood routine sauna use can decrease the incidence of upper respiratory disease. Work from Dr. Ben Bleier’s group at Mass Eye and Ear  https://hms.harvard.edu/news/why-upper-respiratory-infections-are-more-common-colder-temperatures found anti-viral immune systems in the nose are inhibited when internal nasal temperatures decrease.

Your nose is a filter for your airway- if you’ve caught viruses in this filter over the course of the day, which are waiting to implant and infect you, exposing them to inhospitable hot sauna air might decrease the likelihood of implantation (and illness). I’d like to see more scientific exploration and presentations relating to the benefits of routine sauna on nasal and sinus health.

Dr. Eisenschenk: I suggest more research and presentation on effects of routine sauna on cardiometabolic markers and risk. Ideally physicians and health care providers will be able to prescribe sauna, as they do medications, for specific health related conditions.  

Dr. Bricker: I think it would be very interesting to bridge the physiology with the psychology of sauna. These are needlessly kept siloed. So I could see a presentation on the effects of sauna on blood health, both efficacy and mechanisms. And then we bridge to looking at how improved blood health from sauna interacts with improving distress tolerance, mental, and addictions.