Red Light in the Sauna? Why More Wellness Technology Isn’t Always Better

Red light therapy is having a moment. And increasingly, we’re getting the same question from both commercial and residential clients: "Should we put red light therapy in the sauna?"

Our answer is generally: "No. Give each experience the space to do what it is designed to do."

We’ve written before about the important distinction between a traditional sauna and infrared heat therapy. And, as we noted then, infrared heat and red light therapy are not one in the same.

The confusion is understandable. Red light therapy, also known as photobiomodulation or PBM, can use both visible red and near-infrared wavelengths. Infrared heat therapy also uses infrared energy. But the technologies are designed to produce very different effects.

A Sauna Is an Environment. Red Light Is a Treatment.

A traditional sauna is designed to create a very specific thermal environment: high heat, the ability to produce steam or löyly, appropriate airflow and a space in which the entire body experiences heat stress.

That is what makes sauna bathing, sauna bathing.

Red light therapy is different. PBM uses specific wavelengths of light delivered to the body, with treatment effectiveness dependent on variables including wavelength, intensity, exposure time, distance from the light source and positioning.

In other words, red light therapy is a treatment that needs to be delivered under controlled conditions.

And that presents an obvious problem when you put it inside a sauna.

Think about how people actually use a sauna. They sit on different benches. They lie down. They turn around. They enter and leave at different times. Towels cover parts of the body. One user may be inches from a wall-mounted light panel while another is several feet away.

That’s perfectly normal sauna behavior.

It isn’t necessarily an effective way to deliver a controlled red light treatment.

MYTH: If Two Wellness Modalities Are Good, Combining Them Must Be Better

We see this thinking a lot: "Sauna has benefits. Red light therapy may have benefits. Therefore, combining the two must create an even better experience."

Not necessarily. There is currently limited evidence demonstrating that simultaneous sauna and PBM treatments produce superior results. More importantly from a design standpoint, combining them may make it harder to optimize either one.

Infrared Heat and Near-Infrared Light Are Not the Same Thing

Infrared is a broad part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared used primarily to generate heat is not the same application as the near-infrared wavelengths used as part of photobiomodulation.

We covered this distinction in more detail in our article on traditional sauna versus infrared heat therapy.

The takeaway: just because two technologies involve infrared wavelengths does not mean they are doing the same thing.