Sauna suits are something that various health enthusiasts and weight-loss experts swear by to help you lose weight, or at least get rid of excess retained body in your skin and the rest of your organism. Do you know what else can help you lose weight? Sleeping! According to sleep experts having enough sleep is associated with better metabolic rate and the ability to lose weight swifter, or at least without too much hassle.
That being said, is it possible to combine the two? Can we use sauna suits to sleep in it and still manage to lose weight? Is it healthy? Does it come with some side effects that you should be aware of?
In this article, we’re going to tackle all the answers to these questions and explain much more in the process. We’ll guide you through what sauna suits are and what they’re commonly used as. Additionally, we’ll help you understand whether you should sleep in them or not, as well as what risks do come with deciding to sleep in one. Continue reading with us to learn more.
What is a Sauna Suit?
There are different types of sauna suits that can be used to lose weight. They can vary from simple sauna belts that can induce sweating to wearing shirts, pants, and even tracksuits that can induce weight loss. Essentially a sauna suit is a waterproof piece of clothes that can retain sweat.
This main feature of it enables it to be used while you’re attempting to lose weight. Additionally, it’s used as a rapid measure of losing weight in addition to rigorous workout techniques and dieting. It’s worth noting that this is not the healthiest way to lose weight, as it induces sweating, and losing extra retained water.
Many people have other names for the sauna suit. One of the more popular ones includes a “rubber suit”. It was named that way because this weight loss garment was made out of coated nylon material, as well as PVC. As mentioned earlier, it was designed to be waterproof, because people sweat profusely, which is the primary use of this product.
If you haven’t seen a sauna suit before, it resembles sports equipment, except that it’s made from nylon or PVC material. It also has elastic closures that can attach tightly to the skin and retain the heat necessary to cause sweating and fat melting. That’s its main function and why it closely resembles real-life saunas.
Benefits of Sauna Suit
There are numerous benefits of using a sauna suit. However, most of the benefits focus on weight loss and getting rid of excess fluid trapped inside our bodies. However, there are other purposes for which you can use a sauna suit, let’s take a look below:
Arthritis – Although there is no clinical research to back up these claims, a lot of sauna suit manufacturers recommend using them as they can decrease the pain caused by arthritis.
Detoxication – It is believed that a sauna suit can help improve the detoxication through sweating, although the best detoxication is done through urine as kidneys are the ones filtering out bad toxins
Improved cognitive function – Various studies support the claim that heat therapy can improve cognitive function. Using a sauna suit is generally considered to be heat therapy of the sort. Still, the evidence that sauna suits are directly responsible for the improvement of cognitive function is lacking.
How Long Should You Workout With Sauna Suit?
Like you can see, working out in a sauna suit bears various benefits, but you shouldn’t overdo it. There are limited amounts of time during which it’s considered acceptable to work out using your sauna suit. Those include:
- 5-10 minutes if you’re a beginner and you haven’t used a sauna suit before. That way you can avoid getting an annoying rash or skin irritation, as well as avoid exhaustion and other effects that come with overdoing the workout while being encased in a suit made of nylon and other materials that trap heat.
- 10-60 minutes if you got used to working out with your sauna suit and didn’t experience any side effects. Remember, you don’t want to exhaust yourself and get sick. Sauna suits are used to trap heat and if your body can’t cool down naturally, you could end up having a heat stroke.
Sleeping In a Sauna Suit – Can You Do It?
This question is not as much about “can you do it” but whether you should do it or not. Like we said at the beginning of the article, several studies gave clean evidence that having enough sleep, a healthy lifecycle, and proper night rest is necessary if you want your metabolism to be healthier and thus allow you to lose weight.
However, given that there’s at least anecdotal evidence that wearing a sauna suit can make you sweat and with that, lose weight, a lot of people want to avoid the exerting practice of exercising and just move to the weight loss immediately. However, they’re not sure if they should do it.
With that in mind, we’re here to answer the question. Yes, you can essentially sleep with a sauna suit. It’s even easier to sleep if you’re just using the belt, instead of the whole suite, but if you’re someone who has a deep sleep, you won’t have problems with sleeping with the sauna suit.
The question is, should you? Understandably, a lot of people want to put sleep and weight loss into a combo. However, for some people, this practice for people can either feel irritating or come with disadvantages or even risks.
Some people forget that they’re wearing sauna suits and carry on through the day. But, is it possible to forget that you’re using it and how can wearing something that can cause you to feel hot, sweaty, and potentially produce body odor allow you to sleep comfortably?
Keep in mind that some people may not choose to sleep in a sauna suit for the weight loss process alone. It’s no secret that staying warm and preventing the nerves from compressing is important for treating conditions like sciatica and arthritis.
To feel warm at all times, and reduce the symptoms of nerve and muscle strain people choose to invest in a sauna suit, hoping that they will have an easier time sleeping.
With everything said above, while possible, sleeping in a sauna suit doesn’t feel as comfortable. Below, we’ll list the potential disadvantages and risks of sleeping with one.
Disadvantages And Possible Risks of Sleeping In Sauna Suit
As mentioned earlier there are several disadvantages of sleeping in a sauna suit that shouldn’t be overlooked. Additionally, it comes with some risks.
Troubles Regulating Your Temperature
Sleeping with a sauna suit could completely disrupt your sleeping pattern. You could end up sweating too much and waking up with hot flashes. If you don’t sleep alone, this could additionally disrupt your sleep pattern and make both of you face numerous difficulties trying to sleep.
Given that the clothes cutouts are supposed to be closed, the heat will be trapped inside the suit, to the point your skin can’t even breathe.
The heat could try leaving through your head pores, causing your face to be sweaty and your hair wet. This can come with numerous discomforts, from difficulties falling asleep, to getting sick if you keep the window opened.
Sleeping in a cool sleeping environment in the summer is of utmost importance, as is sleeping in a cozy and comfortable bed during the winter. Sleeping in a sauna suit could result in neither of that, especially if you’re a hot sleeper and tend to sweat during the night.
Noise
The second factor that could affect your sleep and minimize the barely visible benefits of wearing the suit during sleep is noise. Most of those suits are made out of PVC and Nylon materials, or out of a mix. A lot of people avoid getting a jacket or some other part made out of nylon exactly because of the noise.
As much as it’s important to sleep insufficiently cool and cozy environments, it’s almost as important to sleep in dark and quiet ambient. Now, the sauna suit won’t affect the darkness level in your room, but given it’s made of nylon material, it can get unbearably loud, which can disrupt the sleeping pattern of many people.
Dehydration
As we mentioned multiple times throughout the article, wearing a sauna suit can cause you to sweat profusely, which poses a risk of dehydration. Wearing a sauna suit for the workout purpose is safe because a person doesn’t spend more than one hour wearing the sauna suit.
However, sleeping in a sauna suit can lead to you dehydrating yourself because you lost too much fluid. Now, people think that they can just drink a lot of water and not deal with any consequences. But, that’s not a good practice. Drinking too much water before sleep can damage your sleep cycle.
While drinking a lot of water throughout the day is a good practice for keeping your skin and body hydrated, as well as supportive for weight loss, it’s recommended to not drink water at least 2 hours before bed. With a sauna suit, you can easily get dehydrated.
Kidney Damage
If we combine the risk of overheating due to poor temperature regulation once you’re encased in a nylon sauna suit, as well as the risk of dehydration, you can end up suffering from unwanted kidney damage, which is a serious condition if left untreated, according to study.
Losing too much fluid can lead to losing the necessary ions that are used to regulate the function of your kidneys, particularly the nerves and muscles in them. Lack of electrolytes in water can lead to kidneys losing their overall protective function and dying off too soon.
That said, use the sauna suit in moderation and avoid sleeping in it if you’re at the risk of developing a dangerous kidney condition. Ridding your kidneys of the necessary minerals and ions, particularly potassium can also result in kidney sand and kidney stone conditions which can cause pain.
Insomnia
The increased metabolism bit is important when you’re exercising and working out in your sauna suit. However, if you’re trying to sleep and the sauna suit is boosting your metabolic rate, you’ll have difficulties falling asleep.
With that in mind, you should avoid sleeping in a sauna suit if you are trying to speed up your metabolism. Fast metabolism increases the function of your Thyroid. It also can raise your temperature which can make sleeping particularly impossible.
Are There Alternatives to Sleeping in a Sauna Suit?
When it comes to weight loss, there’s no alternative for sleep to a sauna suit. While it may help you sweat profusely, it makes you sacrifice the night’s rest. Poor sleep habits lead to being irritable during the day and they can make you choose binge eating and stress eating due to lack of proper sleep. If you wake up rested even with the sauna suit that’s great for you, but it’s bad in the long run.
If you’re suffering from arthritis and you see a sauna suit as salvation to keep your joints sufficiently warm in the night, there are plenty of alternatives. The best part is that they’re not crazily expensive. Those two alternatives that you can easily place on your bed include:
- Heat mattress pad (Degrees of Comfort Dual Control Heated Mattress Pad)
- Heat blanket (JinJeeo Heated Blanket Electric Throw)
The heat mattress pad is suitable for people who want to warm up their mattresses. However, if you preheat the pad, it’ll be warm by the time you go to bed and you’ll be able to keep your joints warn if you are sleeping on the affected side.
Heat blankets are an alternative that you can cover yourself up with. It will cover the affected area and keep it warm throughout the night. Weight blankets also seem like a good alternative if you’re not bothered by their weight.
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