Steam therapy involves exposing the body to steam, often infused with medicinal herbs, to induce sweating and detoxification.
Heat bathing is an ancient practice practiced throughout history across many cultures, continuing today in the Russian banyas, American Indian sweat lodges, and Finnish saunas.
As heat therapy soars in popularity today, many health claims are made about its benefits. These range from better metabolism, weight loss, and stress reduction to improved cardiovascular function, pain reduction, anti-aging, and skin rejuvenation.
While there are many studies on the health benefits of saunas, research on the benefits of moist heat, like steam rooms, is much more limited. But what research there is does highlight a number of health benefits to steam heat.
There has been much discussion in medical circles about increasing not only lifespan, but healthspan. This is the number of years you live in reasonably good health without serious acute or chronic illness.
