Traditional Sauna vs. Infrared Sauna: What’s the Difference?

As the Finns say, “No steam, no sauna.”

Infrared cabins are everywhere right now.

And like most things in wellness, there's some legitimate science underneath them—and a whole lot of people figuring out how to package that science into something they can sell you.

Infrared heat isn't nonsense.

Red and near-infrared light have legitimate therapeutic applications. Photobiomodulation has been studied for things like exercise recovery, muscle performance, pain, and tissue healing. Far-infrared heat has also been studied as a form of passive heat therapy.

So we're not here to talk down on infrared.

It has its place.

We just wouldn't call it a sauna.

No steam, no sauna.

Sauna comes from Finland.

And there's an old Finnish idea that gets right to the point:

No löyly, no sauna.

Löyly is the steam and wave of heat created when water hits hot sauna stones.

It's difficult to translate perfectly because it describes more than steam. It's the change in the room. The heat you feel rolling across your skin. The thing you control with a bucket of water and a ladle.

A traditional sauna is built around it.

Heat the stones.

Throw water.

Create löyly.

Cool down.

Rest.

Repeat.

Take away the stones and the water and you haven't just removed a feature.

You've removed the defining element of sauna.

In Finland, there's a better name for it.

An infrared room is more accurately described as an infrared cabin.

And that's not an insult.

A heated blanket isn't a bad blanket because it isn't a fireplace.

They're simply different things.

An infrared cabin uses infrared emitters to transfer radiant energy toward your body while the surrounding air generally remains much cooler than in a traditional sauna.

A traditional sauna creates an intensely heated environment around you, with a large mass of hot stones that allows you to introduce water and dramatically change the humidity and sensation of heat.

One surrounds you with radiant heat.

The other gives you heat, stone, water, steam and löyly.

For us, there's really no comparison.

It's a little like comparing a heated blanket to a fire.

Both make you warm.

Only one has a ritual built around it.

And yes, infrared can be good for you.

This is where the conversation gets unnecessarily tribal.

Infrared isn't fake.

Red and near-infrared light therapy is being researched and used for applications involving exercise recovery, tissue repair, pain and rehabilitation. Infrared heat therapy has its own research as well.

There’s also an important difference in the depth of the research.

Traditional Finnish sauna isn't a new wellness technology. It's a centuries-old cultural practice, and modern researchers have followed habitual sauna users for decades—including Finnish cohort studies with more than 20 years of follow-up.

Infrared therapy has legitimate research behind it too, particularly in clinical applications. But the evidence base is younger and, in many areas, consists of smaller studies and shorter treatment periods. Reviews of far-infrared sauna research have repeatedly called for more evidence, particularly around long-term outcomes and many of the broader health claims used to market infrared cabins.

That's not evidence that infrared doesn't work. It's a reason to distinguish established evidence from emerging evidence—and science from marketing.

If you're an athlete trying to recover from training or someone using red-light therapy for a particular therapeutic purpose, that's an entirely reasonable reason to use it.

Use the tool for what the tool is good at.

But don't confuse red-light therapy, infrared heat therapy and traditional sauna bathing simply because somebody built all three into wooden boxes.

They're different modalities.

You already live underneath a pretty incredible infrared lamp.

There's another part of the infrared conversation that sometimes gets lost in the marketing.

The sun produces infrared radiation.

A substantial portion of the solar energy reaching us is infrared.

And you don't necessarily have to stand in direct midday sunlight to encounter it. Infrared radiation is part of the outdoor environment even when you're hanging out in the shade.

Which leads to one of our more complicated wellness protocols:

Go outside more often.

Walk through the woods.

Sit underneath a tree.

Drink your coffee outside.

Work in the garden.

Spend an afternoon near the water.

Your body existed in relationship with sunlight, darkness, heat, cold and the natural world for a very long time before somebody figured out how to put LEDs on a wall and charge you a monthly membership for them.

That doesn't make the technology useless.

It just helps put it in perspective.

Sauna doesn't need to become another wellness device.

This is ultimately why we're drawn to traditional sauna.

It's remarkably primitive.

Wood.

Stone.

Water.

Fire or electricity.

Fresh air.

People.

You heat the stones. You throw water on them. The room changes. You get hot. You go outside. You cool down.

Then you decide whether you want to do it again.

There are no screens required. No biometric score. No optimization protocol. No need to convince yourself that you've discovered a new form of human biology.

People have been doing some version of this for generations.

And increasingly, that's what we want from wellness.

Not another thing packaged and sold back to us.

But a reason to return to things we already knew how to do.

Infrared cabins have their place.

But no löyly, no sauna.

And if you need a little more infrared in your life?

Go outside, ya dork.