Heat Therapy Shows Promise in Mental Health Treatment, Research Indicates
New research suggests that heat therapy, including practices like sauna use and infrared hyperthermia, may be a powerful physiological stimulus for promoting mental health, particularly in treating depression. While warm baths were historically used in psychiatric asylums, modern evidence, though still emerging, points to heat's potential. Christopher Lowry, an integrative physiologist and neuroscientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, highlights that heat triggers an anti-inflammatory response and activates serotonin neurons, which can provide stress resilience and antidepressant effects. A landmark trial ten years ago, co-authored by Lowry, showed that 30 people with depression who underwent whole-body infrared machine treatment experienced a 50% reduction in symptoms within a week, with effects lasting six weeks. Ashley Mason, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco, is further exploring this, noting that depressed individuals often have thermoregulation difficultie...
