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Steam showers are the ultimate in luxury showering. All of our steam showers feature chromotherapy (colour therapy) lighting, which is a mood enhancing light effect. Other models feature foot massagers, body jets, FM radio.
The heat and humidity of a steam shower enclosure causes the pores in your skin to open, softening and cleansing the skin and improving blood circulation. Steam showers induce sweat that carries excess salts (linked to hypertension) and toxins including heavy metals such as copper, lead, zinc and mercury, out deep from within the body.
Steam showers can remove as much heavy metals in 15 minutes as your kidneys can in 24 hours. Steam showers also help clear your respiratory system and reduce congestion; these benefits as well as others can be further improved by the use of essential oils or loose herbs. Steam shower induced sweating also draws out lactic acid, which causes muscle stiffness and contributes to general fatigue. Sweating is incredibly good for the skin and proper skin care leads to a higher resistance against eczema, athlete's foot, pimples, blackheads and many other ailments.
The physical benefits of steam showers should not be overlooked but also are not the be-all and end all of the benefits; the mental effects of a relaxing steam shower session has a huge effect on overall health and wellbeing. Some institutes for people with mental health problems use saunas and steam showers to help with serious psychological problems. Some people report improved cholesterol levels as a result from using steam showers although this is not proven.
The sweat caused by saunas and steam showers (about 1 litre every 10 minutes) is eccrine sweat, which is odourless unlike the sweat from pubic and underarm sweat glands that is caused by psychological conditions. Saunas and steam showers work by creating fever conditions in the body. Dilating capillaries increases the blood flow to carry heat from the skin to internal organs heating the body, the skin becomes reddened, heart rate increases and impurities in the liver, kidneys, stomach, muscles, brain, and most other organs are flushed out by the faster flow of juices. The skin and kidneys filter the wastes, excreting them in sweat and urine. It is common knowledge that many bacterial and viral agents do not survive well at temperatures higher than normal body temperature.
Saunas and steam showers work by slightly different methods, saunas generate high heat levels, 40-50°C, and low humidity ideally 10-20% (this level of heat without any humidity can be damaging to the respiratory system); whereas steam showers operate at lower temperatures with 95-100% humidity. Saunas require you shower before (to keep the sauna clean) and after (to cool down) but are not built into the same cabinet, whereas steam rooms are generally combined with a shower in one unit. Both systems however produce the same results - sweating.
Sauna technology has been in use for over 2500 years, first recorded use is by the roman's, although the Scandinavians are believed to have been using saunas prior to 500 BC.
Saunas and steam showers are clearly proven technology as opposed to newer technology, such as infra-red rays (a form of electromagnetic radiation) which effectively "cook" the body and lack the effects of convection and conduction, relying only on radiated heat to induce sweat, any part of the body not in direct line of site with the emitter will not benefit.
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