The Dr. Josh Axe Show - The SHOCKING Science of Daily Red Light and Sauna Use

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

Imagine a therapy so simple and accessible that it improves detoxification, supports longevity, sharpens cognition, and mimics a moderate cardio workout—all without leaving your home. Infrared saunas and red-light therapy are impacting everything from mitochondrial function to inflammation in ways the science community can no longer ignore. In this episode, Connie Zack breaks down what’s actually happening inside your cells when you use these tools daily. Check Dr. Josh Axe’s Favorite Sauna Brand →  Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcast Save up to $2,000 + FREE Shipping on your sauna purchase through December 31st with code AXE Sunlighten Red Light Therapy Mask – currently discounted from $639 to $479: https://get.sunlighten.com/axemask Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe 🎧 Early Access! Our podcast listeners get every episode early, and you can tune in and be a part of our exclusive listeners below →  Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotify Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Order my NEW BOOK, The Biblio Diet → https://bit.ly/4oPEP3t Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms →http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com  Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally →   DrAxeThyroidClass.com  If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → DrAxeHormoneClass.com  Uncover what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! →  http://MyBloodWork.com  CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/ TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/ X: https://x.com/drjoshaxe/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxe Website: http://thehealthinstitute.com Sign up for my newsletter: https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3 Ask me a question: http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe   CONNECT WITH CONNIE ZACK Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conniejozack/?hl=en CONNECT WITH SUNLIGHTEN SAUNAS Instagram →https://www.instagram.com/sunlightensaunas/ Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/SunlightenSaunas/ DISCLAIMER This content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot of people think that heat is just like a simple thing. You get hot and you sweat. What we're learning is infrared heat and light. It impacts the cells. The minute you expose your body to infrared energy, it starts to move everything inside. And that movement is what starts to increase the blood flow significantly. It is not a mild flow change. It is a significant flow change.

I mean, it can be up to three times. times more blood flowing in your body instantly doesn't take a lot of time. What's been your experience and it's kind of that cold therapy? Huge difference between men and women when it comes to cold. A lot of times men, it'll help increase their heart rate variability. It'll help decrease a resting heart rate and it'll improve their sleep measures. But with women, if they do cold, sometimes that same night, the research shows that they won't sleep as well. Yeah, let's get into those five hallmarks of aging because I think that's really interesting for people. I mean, most people want to start to reverse organ age, reverse the aging process. And maybe a lot of people don't even know what the

hallmarks of aging are. Yeah, let's talk about that. Hey everyone, Dr. Josh Axe here. Welcome the show. Today we're going to be talking about the healing power of red light, heat, cold, and so much more. And I've brought in one of the world leading experts, Connie Zach. Connie is the co-founder of Sunlighten. And today we're going to be diving into mitochondrial health, how to heal using cellular energy. We're going to talk about healing your thyroid, fighting cancer, a number of topics today. And also, she brought some cool new technology that's actually not even released yet. It's going to be releasing here in a week or two. I didn't know if this looked more like a mask that Ironman would wear or from the Tron movies. But pretty cool. We'll talk about kind of the newest and latest things in the, you know,

regenerative medicine and biohacking world. So, Connie, welcome the show. Thank you so much. It's great to be here again. I love coming to Nashville. Well, you know, I know this is the second time you're on the show and excited to talk about all things, Sana. And, you know, what's interesting is I first heard about you through one of my best friends, Jordan Rubin. And I remember I would go to West Palm Beach when I first started meeting Jordan. And he would always be in his infrared sauna there in the area. And so, and actually what's interesting, too, when I first met Jordan, the very first time, went to his house in West Palm Beach. And his, and he was doing some really advanced.

things nutrition. I remember thinking, wow, this guy's really hardcore because he was eating while we were there every meal was he was eating raw salmon and green vegetable juice and avocado. I mean, that was almost it. And then he told me a little bit later that he was actually on his, on the back end of beating cancer naturally. He had a cancer diagnosis, but he would also get in the sauna every day. And so that was part of his therapy and protocol. And so that was the first time I'd heard of you and what you've done with saunas over the years. What got you into the sauna space, and how has using a sauna regularly impacted your own life? So we got into the sauna space over 25 years ago.

That's so crazy. And soon thereafter, I met Jordan. But I got into it because my brother was chronically ill, and nobody knew what was wrong with him. until his dentist diagnosed him with heavy metal toxicity as a result of his mercury in his fillings leaking into his body. And the dentist said, thank goodness, that he had read about a technology called infrared that could potentially pull out the mercury from his body safely and naturally in the comfort of his own home. And he's like, I'm in. So he did some research and he bought an infrared zana and it changed his life. I saw the transformation. Aaron saw the transformation.

Aaron saw the transformation. And Aaron's my business partner and husband. And we thought, oh, my goodness, we have got to bring this technology, you know, to the world. Yeah. And we left our corporate jobs at Procter & Gamble in the pharmaceutical side of the business and decided to invest the rest of our life and everything we had. We mortgage our home. We mortgage our cars.

We mortgage everything. There was no plan B. and we had to make it work. And so we just every single day did more research and figured out how to bring the most effective, efficient infrared product to market. And that's what we've done. I always love these stories of people like yourself that were in this conventional medicine space in pharmaceuticals, product, or gamble.

And then your life changes, the family members life changes, and you're like, wow. And you have now have a purpose. I mean, something that's super meaningful where you're helping so many people heal. and I can't tell you how many people I've recommended use infrared sonnas. And I started using this, partly because my mom's diagnosis with cancer and me looking at, what are the best therapies for detoxification, for healing? And my mom in particular had hypothyroidism. She had cancer.

She had a number of things. And there's so many studies now showing the overall benefits of circulation and mitochondrial health and things like that when it comes to sauna therapy. It's so funny because I remember when I first started recommending saunas, I saw a few people in the medical space question, oh, well, there's really no literature research showing that it supports detoxification, but of course now more and more studies are coming out showing that it does. Right.

I know. When we started, Dr. X, it was like people thought we were promoting something that was so foreign. In reality, as infrared's been around for a very long time. and light therapy has been around for a very long time. Even the sun has been around for a long time, and infrared comes from the sun. But people kept thinking we were talking about a microwave. They just did not understand the wavelength.

And the only type of sauna that anybody had ever heard of was the Finnish sauna, the high heat sauna, right? And so, you know, we were, every day was such an uphill battle because nobody knew what we were. talking about and they were, you know, they were not familiar with the infrared wavelength. And the interesting thing is back then, there was already research in Asia. There was significant research already done on the heart and showing improvement in endothelial function and improvement with patients with congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease. But it wasn't, you know,

there was no pharmaceutical company behind it. There was nobody behind it. It was just research that had already been done. And so when I saw that, I was thinking, oh, my, that's really good research. And that was really good statistical significant results. If somebody like us could take that data and bring it to the United States and do some more research, then we could really help people shift away from treatment towards prevention and just incorporating infrared into their daily lifestyle to heal naturally,

to help our bodies heal themselves with an energy that is safe and natural. Yeah, I totally agree. You know, I'm also a big fan of the Finnish sonnas. I think that's a great product as well. How would you say that the infrared sonnas, and I'll share my thoughts on this as well, but how infrared sonnas are different than that, you know,

the former traditional finished sonnas? Yeah. Infrared heats the body directly and is absorbed into the body, and the finished sauna's heat the air, and that's how you get hot. So they go at higher temperature, and when you walk in,

you can feel the heat in the air because the heat is much hotter. Infrared is more like energy medicine versus heat medicine, because it's a wavelength of light, and there's four different wavelengths. and they connect with a body tube by heat, two by light. And so infrared is multidimensional. There's four different parts that impact the body in completely different ways,

where traditional is heat and it's great heat. Absolutely, I agree with you that it's nice to be able to have high levels of heat. It just works with the body in a different way. Yeah. Yeah, so from my understanding, and by the way, I tend to recommend infrared more because my patients, I think, tend to, or if I'm saying somebody with a medical condition, again, a lot of hypothyroidism, a lot of diabetes, a lot of people that maybe have metabolic or even mitochondrial dysfunction. I like to be able to, I believe in a more

gentle way as well, use the infrared and red light there in that way. Now, there are studies shown the finish saunas really have a lot of benefits, especially with the heat shock proteins. And so I think when we're looking at something like hormesis and challenging the body, I think that it is more challenging. And so for some people that are already very physically healthy, especially men might be in their 20s, they might respond even better to the finishanas. But I think overall, if somebody has got a medical condition and they're looking to heal,

I tend to prefer the infrared light sonnas and have seen benefits with so many patients, especially with hypothyroidism, you know, issues like chronic infections like lines, like Lyme disease, long COVID. I mean, any of those sort of issues with the mitochondrial dysfunction, that's where I tend to really like the infrared and the benefits. And there's some great, great research on that as well. There's great research with mitochondrial dysfunction, with cellular energy, with the five hallmarks of aging.

Yeah. There's excellent research. I mean, let's get into those five hallmarks of aging because I think that's really interesting for people. I mean, most people want to start to reverse organ age, reverse the aging process. And maybe a lot of people don't even. even know what the hallmarks of aging are. Yeah, let's talk about that.

So I'll list the five hallmarks of aging that infrared impacts, and then we can talk, and I'd love to hear, you know, your thoughts on that. So mitochondrial dysfunction is one of the reasons for accelerated aging. Cellular senescence, which is essentially like the zombie cells that stay around. And then there's inflammation. That's the number one cause of aging. and then there is gut dysbiosis, gut health, and then stem cell vitality. And each one of those, infrared makes a significant impact.

And what, like I'd love to talk about today is just that the impact. A lot of people think that heat is just like a simple thing. You get hot and you sweat, right? And what we're learning is infrared heat and light. It impacts the cells. so at such a deep level and really helps your cells be healthier. Yeah. Right?

And it cleans up the cells. It helps the stem cells. It decreases the inflammation, the molecular chaperones, the heat shock proteins. It helps with that. It helps with your mitochondria. And we're like our bodies, like there's so many, was it, like multibillion mitochondria? You probably know the number better than I do. Trillions.

Trillions. Yeah. And our body. And infrared helps to connect with the mitochondria and make it, make more engines when it's needed and make them more functional so that your body is healthier and can repair itself. Yeah, yeah. It really is powerful. So these hallmarks of aging, you know, there was a study done, a landmark study. First, they did nine hallmarks of aging.

They never keeps going up. Well, like, well, maybe there's 12. Maybe there's more than that. But overall, it's a way of looking at the body. and saying, hey, here's some warning signs that the body is aging too quickly or some signs that the body might even be younger than, much younger than the average person. And so when we look today at you can do a biological versus chronological age test. So somebody might be 40 years old, but biologically, they're actually 30 or they're actually 50.

So we've all seen people like this, right? We look at people and we think like, oh, wow, that person's 40, but they look like they're in their 60s, especially after going through something like chemotherapy or, you know, we see this with presidents, right, when they get really stressed out and how their hair turns gray. And then you'll see them. And they're like, wow, that looks like they age 20 years. And then vice versa. If someone like, I'm thinking like RFK Jr. and other people who are like, wow, that person looks 15, 20 years younger than their age. And so there are ways that we can actually reverse organ age and actually improve these hallmarks of aging. And just to go through a few of those, by the way, there is one other called proteostasis that I was reading a research paper

which is another hallmark of aging, which basically is connected to mitochondrial health. So there's no doubt infrared son has helped a lot. But I really like the mitochondria dysfunction because we know that these are the engines, the power plants of the cell. Most people think that cells have one mitochondria. In some cases, they have hundreds or thousands. And certain tissues in the body have more mitochondria than others, like your heart and your muscles and brain tissue have a lot.

And this is important for cellular energy. But anytime anybody has low energy, like chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, there's a really, really deep connection with mitochondrial dysfunction there. And that's why, again, there's some, I saw a study not too long ago that showed red light therapy directly on the thyroid was great for hypothyroidism and helping reverse it. Pretty amazing. And so, but, but yeah, the hallmarks of aging for everybody, these are ways of looking at your body and saying, okay, here's how old your body is functioning.

essentially, are you younger biologically or older than your actual age? And infrared sauna is one of those things that can impact five or six of those in a powerful way. Correct. And it's also good to know like with a mitochondria, you can test. There's tests that we partner with a company that to test the quality and the function of your mitochondria. So that's something that if you're listening, I would recommend doing it because it's very eye-opening and you can see. You can see. You can see. how your mitochondria are functioning and and then take action and both far infrared and near infrared and red light all of them have been shown to improve the function of your mitochondria and give you more energy and I always wondered

back in the basement I always call it back when we first started the company I always wondered why I had more energy after using my sunlight was on it you know I'm like God this is so wild because in intuitively you think of heat, because back, that was before we introduced near-infrared light and red light. At the time, we were really focusing, all we really knew was far infrared, which was heat. And after one of a session, I just had so much energy. And intuitively, I always thought sauna is more like a day at the beach. When you're done, you're exhausted, you know.

And I do get tired after a traditional sauna. And so I'm like, why am I? And now I'm learning, you know, so much about, you know, your water molecules and the change in easy water and mitochondrial energy. Yeah. Producing more mitochondria and cellular, you know, senescence and getting rid of those zombie cells and cleaning everything up. Yeah. I'm like, oh, that's what's happening.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that's interesting is that there's a Bible verse that reminds you of it basically says something like healing is in the blood. And, you know, when you look at many practices when it comes to healing, the mechanism of healing is increasing blood and oxygen and nutrients to the area. Because if you're, you know, think about something like acupuncture. What acupuncture is doing when you're putting those little instruments or needles into the area, what it does is there are areas where of our anatomy or our external body that are connected to organs. So like if somebody has a heart attack, they'll feel pain in their left arm, gallbladder attack right shoulder.

Well, there's areas where you could kneel around that right shoulder and help send more blood, to the gallbladder or different areas of the body. Or I remember first, I used to work with the Olympic swimmers and they would get cupping done. And I've been involved in doing cupping for a long time and I've had it done a lot myself. And what's that doing? Cupping, it's bringing blood to that area.

And that's part of the benefit of that infrared light is we're sending blood to these areas of the body. And that's why it's helping the mitochondria. Because when you get more blood and nutrients, And there was a study on this showing, basically, when you're bringing blood to that air of the body, you're also increasing the nutrients being brought like al-carnatine, co-enzyme Q10, a number of nutrients. They're more oxygen. So it allows for greater healing and regeneration.

Yeah. That's why there's been such positive impact on brain health specifically because you're getting more oxygen to the brain. because you're significantly increasing the flow of your body. That's one of my favorite things about the minute you expose your body to infrared energy, it starts to move everything inside. Yeah. And that movement is what starts to increase the blood flow significantly. It is not a mild flow change.

It is a significant flow change. I mean, it can be up to three times more. blood flowing in your body instantly it doesn't take a lot of time and that activation and increase in blood flow gets everything going to your brain and that's why when i'm in my sauna i can think clearer and i any type of mind chatter goes away and when i'm done i just my brain feels so much clear and my body feels so much lighter i have so much more energy it's because that all of that flow is happening it's like exercise. That's right. Yeah. It's an exercise memetic and you get a lot of the benefits of exercise and there's studies, the way on therapy studies on exercise capability and exercise tolerance and

how people after using infrared, they are able to in six minutes walk faster and farther than they were prior to using infrared or the people that didn't use infrared. Yeah. So I'm talking about so many different things, but I love, it gets me going when you talk about blood flow and the benefits of blood flow and how specifically it connects with the brain is I'm really passionate right now about mental health and brain health. Yeah. Protecting your brain and protecting your brain and training your brain for your future self. Yeah.

I love it. That's so good. You know, one of the things I've explained to patients too, and I've been very involved in the supplement industry too. It's been a passion of mine. I love formula. And I love studying. and looking at some of these ancient formulas used in Chinese medicine, Iroveda.

I love reading about the herbs used in the body. We talk about brain health. Like Solomon talks about saffron, which is probably the single greatest herb for brain health and mood that's out there today. So anyways, I love studying and researching this. But the way that I would describe infrared light, infrared sauna is this is a supplement that is to the sun. We know the sun is something you should be getting a lot of. we get just a fraction of the amount of sun we should be getting on a regular basis. I mean, most jobs throughout history, there were so many that were agriculture-related,

people were outdoors. If you were going somebody, you weren't on a car, you were walking. So there's a lot less blood flow and a lot less sunshine that we're getting directly on our body. And I think that's why people are responding so well to things like sauna because there's a major deficiency. And sometimes people take supplements and they don't really notice a difference. And the reason is, is that your body might be already good in that area.

I mean, if you're taking vitamin C, but your vitamin C levels are normal, you're not going to notice a difference. However, if your vitamin D levels are in the teens, you start supplementing and get it up to over 50, you're like, wow, that was a miracle for me. And I think that's why so many people are like, wow, I did infrared and that felt like a miracle for me because, one, they're not getting enough sun. And in some areas, especially if you're living up north, it's really hard to get enough sun. Now that's not to say, I still know plenty of people in Florida, California, and Texas that aren't getting enough sun there as well. But, you know, this is something I want to touch on. I'm going to totally switch gears here. I'm good with that. I had a family member who, for Christmas last year, she wanted red light therapy, mostly for her face.

So I ended up buying her a whole panel. Yeah. And she started using it on her whole body. But this is something, I think, for a lot of women specifically, they're going to love. This is an infrared mask. Correct. So walk us through any research on skin health and in red light therapy and talk to me a little bit about this amazing, you know, futuristic-looking mask here. Yeah.

So I'm so excited to introduce this. This is cutting edge. Hasn't been released yet. And so, you know, when you're listening or looking, it's brand, brand new. and the benefits of near-infrared and red light, which we have in our panel that I love so much, and we also have in our saunas, is it works with your collagen

and you're elastin to increase that in your skin to help your skin look more youthful and glow. I always say it gives, far and for it gives your skin the glow from the inside out because you're detoxifying and you're purging, so you're cleaning your body. and you glow because you look radiant. And then near infrared and red light help from the outside in physically repair your skin and accelerate cell turnover so that you're getting youthful, more youthful skin faster.

So we brought to market the sunlight and red light therapy mask, and it has five different options. It has auto mode, which is you put it up. on and turn it on and then it will just rotate through red light with near infrared. And that's an important point that I want to make sure and call out because there's a lot of conversations about red light. And red light is fantastic. But near, not the, but and near infrared is penetrates deeper. And it's important to have the two together. Yeah. So you don't want red light alone. You really want the two together, and that's just an important factor. And what we have done in this

is essentially we've been studying near infrared and red light for 20 years. And so we brought the technology that we already use in our sauna to the mask. Does that make sense? We use the depth, we use the deepest penetration wavelength versus a lot of things that are on the market aren't as medical grade and therapeutic. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's an important distinguishing fact is if anybody has ever been, you know, in an area and you just felt hot. Maybe you're even outside. You weren't in the sun and you just felt hot versus if you've ever laid out for a period of time, let's say it's 70 degrees up, but you just feel like your body is being heated. Like there's a depth happening. There are so many benefits of that. And we know that that's what the sun does.

It starts to really penetrate even deeper into the body. So, Connie, one of the things I'm super excited about, and I'm going to tell you what my wife, Chelsea, Dr. Chelsea Axis is going to be super excited about is this mask, this red light mask. Um, you know, My wife is so just conscious of, and I'm so grateful for this as her husband, so conscious of just her own health, our kids' health. And so her and I together, always thinking about like our kids of,

okay, we need to make sure Arwen's getting her DHA with EPA. We need to make sure she's, we did this whole genetic test on our kids as well, looking at on Arwen specifically on, okay, does she have the MTHFR gene? What's she doing? And just doing everything we can to. But Chelsea also has this whole,

skincare routine at night where she's doing things to support stem cell production she does like everything from guasha if you're familiar with that to like microneedling she does this herself micromanedling with PRP but this is something she's going to because she's been kind of like holding up a red light for a few minutes sometimes but this is going to be so much better and easier for her so she will be again a huge fan here and and this looks like something between like a cross between I didn't know if this was like an Ironman mask or something from the Tron, the Tron movie. And you can see out of it because it doesn't look like you can see out of it. Wow.

Yeah, you can put it on. Yeah, let's put it on. Let's put it on here real quick here. Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. Oh, yeah. See? And then you just attach it in the back. Yeah, and then you press the power button on the side.

Okay. And then it rotates through the different lights. And what's nice, that women will really like it. is it's really easy to use and it's comfortable and you can see out of it. Yeah. And there's no cord. So it's really easy. You're not attached to anything.

Yeah. It's super, super comfortable. And you can only have to use it if you want to use one of the programs for three minutes. Oh, wow. Yeah. That is great. So talk about what are the benefits of using this type of red light and infrared light therapy for the skin specifically?

Yes. The benefits are firming your skin. So you look younger, helping with wrinkles, helping to boost collagen. and boost elastin. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then there's also a mode for acne if you struggle with acne. Yeah.

Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so collagen, you know, increasing collagen production. That's important. Yeah. Fighting acne. And I guess part of that is going to be when we're doing red light therapies you talked about, we talked about those hallmarks of aging. We're talking about reducing inflammation.

Yes. Which is going to be so great for acne, whether it be, you know, a teenager or a lot of people, even in their 40s, you know, have those sort of issues. So the sort of anti-aging for the skin. And I love that you can do it anywhere from probably three minutes to 10 to 15. What's the max people typically do with that? The max would be 12 minutes if you did three minutes on each program. Okay.

Okay. So three to 12 minutes. Three to 12 minutes. But I love the fact that it's only three minutes because everybody can, you know, take three minutes. You can do it while you're doing so many other things, right? And so you can have it stack. It's great. And red light and near infrared really do make a difference on your skin, helping your skin glow more, and just having your skin feel like more firm and younger.

And you just, when you feel better, then you radiate that from the inside out as well. Yeah. You know, one of the other things I just want to say that I think is important and pretty incredible about this one in particular is that, you know, you created a mask here that does not only, you know, red light, but it's doing far. infrared, it's doing near infrared, it's doing these different types of red light, which we talked about how that impacts the body. But this is important as well for skin health that you're going deeper and you're covering the whole skin because some of these masks that I've seen, they're just not great quality. And they're actually not even hitting the whole face. The lights are so small and sporadic. They're only hitting parts. So it's not even the entire skin versus I noticed with

yours, they're much wider, bigger. And so you're going to be hitting the full face with doing that. So I, uh, maximum distribution with the prism. So you're, you're, you're, you're, your entire face, just exactly like you just said, it's cover, which is great. That's so powerful. I love it. I love it. We're super excited to launch it. And it's nice to be able to have something that you can just strap on, forget about for three minutes.

You can do it inside your sauna if you want. Yeah. You know, and then you're done and you feel like you've done something, you know, your wife is going to love it because you feel like you've done something great for your skin. Like I love when I do dermaplaining, I don't know, she does that, dermapraplaining, a microplaneing, a microre and micrneedling, and you just feel like you're stimulating, you know, your cells. And so you're increasing back to flow. You're increasing the blood flow in your skin, which is great. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I see a lot more, a lot of celebrities. I mean, we see this now more than, you know, it's funny. I was, I saw this thing on Instagram when I was showing people what they look like in their 30s back in the 90s versus some people today in terms of like, you have a woman in her 50s and 60s today. And they'll look much younger sometimes than maybe somebody did quite a few years ago. And part of it is, you know, dietary changes, taking the right supplements, in doing, you know, these types of therapies.

Now, of course, Botox is part of it, too, with some people, which I don't recommend. I don't think is, you know, ideal long term probably, for various reasons. Again, I'm not saying it's terrible. I think it's probably fine a little bit to do here and there. Maybe not the worst thing. but overall, I think that if you can produce your support your body and creating more collagen itself and doing these sort of natural therapies, of course, that's even better. Yeah.

And any type of movement, both externally as well as internally, because I always think with infrared, it really helps facilitate that movement and flow with your body. That helps your skin look better. Yeah. And you get, and you do it in a natural way. It's, again, mimicking exercise because you're increasing that flow and you're increasing the circulation. Yeah. And you're benefiting the look and texture of your skin.

Yeah, that's so great. You know, I'm currently writing a book on cellular healing in medicine. Yeah, I'm excited about. And one of the chapters we get to in the book is getting a lot of sunshine, but then if you're not getting sunshine, using things like red light therapy and infrared sauna. And similar thing with the cold, you know, we used to spend more time in the elements, you know, more time in the rain, more time in the cold, more time of the heat. Now, sometimes for some people throughout history, that wasn't necessarily

the best thing if they were immunodeficient or in a state of weakness because that led to more things like pneumonia and more acute illness. But at the same time, it makes people more resilient if you're doing it the right way. It's like weight training. It's like, okay, your body's used to this amount of coal. Let's go a little beyond that and make it more used to a little bit, something one step colder. And then your body recovers from it and that can actually get stronger from it. And so this is where I've seen like these, a lot of these different trends like cold plunge, where I've appreciated elements of them. I've also not been a fan of the general population, how they're doing it. And the reason I say that is, you know, in my study of in Chinese medicine,

also looking at the medical literature, if I've got a patient that has hypothyroidism and they're cold plunging, that's terrible for them, you know, versus if I've got a, you know, a male in their 20s doing CrossFit and training for something and then they're doing it on occasion, that's great. You know, because one, they're producing a lot of heat and a lot of yang energy. And so cooling it down brings their body back more into homeostasis, which is in balance, and that's good for their recovery. But if you've got a patient and they have hypothyroidism or Lyme disease or any immune

deficiency or body temperature is low, and then they're doing cold plunge and getting it colder, that's really not good for them. Now, I do like people challenging their body. So for that person, they would have probably been better off with hypothyroidism, getting in an infrared sauna every day, all the time, warming the body, doing those sorts of things. So I think it's also important as we talk about, you know, heat therapies and cold therapies that you understand that you are unique. You need to do what's best for your body for most people.

They're better off doing that red light and that sauna because most people's body temperature. too cool. They need more circulation, more movement. However, there are some people who can benefit from cold plunge. I see this more with men, especially with low testosterone. And I know this is something that you guys have gotten into recently is doing more with educating people and having products that are cold plunge related. What's been your experience in that cold therapy, you know, industry? Yeah, great question. And I'm so glad you framed it the way you did as far as how everybody is an individual and they really need to do what's best for them. It's really important because there are a lot of people doing coal plunge extreme in extreme conditions.

For example, people doing it really extreme temperatures. And the research shows that extreme is not better, longer is not better, and more frequent. I just read an article, great, great article, great study that said, three, less than three times per week is the ideal if somebody wants to do cold therapy. And then you have people that are trying to do it every day. Every day. So we recently, this happened since last year when I was on, we didn't have any involvement with cold then, but we did acquire the assets to a coal plunge company called Ice Barrel.

Oh yeah, Ice Barrel. Yeah. So we are, you know, really heavily now involved in that category, learning, I'm doing as much research as possible. What I'm finding that I think is really interesting to support what you just said is that men and women, like not only is everybody different, but there is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to cold, which is different necessarily than infrared. And women need to pay attention to their cycle.

Women need to pay attention to what's going on to their body. Women should take it at wet, high, temperature so definitely more towards 59 and 60 degrees that's right versus men can take it down to 50 degrees yeah and they definitely should not be be staying in there for a really long time more than three minutes and also found that some of the benefits such as increasing your heart rate variability that's been found with cold therapy as well as decreasing your resting heart rate can change with women like and sleep the sleep is another thing. A lot of times men, it'll help increase a heart rate variability. It'll

help decrease their resting heart rate and it'll improve their sleep measures. But with women, if they do cold, sometimes that same night, the research shows that they won't sleep as well. So it takes them longer to rebound from it. So it's just really interesting and you should pay attention to that. Look at your wearables, monitor your monitor and do what's best for you. Yeah, and what I would say, if you are interested in doing cold plunging as a woman, well, once, start taking a one minute cold shower. You know, have it hot, turn it down to one minute cold, and then you work on your breathing for one to two minutes, and then turn it back up.

That's a great place to start. And then if you're going to cold plunge one to two days a week, you know, get in there around 60 degrees, two minutes to three minutes total. And then the other days a week, think about maybe I need to get in a sauna some of these other days or do some things to sort of warm my body. But even when you look at the sort of medical, philosophical idea behind Chinese medicine, men are what we call more Yang energy. Women are more yen. Yang is hot.

Yin is cold. And so oftentimes men who are already really hot-bodied, they getting their bodies cooler, because I know, like, I sleep hot at night, you know. And so part of that is due to that yang energy. And so bringing it down on occasion can be good versus women. They need to be warming their body up more. And even when I think about like fertility especially, and the way God created women's bodies, you want to keep a lot of warmth and circulation moving in that body as well. So anyways, I'm glad we had this nuanced conversation because I am a fan of both

for the right people at the right time in the right way. And so it's important discussion. Yeah, that was like absolutely perfect. And I 100% agree with you. And one other thing that I've done is sometimes I've recommended and even myself use contrast therapy where I'm doing hot and cold together. And this is good for, if somebody sprains an ankle, for instance, at first you want to ice, they tell people for 24 to 48 hours. But what I found is the most beneficial is after that first 24 to 48 hours, doing that contrast therapy in certain areas.

So people with low back pain, getting in and doing contrast therapy, people would just general joint injuries. Because what happens is that contrast therapy is where you've got your body sort of tightens up with the cold, opens up with the heat. It acts as a pump for pumping in and out blood and oxygen and nutrients to help heal quicker. So for injuries, specifically, alternating hot and cold, I think can be a good therapy for some people for that use. You know, I wanted to jump into stress.

Yeah. You know, I'm always a person that's trying to look at what is the root cause of a health issue and how do we start to fix it? And I think the master hormone of the entire body that impacts everything the most is cortisol. Because cortisol impacts insulin. and then insulin impacts estrogen and then thyroid hormones and all, you know, testosterone and all those different things. So balancing out and improving cortisol is so important. Talk to me about how red light therapy and maybe even sauna use actually impacts cortisol levels and stress.

Yeah. Both significantly impact cortisol and what I love about far infrared and red light and near-infrared as far as impact on the body as they do it quickly. And the research shows that when you are in that fight or flight state, you need to as quickly as possible get your body into the parasympathetic state. So many people are living in the sympathetic state, and it is messing up their nervous system. And that's why their heart rate variability is low. And they're getting used to being stressed and their body is responding.

And what infrared sauna specifically does as soon as you get in there with far infrared, that energy immediately starts to relax your body. You can actually feel your shoulders drop. Oh, yeah. And you can feel the energy being absorbed. And the cortisol comes down. You know, the flow starts to happen. You get more oxygen.

that oxygen helps to just regulate everything so that you will notice over time, one of the things, and you can do this, your own experiment, your heart rate variability will go up if you use infrared sona for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a huge longevity indicator. H.R.V. You know, I have a friend of mine who, HRV has been very, very low for a long time, and part of it is every moment of every second of the day, things are scheduled out and just, just busy. and so doing everything we can to increase that HRV is really, really a big deal. It's one of my favorite indicators, again, for overall health, longevity, how you're healing. And so I wear an o-ring.

And so I'm constantly like this morning, I was looking at what's my, what's my HRV score in Chelsea? So we just had this past week where our daughter came home, you know, with the cold, you know, she's in preschool and it's like, gosh, they come home with stuff all the time, which is fine. Our immune system's growing. It's getting better. And so we're like, hey, you know, teaching her how, you know, God's, you know, God, created her body to heal. All that being said, you know, I could tell I had a low-grade sort of virus last week and so did Chelsea because our HRVs drop. Yeah. You know, and you could even tell your

body temperature on the ring. But my point is, is that I was glad this morning I woke up and my HRV had jumped back up close to around 60, which I was, which I was glad to see because I, that's kind of for me, my physiology kind of where I want to be in those 60s and or or so. So anyways, but HRV is is a great, I mean, I would say overall, Some of my favorite ways to monitor someone's health are HRV. I love continuous glucose monitors as well. But being able to look at those two things regularly, sleep scores. Sleep scores, big.

So sleep score is a great way to monitor if you decide to do sunlight and sauna because we have received so many people. They've shared their sleep scores with us after they started using it. It is phenomenal. It is this big, huge. The HRV, it goes up, the decrease in cortisol people who do their biomarkers and measure their hormones, the cortisol comes down, and resting heart rate comes down, and sleep

scores always are improved. And you just feel so much better. You feel like you have so much energy. So one of the first things I do when I wake up, too, I don't have aura. I have a garment. But I do all my scores and, you know, I will notice if I'm starting to come down with something, it's indicative. Well, what's interesting, too, a lot of people don't know this, but if you're getting the colder flu, if you want to shorten the duration, the most important time to take a supplement or go get an immune IV or just make a change is on the front end. Yeah.

Because if you can, if you feel, like, if you see someone sick in your family and you feel like, oh my gosh, I have something coming. coming on. You want to do everything you can on the front end because it's not that taking something on the back end or the middle of having a colder flu doesn't make a difference. It doesn't make as big of a difference though if you do it early. And so that's the thing is I can tell, okay, my body temperature's up a couple degrees or it's down or something's going on and starting to fight something. I will run out. I'll go to like, I did this this past week. I went out and got a nutrient IV with vitamin C and lysine, glitone and all that. And then just started, you know, taking my elderberry Echinacea and vitamin D and everything else and and hardly had any symptoms at all.

It was like bam, it was gone really quickly. But anyways, that's sort of the benefit. But sauna therapy, so I have a, I have a family member who's got high blood pressure. And so we just got her a sauna. Actually, Sunlighten. I was emailing Vic on your team. And so we just got her a sunlight and sauna to kind of help get her blood pressure down because it's great for that too.

Yeah. Yeah, we actually did a study. Gosh, this brings me back. A long time ago, University of Missouri, Kansas City did a study that measured blood pressure reduction with infrared. It was using our product. It was an amazing study. It was double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial, which essentially means there were two

products that nobody knew which one was using which product, and it's completely randomized. And we had used the sunlight and solo, and then something that looked just like the sunlight and solo, but it didn't have our infrared. It had a different infrared. And that result of that was statistical significant reduction in blood pressure and increasing quality of life scores as well as detoxification. That's amazing. Yeah. So blood pressure, any really thing related to heart is impacted positively by infrared. And it is the most studied out of all the different parts of the body. It is the most extensively researched part of the body, which is the heart health. And it dates back, I mean, before we started the company. So, I mean, that's how long that infrared research has

been done. There's also a study, while I'm on that, about morbidity and mortality, over 50% reduction, over five years. People with congestive heart failure, those who used infrared over five years had a 50% reduction in hospitalization and death. Wow. I mean, it's powerful. And you look at the studies on just circulation, too, how important that is, of course, for heart health. Of course, more than anything, but the whole body, it's so powerful. I want to walk everybody through how to use different types of red light therapy and infrared light therapy. And for some people, they may go get a son of themselves. I know that Chelsea and I have one and have used it regularly. And I know I've recommended this for a lot of patients. But also things like the mask and other red light. And again, and let me say, there's a lot of ways to do this. I think. that, you know, I think that, you know, I think an infrared sauna is one of the best investments you could ever have if you're able to get, get one. I tend to recommend three days a week. Yes. Start with 15 to 20 minutes and maybe work your way up to 40. Sometimes people think more is better. You know, when Chelsea was this last time, we had our daughter, Aylan, she got in,

you know, several months after she kept getting in, or she got in, I'm sorry, two weeks after giving birth. And so she would get in for just 15 minutes. She would go until she just started sweating and get out because they didn't want to stress her body too much. But we just wanted to get a little bit of warmth in supporting her blood. And so again, depending on who you are, where your health goals are in life, I think that three to four days a week for most people, 20 to 45 minutes is typically what you want to do, right? Or what are your recommendations? That's perfect. And since I just talked about the, infrared studies in Asia, the hospitalization reduction in hospitalization and death, those studies

were only 15 minutes. Yeah. So, and only, you know, so you can get the benefits in only 15 minutes. So don't stress out about not being able to do 40 minutes. Yeah. It's better to do 15 minutes more consistently than one session at 40. Yeah, exactly. Consistency is key.

So, and I love the starting low and slow. and doing it until you break a little bit of a sweat and then you can get out. The other thing we should talk about real briefly is the habit stacking. This is something that I have been leaning into extensively. And when we talk about stress and cortisol and, you know, staying in that the sympathetic state, a great way to get into the parasympathetic state and help your nervous system is to get in your sauna and then do other things while you're in there.

So then you can meditate, you know, you can do breath work, you can do intention setting. Yeah. You can just be still. And, you know, that, those combining those habits is so powerful for your brain. It's so good for your mood. It's so good for stress. You will come out feeling so supercharged and energetic and ready to go. Yeah.

So I don't need to add on a red light, I will add as far as protocols. Yeah. What's great about that red light panel is it comes with an app that is pre-programmed, and it tells you everything you need to do. So you don't have to think about it. For example, I'll just use a skincare one because it's one I use frequently for the red light panel. I'll wake up. It's right by my bed.

And I will do the – there's three programs. There's the beginner. There's intermediate and there's the advance. And I'll do the advanced skincare program, and it's 10 minutes. And I'll also do meditation with it. I'll stack it. And it goes by so fast. And you turn it on, you do advanced skincare, and it goes, cycles through, and then it turns off.

Yeah. It's so easy. And there's lots of different programs. There's immune program. You know, there's anti-aging. There's sleep. So you don't have to think about it. And then if you're a beginner, choose the beginner program.

And it also tell you, the other thing that's great is it'll tell you exactly how far you should be from the, from the, from the, panel for the red light panel. And then for the mask, it's super easy. You just turn it on and you could just sit there until it turns off. Or if you want a specific wavelength, specific color, then you just press the button on the side and you'll see it change and then it'll turn off. Yeah. So it's three minutes per program or eight minutes if you cycle through. Yeah. Well, I love it. Well, again, I love all the new technology and devices. I love, obviously, we've talked about infrared sonnas and red light therapy and cold in certain instances for some people. And so lots of benefits here. Well, Connie, thanks.

much for coming on today. I've really enjoyed, again, our conversation here. And again, I've really enjoyed, again, your products now, because even using Jordan's, Jordan's son almost 20 years ago, which is crazy, and all the, all the, all the, all the benefits there. So, and I wanted to mention that Connie was kind enough for anybody who is interested in getting a sauna or one of these masks or red light therapy. By the way, the mass were way less, I mean, expensive than I thought they were going to be. All that being said, you can go to sunlighten.com, for it's like, X, just type in the code X and you'll get a discount on any of these products that you're interested in. This can be great for, you know, the holidays and Christmas gifts and those sort of

things as well. So anyway, just, Connie, thanks so much for extending that big offer to my entire audience. Again, it's sunlighten.com forward slash axe. The code is Axe. If you want to get a discount on any of the Sunlighton products. And just want to say, hey, thanks everybody for tuning in here. I want to encourage you guys, check out Sunlight and Sonnas. This is a sauna I personally use. I've got family members using them and so many patients using them. And they're seeing great benefits. And I hope you will experience great benefits too from using red light therapy, infrared therapy.

And listen, if you can't get a sauna, here's my best advice for you. Get a lot more sunshine. Get out in the sun, lay out. Listen, you never want to get burnt, but go and just get direct sunlight on your skin as much as possible on a regular basis without getting burnt. And you are going to get quite a bit of good red light therapy that way. as well. So again, thanks so much for tuning in here. And remember, each and every week, we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take

your health and your life to the next level. Also, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. That's how I bring on so many incredible high profile, wise guests like I had here today. And if you're watching on YouTube, let me know, hey, what's the biggest piece of advice that you walked away with or thing you didn't know that Connie might have shared today where we got into all the benefits of infrared. And we'd love to hear, hey, have you used an infrared mask? Or do you use infrared sun or red light therapy? We would love to hear from you as well.

And don't forget to share. There's so many people that don't know the truth about how red light therapy and infrared light therapy can lower blood pressure, improve hypothyroidism, support detoxification, cancer protocols, and so much more. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks, Connie, for being on the show today. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks again.

It was so great. and we'll see you guys on the next episode.