Dr. Ashley Mason on Sauna Use for Depression, Conquering Insomnia, and Mindfully Breaking Bad Habits

Studies published by Dr. Avery in the 1980s and 1997 demonstrated that individuals with depression often exhibit elevated nighttime body temperature and impaired thermoregulatory cooling.

"Well, it turns out there is literature showing temperature dysregulation in people with depression back early 1980, '82, and then '97. A researcher, Dr. Avery, published some work showing that people with depression often have higher nighttime body temperatures and they're not as good at thermoregulatory cooling, they don't sweat as much to cool themselves down." (said at 0:10:40)

The speaker bundles two distinct claims regarding the research by Dr. David H. Avery: (1) that depressed individuals have elevated nocturnal body temperature and altered circadian temperature rhythms, and (2) that they fail to cool down due to reduced sweating. Small comparative studies by Avery and colleagues (1982, 1986, 1997, 1999) did observe significantly higher nocturnal core body temperatures and circadian phase delays in depressed patients compared to controls. However, when Avery et al. directly investigated nocturnal sweating in 1999, they found that nocturnal sweat rates in depressed patients did not differ significantly from healthy controls, concluding that impaired sweating was not the mechanism driving elevated nocturnal body temperatures.

contradicts: Nocturnal sweating and temperature in depression. (Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica 1999) · cited 73x in the literature
"The nocturnal sweat rates of depressed patients did not differ significantly from those of controls, but decreased significantly with recovery... The nocturnal sweating rates in the depressed patients suggest that impaired sweating is not the cause of the high nocturnal temperature commonly found in depressed patients." (abstract, results and conclusions)
pubmed full study (doi)
supports: Nocturnal temperature in affective disorder. (Journal of affective disorders 1982) · cited 170x in the literature
"The patients had higher nocturnal temperatures and decreased 24-hour amplitudes when depressed than when they had recovered and compared to the controls." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmed full study (doi)
supports: Circadian temperature and cortisol rhythms during a constant routine are phase-delayed in … (Biological psychiatry 1997) · cited 116x in the literature
"The minimum of the fitted rectal temperature rhythm was phase-delayed in the SAD group compared to the controls 5:42 AM vs. 3:16 AM (p < .005)" (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmed full study (doi)

0:22:15 Ashley Masonneeds contextmoderate

In clinical trials of whole-body hyperthermia for depression, heating sessions lasted approximately 107 minutes on average in the Janssen protocol and two hours in the Hanusch protocol.

"In these protocols, the Janssen protocol and the Hanusch protocol, people were in the sauna for well over an hour—two hours in the Hanusch case, and I think 107 minutes on average in the Janssen paper." (said at 0:22:15)

The clinical trial led by Janssen et al. (2016) evaluated whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) using a specific heating protocol (Heckel HT3000 device) in patients with major depressive disorder, where active heating took approximately 107 minutes on average to reach the target core body temperature of 38.5°C before a cooling-down phase. Similarly, clinical protocols for mild-to-moderate WBH (such as those studied by Hanusch and colleagues using thermal baths or infrared WBH devices) typically involve heating and heat-retention sessions lasting around two hours in total. However, these clinical trials utilized specialized whole-body hyperthermia devices or hot water immersion under medical supervision, not traditional saunas.

supports: Whole-Body Hyperthermia for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clini… (JAMA psychiatry 2016) · cited 153x in the literature
"A single session of active WBH vs a sham condition matched for length of WBH that mimicked all aspects of WBH except intense heat." (abstract, methods, passage verified)
pubmed full study (doi)
context: The impact of whole-body hyperthermia interventions on mood and depression - are we ready … (International journal of hyperthermia : the official journal of European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology, North American Hyperthermia Group 2019) · cited 31x in the literature
"Three out of seven studies utilized hot baths and 4/7 infrared heating. Study duration ranged from 1 to 6 weeks with one or multiple interventions and an average treatment time of 66.37 min (42.55-140)." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmed full study (doi)

Dr. Ashley Mason on Sauna Use for Depression, Conquering Insomnia, and Mindfully Breaking Bad Habits

Needs context

Studies published by Dr. Avery in the 1980s and 1997 demonstrated that individuals with depression often exhibit elevated nighttime body temperature and impaired thermoregulatory cooling.

In clinical trials of whole-body hyperthermia for depression, heating sessions lasted approximately 107 minutes on average in the Janssen protocol and two hours in the Hanusch protocol.