Key Difference – Sauna vs Spa
A hotel or gym may offer a sauna or spa as part of their services. Both sauna and spa use heat as a method to clean and refresh your body. It is important to understand the difference between sauna and spa in order to choose what is the most beneficial for your health. The key difference between sauna and spa is that saunas use heat to cleanse the body whereas spas use water.
CONTENTS
1. Overview and Key Difference
2. What is a Sauna
3. What is a Spa
4. Side by Side Comparison – Sauna vs Spa
What is a Sauna?
A sauna is a small room that is used as a hot air steam bath for cleaning or refreshing the body. Saunas were traditionally constructed with a wooden interior. In traditional saunas, the inside of the room is heated, causing the people inside to sweat and release the toxins from their bodies. Modern saunas also use infrared heating which lowers the heat of the air and focuses on heating the skin of the bather.
Benefits of Sauna
- Relieving stress
- Releasing toxins in the body
- Improving the cardiovascular performance
- Cleansing the skin
- Burning calories
Many saunas use a temperature around 80°C. Temperatures approaching and exceeding 100 °C can be intolerable and possibly fatal if a person is exposed to it for a long period of time. Most saunas use low humidity to overcome this problem of high temperature. Adjustments in temperatures in sauna generally come from the amount of water thrown at the heater, the amount of time spent inside and the positioning in the sauna.
Figure 1: Highgrove Sauna
What is a Spa?
The word spa can be quite confusing since it refers to a wide variety of things. Spa can refer to a mineral spring used to give medicinal baths; it can also refer to a location with a mineral spring. In addition, spa also refers to a commercial establishment offering health and beauty treatments using massages and steam baths. At the same time, it can refer to a bath containing hot aerated water.
A spa is defined as “places devoted to enhancing overall well-being through a variety of professional services that encourage the renewal of mind, body and spirit” by the International Spa Association. These places have amenities such as saunas, steam rooms and changing rooms and provide services such as massages, facials, and other body treatments.
Spas are always grouped into different categories such as day spas, destination spas or resort spas. Day spas are often attached to beauty salons, and people can visit them on daily visit basis. Destination or resort spas are expensive and require a minimum stay of two to three nights.
Figure 2: Zen Spa Japanese Pool
What is the difference between Sauna and Spa?
Sauna vs Spa |
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| A sauna is a small room that is used as a hot air steam bath. | Spa can refer to a
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| Source | |
| Saunas use heat. | Spas use water. |
| Uses | |
| Saunas are used to cleanse the body, relieve stress, and burn calories. | Spas are used for hydrotherapy, relaxation or pleasure. |
Image Courtesy:
“Highgrove Sauna” By Todtanis – Own work (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Commons Wikimedia
“Zen SPA Japanese pool” By Unique Hotels – Flickr: Zen SPA Japanese pool (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Commons Wikimedia