1071: What’s the Deal with Infrared Saunas? Facts vs Myths With Connie Zack


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Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I'm Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am here today with my in real life friend, Connie Zack from SunLighten to do some myth busting and to dive deep on the topic of infrared saunas, some facts versus myths. This is something I have talked about in podcasts before because a lot of the research historically was done on dry saunas or traditional Finnish saunas, and much of our sauna research in general originally came out of Finland.
And I'm personally a huge fan of really high heat Finnish saunas, and there is now a lot of research pointing to specific benefits of infrared saunas and how the light component actually is a really big piece here. And so I wanted to bring her on to really kind of delve into this topic because I get that question relatively often, is which sauna is best?
Is infrared the same? In my understanding, it's not the same, and it has some of its own specific benefits which we explore today specifically to, well, she'll explain them better than I can, but toward to nervous system health, toward hormone health, toward neurotransmitters, chronic pain and fatigue, and several important other ones.
Also, so I learned some things about how quickly after turning it on you can begin using an infrared sauna and a lot more. I always love my conversations with Connie, so let's join her now.  Connie, welcome back. It's been a while. I'm so excited to have you back again. 
Connie: Thank you so much. It has been too long. I'm so excited to be here and for us to chat. 
Katie: I'm so excited, too. We've been in real life friends for a really long time, and long overdue for a catch-up, so I love that we're gonna get to record this one and share it.
And for context, people heard this a little bit in your bio, but, you run Sunlighten, which is my favorite infrared sauna company, and we're gonna get to really get into some of the nuance today because I feel like it's worth, like, deep diving into the topic of infrared saunas specifically and what makes them a little different than other types of saunas, and some of the kind of specific benefits that we now know from the data go along with infrared saunas because I think some of those are specifically appealing to women, especially if we are talking about mood and cortisol and things like that.
So before we get super science-y, maybe we can start out with just kind of give us a refresher on infrared saunas in general, what kind of sets them apart, what makes them unique, and then we'll kind of dive from there into some of the subtopics. 
Connie: Yeah, sounds great. Thanks again for having me. So infrared, what makes infrared different than traditional heat, and in my opinion, what makes it so special, is it combines heat and light therapy, and that is something that you really can't get any place else.
So infrared, the wavelength, is a spectrum of light that comes from the sun. 55% of the sun spectrum is in the infrared wavelength. The infrared wavelength is divided into four different areas. Far-infrared, mid-infrared, those are felt by heat, and then near-infrared and red light are received into the body by light.
And the feeling, the way I like to explain it, it is different than traditional because traditional heats the air and infrared heats the core and the body directly, and it is that wonderful feeling when you walk outside and you've been inside and you know, sometime maybe the air conditioning is on, you walk outside and the sun is shining, and you get this beautiful feeling of like a warm blanket all over you, and you see the sun, ah, and you just have this wonderful, refreshing feeling, that is infrared.
That is how infrared feels and there's tons of science that support, you know, its benefits, which we can go into. But that, in essence, it's heat and light energy, and I always say it's like, it's energy medicine because it's something that our bodies need. You know, when you think about light, I mean, our bodies need light and we don't get as much sunlight as we used to, and so we're bringing in sunlight and we're bringing the sun and the benefits inside your home so you can, you know, use your sunlight and sauna and get all the benefits of light therapy and heat therapy through infrared. 
Katie: I love that explanation because anybody who's listened to this podcast for any amount of time knows that I am a huge fan of natural light exposure, and they've probably heard me talk about that so much that they're kind of bored of it at this point.
But I really consider that kind of one of the first pillars when it comes to health, because we really are circadian beings. We're meant to live in harmony with the light cycles of nature, and that's not to say we need to, like, never go indoors. Obviously, our modern lifestyle, we are gonna be indoors at different times, but it means understanding that so that we can kind of like curate our lifestyle to be in harmony with nature as much as possible.
So, one free tip, I know you probably do this as well, is like, watch the sunrise whenever you can. Watch the sunset whenever you can. There's, that full spectrum light happens at sunrise and sunset, and you also get some of those benefits, to your point, from the sauna. And to me, it's always a both/and.
Like, the best health devices in the world mimic nature, and that's what I love about sauna. That's what I love about light therapy. And like you said, you combine those together. And I feel like that is a very unique combination, especially when we start talking about some of those categories that we know are really influenced by those factors like specifically neurotransmitters, mood, and cortisol. So I'd kind of love to start there. I feel like these are definitely relevant topics for women. I know I've definitely experienced overwhelm, stress, and cortisol in the past couple years. So I would love to talk about what we know from the research on those, because I know far-infrared saunas specifically have some peer-reviewed research related to some of those things.
So I'd love to kind of dive in there and hear from you what you're seeing in the research and what you guys know from people who use your devices, what they're seeing as well. 
Connie: Yeah, I would love to do that. And this whole emotional resilience piece is really, it's just a hot button for me. I'm, you know, especially for, for women, I want to help them as much as possible, because I see so many women living in the, you know, sympathetic state too much, and that is not a, that's not a strategy.
It's not something that's sustainable. And so with the nervous system, it's really important to shift from the sympathetic state to the parasympathetic state, and that's one of the benefits of far-infrared specifically. Near-infrared and red light also help, but far-infrared is the one that heats your body and it heats up your core.
And there are studies showing that it's an excellent way, an excellent tool to decrease stress, to shift the body into the parasympathetic state, which immediately induces relaxation, changes your hormones, and it just allows you to breathe easier and to change your heart rate variability, which is really important to make sure you're controlling your nervous system. And, you know, you're relaxing and changing and impacting your good hormones, and that's something that far-infrared specifically can do.
On the note of mood, I'd love to mention there is a great study on mood and depression, specifically those with major depression disorder, and they used a far-infrared sauna, and 92% of the people that used it came in with major... or 92% did, had a positive impact from using far-infrared. They, originally, when they came in, they had...
They qualified for major depressive disorder, but when they took the analysis after using a far-infrared sauna, 92% did not qualify and did not meet the criteria for major depressive disorder anymore. So that's a huge, huge benefit and something that is, you know, it affects you so much if you're depressed.
And if it, you can access it and do it easily, you know, then why not? And that was, it was done with a portable unit. Like, we have a Solo, Sunlighten Solo, that's, that is really easy to use and very accessible and very, obviously very effective. So we always talk about how our Sunlighten saunas are like a happy place.
They release all these happy hormones and happy chemicals. 
Katie: Yeah, I definitely can attest to that with sauna, especially with even if people aren't into cold plunge, which I know is its own separate topic and can be like nuanced for women especially. But like cold face dunks is something I love to start my morning with for a cortisol perspective.
But I love the mixture of like a sauna and then just cold face, like ice water on the face and the endorphins that hit. It is like such a reset button, and I feel like it's hard to stay in a bad mood personally after doing that. There's also the aspect of kind of passive cardio or cardiovascular conditioning.
People might have heard sauna be referred to as an exercise mimetic, and I would love kind of your take on that. I know, I want to say obviously you're not getting the same strength benefits, like it's still important to lift weights and to do things like that. But when we hear that it's an exercise mimetic or a cardio, it's a passive cardio, maybe explain a little bit more what that means because I think this is fascinating.
Connie: Yeah. It, the cardiovascular benefits specifically with far infrared is really mind-blowing. I mean, it really... I could talk about this forever because there's so much research that is done on the heart using far infrared. In fact, in Japan, because there's been so much research done, they use far infrared saunas, far infrared therapy as a first-line treatment for congestive heart failure and coronary artery disease.
So essentially what happens with your cardiovascular system, similar like if you're doing active cardiovascular, so if you're going outside and doing, you know, a walk or a run or, you know, doing something where you get your heart rate up and start to sweat, the same thing happens inside the sauna, is that the far infrared wavelength is absorbed into your water molecules and your mitochondria.
That absorption starts to increase your core temperature, and it starts to set off this biochemical cascade of cardiovascular benefits. So you're essentially getting a workout, but you're sitting, you're just, you're, you know, you're sitting there and you're enjoying it. And what happens is you're increasing your circulation, you're changing your arteries, you're strengthening the heart.
You're really getting a intense workout, but you're just, you're sitting there. So, and there's lots of research. There's this therapy that I was just talking about in Japan. It's called Waon therapy. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it stands for soothing warmth therapy, and it uses 15 minutes of infrared and then followed by 30 minutes of a warm blanket.
And there was a study done, a five-year retrospective study on people who used Waon therapy and people who didn't with congestive heart failure, and they found that there w-, the people who used infrared had a 50% reduction in hospitalization and death versus the people who didn't. So when you talk about cardiovascular conditioning, I mean, there's really, you know, nothing really important in our bodies than to take care of our heart, right, and our arteries and the cardiovascular system.
And using a Sunlighten sauna is just an easy way to get a workout in. It's also great for recovery after a workout. I mean, I love... That's one of the ways I love to use it, is, you know, do some strength training, to your point, because it's really important to do that, and then, you know, go inside my Sunlighten mPulse specifically, and there's a pain relief program, and I press that.
And that just makes, you know, the, my body feel so much better because I continue to increase my heart rate. I continue to you know, sweat and build that muscle recovery that's so important.
Katie: I love that. And then I feel like another area that we always hear about when it comes to saunas, and that I wanna be able to dive deeper on, is the area of detox. And to preface this part of the conversation, I always love to start by reminding everyone that detox is not a thing we do to our body, it's a thing our body already knows how to do.
It's a thing we get to assist our body in doing. But I like think that's an important nuance going in, is that this is not an exogenous thing that we're doing to ourselves, this happens endogenously, and we can either support it, hopefully, or we can do things that slow it down, which often happens in our modern lifestyles, even inadvertently.
And of course, there's many parts of this beautiful cascade of detox that the body does involving the organs like liver and kidneys. Sweating of course is a huge detox pathway, as well as any way things exit the body, urine, feces, et cetera. And partially because of that cardio side and the exercise mimetic, we know that sauna helps with the body's natural detox process, but it seems like from what I've read, it actually goes beyond just the exercise and sweating aspect as well.
Like, it's actually supporting kind of multiple touch points of the body's detox system. So can you explain that as well? 
Connie:Yeah. It... I loved your explanation of, I need to steal that because to help people understand that when you engage in a detoxification exercise, it's not something you're doing to your body, it's something...
You're enabling your body to do the things it's meant to do. And, you know, so often we're, I mean, we're exposed to so many chemicals and we're exposed to lots of toxins, and we need to facilitate that removal in any way that we can. And the way that a Sunlighten infrared sauna does that is it, when it, when you heat up the core temperature, it's a combination of heat and light that helps with detoxification as well, and you heat up the body, you start to increase your core temperature.
And as your temperature is rising and you get this beautiful wavelength into your cells, into your water molecules, your water molecules start to vibrate and move around. That movement starts to activate all the detoxification system that should happen naturally in your body. You know, it works with all of your organs.
And that is one of the fastest ways to detox because you really... Sweat is great, but sweat happens later, right? So it d- sweat doesn't happen immediately with infrared. You don't walk in there and start sweating because it's not about the air being really hot. It's about your body, helping your body facilitate all of the benefits and work naturally.
And so it starts, you know, working with your d- your organs and I mean, there really isn't anything that is not impacted in your body by both far-infrared, mid-infrared, near, and red light. I was just actually listening to a podcast from Dr. Huberman, and he was talking about the importance of light energy into your body because our cells need light.
And so to help facilitate detoxification and reduce inflammation and changing, you know, your mitochondria and helping with your function, our cells have to have that. And we, you know, as we talked about, we, we're not getting as much light energy, and this is such an easy way to get it into your cells and supercharge your cells.
So I kinda went more in past detoxification, but I'm really, you know, I... For women, I'm so passionate about helping them find tools and solutions to increase their energy and be healthier and just feel better so that they can do all the things that they love to do. Because when we don't feel great, then that impacts everybody who we're responsible for, right?
And using near-infrared specifically is like, really the hero of the two light therapies between red and near. But using that in conjunction with heat, wow, it's just such a great tool to give you the energy and power your body battery that we all really need it to do every day. 
Katie: Yeah, that was a great explanation.
I'm glad you went deeper than just the detox side, and that's one of my favorite topics, like I said already, is that, the light component. I feel like this has been the missing piece for a lot of people. It was a big component for me as well, because we often think of our bodies as biochemical first, and I know our friend JJ, she says, "Your body's not a bank account, it's a chemistry lab."
And I often challenge, like, yes, and it's not just a chemistry lab. It's this beautiful, like, quantum battery that is governed by light. And we hear from Huberman and from so many others that, like, merely getting our light cues wrong, even if we're getting everything else right, our food, our water, our supplements, we will not be thriving.
We will not be living as optimally as we could if we're not in harmony with the right light cues. And that can be avoiding the screens after dark that we hear so much about, not eating after dark that we hear about, but it's also getting those positive cues, which hopefully we're also getting from outdoors.
I think this is always a both/and. Like, to me, nothing in the health world replaces nature. Everything enhances nature, and so that's what I love about things like saunas, is they enhance the things we would be getting from outside and let us get them in a way that makes it a little easier with our modern lifestyles, because I can listen to a podcast or an audiobook in a sauna, or I can do breathwork in a sauna, I can stack things. 
Versus you can also, of course, get hot by going for a walk outside in the summer. You can get in the sunlight, do those things as well, of course. So it's always a both/and, but I love that you bring the light component into it. I know another area I've heard and would love to get your context on is that there are some evidence with chronic fatigue and chronic pain when it comes to sauna usage, and I've heard anecdotal evidence from people who had really good results with sauna from those kind of things they were working through, but I'm curious, like, what you see, if there's any data on this that we know about, and how people use sauna regularly for chronic pain and chronic fatigue.
Katie: Yeah, there is data, so I'll check- I'll touch on pain first. There is data showing that far infrared heat, far infrared heat in a sauna, helps to activate a gene inside our body that controls inflammation. So, you know, pain comes from inflammation, and it is a great way to decrease the inflammation and reduce pain.
So there's a lot of data also when you talk about chronic fatigue on... And I'm gonna go over to the light therapy, so we're gonna, you know, bounce back and forth just like the wavelengths do inside your body. So bouncing over to the light therapy, near in- near-infrared specifically, with chronic fatigue, man, it is...
There's a doctor that I've been working with to really, really dive in and be immersed in the benefits of near-infrared, and he talks about how the wavelength penetrates the skin, and it actually goes through your entire body, and he measured it by shining near-infrared on the, on the back and then measuring with a spectrometer on the front, and what's powerful about that...
And when he measured it, he found elements of the wavelength that came out. So it's not about the fact that it goes through your body that's so incredible, it's the fact that when knowing that it goes through your body means the amount of absorption, right, the amount of energy, light energy that we need that's being absorbed into all of your cells, that's what helps to power your body battery.
That's what helps to give you the energy that you need, because so much of chronic fatigue is caused by mitochondrial, you know, dysfunction. And we... in or- because those are the guys that, you know, help give us... they produce ATP, and those are the ones that help us, you know, get energy and get energized. And if you have chronic fatigue, you're just...
you know, you're tired all the time. And this is a great solution because not only does it help increase the function of the mitochondria, but it also helps them duplicate the mitochondria and then also help prevent cell death. So it's really... I mean, you know, I just said a ton of stuff that's sounds, you know, like a little powerful and I want to stress that all of this is backed up by science.
And so this is not something that I'm just talking about as far as a theory. This... there's actually a label for it. It's called mitochondrial infrared because it helps the infr- because the infrared helps your mitochondria so much, which helps with fatigue. So those are two ways that we know we can help people with chronic fatigue as well as reducing inflammation.
Katie: And that makes complete sense to me. And I know that, like, we've talked a little bit before too, like the categories of traditional dry saunas and their specific benefits, and then infrared and all the ones we've explained today. I think one point worth kind of double-clicking on is that the infrared being or at least feeling gentler than some of the really high heat saunas is often really helpful, especially for women and especially in various phases of life.
Like I know menopausal women often will have thermo-regulation issues and during that phase and find that they can do better in an infrared sauna than a really, really high heat kind of like alpha sauna, like the guys who wanna push it to like 210 degrees. But I think that's worth mentioning because one thing I feel like there hasn't been talked about that much is the nuance of women specifically in some of these realms of biohacking.
I feel like it's starting to be talked about a little bit with cold plunge and how for some women, especially if our nervous systems are already kind of taxed, doing a lot of extreme cold plunging actually could make things worse, not better. Like, it might stress us out more. But I feel like that's one thing very specific to infrared that I love is it often feels very gentle and parasympathetic, like you mentioned.
So for women who are in a stressed out nervous system state or who are going through hormonal changes like menopause, it often can feel much more restorative and achievable than something that's like really intense when we're already going through something intense, if that makes sense. But I would love your context on that as well.
Connie: Yeah that's one of my favorite benefits is, you know, going in and getting inside my Sunlighten Sauna, and the immediate feeling of reducing my stress is so powerful. And, you know, the other thing I wanna share as far as the gentle aspect is when I go in, the... One of the best ways, and JJ and I had this, like she's like, "Oh my gosh, this is such a game-changer knowledge."
We had this conversation about, you know, heating some- heating it up because people are so used to in traditional saunas, right? It's really hot, 170-plus degrees, and it... the success is measured by the temperature. It's all about the temperature because it's all about heating the air. With infrared it's not about that at all.
It's energy. This is an energy. This is a light energy that's coming from the sun, as I talked about, and it's about that energy getting absorbed into your body. And so, you know, that's, the benefit of being gentle is that you can get in, turn it on, and think of it like a light switch, okay? When you turn it on, that energy is being absorbed right away into your body.
You do not have to let it warm up. So the benefit to you as far as women is it's not going to get excessively hot, and you're gonna be able to breathe really easily, and it's going to feel very, very gentle, almost like a beautiful warm blanket has been like thrown over you. The other benefit is you can habit stack, as we talked a little bit about, but this is one of the greatest strengths for women because we're so stressed out, and we just take on so much, and we need a place and tools that can be kind to us and that can allow us to de-stress and to fi- to do other, to do other things that we want to do while we're healing ourselves, and that's what a Sunlighten Sauna does.
You can get in there, and you can meditate. You can do your breathwork. You know, you can… I will do, you know, some, my intention setting. I will... When I go in there, I think about, "Okay, how do I want this day to go? What i- what does success look like today? What are the things I'm going to do to achieve the things that I'm, you know, desire to achieve?"
And, you know, I write that down, and then, you know, I do a lot of breathwork. I, you know, drink my warm water with lemon to hydrate myself, and I just allow myself the opportunity to relax, and as a result- Your body, you feel, you feel so good and you s- like, you start to feel happier. And the other benefit I wanna talk about with that experience is the mind.
You know? Because that's what controls so much of our stress, right? The mind, the brain, the way... When you're getting that increased circulation and you're getting the increased oxygenation to your brain, it sets off this mental clarity that is so valuable and, you know, it allows you to just really kind of, well, I always say, like, empty the trash, you know, from your brain and start anew.
Which is, so much is what causes us the stress, is you're thinking of all the things you have to do, all the things you didn't do the day before, et cetera. And so just by doing even 15 minutes, Katie, is a great use of your time, and you don't have to worry about it being really hot because the energy is getting into your body the minute you turn it on.
Dr. Hamblin, Michael Hamblin, who is the, really the godfather of photobiomodulation, which is red light and near-infrared light energy, he's on our science advisory board, and he was the one years ago that shared with me, he said, "Connie, please tell people to make sure and get in as soon as you turn it on because that's when the wavelengths are the longest."
And for the light, for near-infrared and for red light, it's on right away, right? Like, it's light, so the light is contacting your cells and going through your body immediately
Katie: That's a great point. I feel like a lot of people maybe haven't heard that or don't know that part. I made a note for the show notes as well, but, like, not having to wait however long it takes for it to warm all the way up, I know anecdotally it often feels easier also if you get in cold, it's kind of like the boiling frog analogy of like it doesn't ever feel as hard to me if I come up to temperature with the sauna versus if I, like, step into, like, a traditional Finnish sauna, which I also love, but it's like 180 and I'm just like, "Phew." 
Connie: Yeah, it's hard to breathe, and I just find that, you know, we're all so busy and you know, I have, you know, a business and kids and lots going on, that if I go in and turn it on then all of my objections and excuses to not doing it are gone. And then I can als- I take the, my, like, morning things that I'm gonna do anyway, and I do it in there.
So I... And I feel so efficient, you know, because I'm gonna have my, you know, hot water with lemon. I'm gonna have, like, I'm going to do my intentions. I'm gonna do some, you know, quick meditating, and I'm gonna do those things anyway. I might as well do it inside the sauna and let the energy of the wavelengths penetrate my body and get me, you know, get me started for the day.
I love to do it for the morning. I will say, I get this question a lot, does it matter, morning or night? It does not matter. It is really up to when can you incorporate it and when can you do it consistently? Consistency with using infrared is more important than intensity. So much more im- in m- so much more important.
I would rather see people do 15 minutes a day for three days a week than one day for 40 minutes.
Katie: That's another great point. And I feel like so much of this conversation, it's always that both and, like the point about the light and the getting the benefits immediately, to me, this is the same reason I encourage people even in the winter to go outside and get natural light. Because even if you're not getting hot, you're not sweating, you're not tanning, you're still getting the benefits of the light.
Same thing with like what you're explaining with the saunas. As soon as you get in, you're getting those wavelengths of light that your body's registering as a safety signal, even if you don't feel like you're hot yet. So I love that as a tip. I feel like it makes it even more achievable. And really that's what I love most about Sunlighten and infrared saunas, and what you guys do is you make the, I feel like the barrier of entry achievable to most people.
Because, again, I think it's a both/and. I have a huge traditional Finnish sauna in my backyard, and it's often full of like sweaty teenage athletes, and that's awesome, and they love pushing the heat. And I know most people are never gonna build a big sauna in their backyard. They wanna be able to do this kind of like low effort in their house, even if it's raining, without it warming up for an hour.
There's just different considerations. So I know since we last spoke, you guys have done tons of innovating, created some really cool new things, and I feel like really have made this accessible to essentially everybody. So can you explain what some of the different options you guys now have are? And I will of course link to them in the show notes as well.
Connie: Yeah. I will start with mPulse. That's one of the big innovations that we have done. So mPpulse is our, the sauna that's behind me, and it has, it contains PulseIQ. What PulseIQ is is infrared intelligence. So it's an infrared intelligence platform that allows the sauna... It's the only thing out there in the world that has four distinct separate wavelengths.
So essentially what like I talked about at the very beginning, what is infrared, and it comes from the sun. So we're taking that entire spectrum, and we're separating it out because, Katie, every wavelength interacts with your body differently, completely differently, and so you need to have them. You know, it's great to have them all if you can.
We'll talk about that as well. But you need to have them separate, and what PulseIQ does is it fine-tunes each one precisely for optimum wellness outcomes. So we have six wellness programs, and we know from science, for example, on cardio for heart health, that's completely a different program with different intervals and different levels of far-infrared, mid-infrared, near-infrared, and red light than anti-aging, for example.
So, and that's also different than weight loss and detox. So it's intelligent, and what's great is you don't have to think about it. You can just go in and press the program, and it does all the work. Or if you want, you can do quick start mode and, you know, just do, you know, a general program with all the wavelengths all the time.
So people ask me that. They're like, "Oh, what happens if I want all the wavelengths all the time?" You can do that too. So that's one of the advancements that we have made with Impulse. We have also introduced, since last we talked, a product called Amplify, and that is an, our sunlight and infrared sauna that helps people get infrared that also want that traditional heat feeling.
So it's called Amplify because it amplifies the heat. It has our patented far-infrared heaters that have the most amount of far-infrared. You can't get more anywhere else. And then it has in front these two full-spectrum heaters that are intense. And then we also just changed the design of our heater covers, which are, contain Celliant fiber, which is also infrared emitting, to have wider holes, if that makes sense.
So the fabric allows more infrared to get through. We did that with Impulse as well as Amplify. And so for Amplify, the, where it matters is it's really, really intense. So if you want a hot, hot sauna, but you want the energy medicine from the infrared wavelength, Amplify is a perfect sauna for you.
And then we have Signature, which contains the most amount of far infrared. That one is our signature. It's been around since, you know, 2005. So that one has... We've made advancements and innovations, but nothing significant since the last time we talked. And then we have the Solo, which I know you're familiar with.
I love that product so much. That is a great accessible sauna for somebody who wants to get started. They don't have a lot of space. It's for one person. It's double dome design. You lie in it. Your head is out. It also has chromotherapy light therapy since the last time we talked, and then it also has our patented far infrared, the most amount of far infrared on the market.
So that's a great place to start if you don't wanna go and invest into, you know, Impulse with Pulse IQ and have all the four, you know, the four different wavelengths. And then we also introduced, since the last time we talked, we introduced a near-infrared and red light panel. So for people who want to be able to have the light therapy, so for example, if you got the Solo and you want to also have near-infrared and red light, we have a full red light and near-infrared panel that contains the precise wavelengths based on science that need to activate your mitochondria and give you the energy I talked about earlier, as well as to...
It also helps you to control your glucose and help overall with your metabolic health. And then we also have a mini panel, so a smaller one that you could put on your face for, that contains near-infrared and red light. And then really recently, we introduced a near-infrared, red light, yellow light, green light, blue light face mask, and that's really fun and it's kind of...
It's gold on the outside, but you can see through it. It looks like a superhero, you know, when you put it on. And oh, and then we didn't talk about we... but we did purchase last year the assets to a cold plunge company called Ice Barrel. So we now have contrast therapy that we can offer because we are a complete, you know...
I mean, we're so dedicated and committed to helping people feel better and do more and, you know, live the fullest life, and contrast therapy like you talked about, like doing some cold, you know, with, combined with doing some heat is a great way to build your, you know, emotional resilience and to help also, you know, make you feel better and change your mood.
So that was a lot, but... So I've been busy. But we have, I've... We're, we really want, Katie, to help people and meet them where they are, right? So there's just different stages of life with people. And, you know, if you're not ready to get in a sauna, that's okay. You can get, you know, the panel, the near-infrared and red light panel.
If you're not ready for that, you can get the face mask. There's all sorts of different solutions, and we just wanna combine all of that and bring them to people. We don't wanna limit and have barriers so that people feel like, "Oh, I can't. I'll never be able to have a Sunlighten product." 
Katie: I love that, and I know there's some special stuff just for listeners of this podcast.
So I'll put that link in the show notes. If any of you guys are listening on the go, that's always at wellnessmama.com underneath Podcast, and I'm so glad we got to have this conversation. I've been a longtime fan. I just found out about a couple new things I'm gonna definitely have to order and try.
I'm super excited about that, and I hope that we get to do more rounds of this in the future. I hope we get to see each other in person this year. But Connie, for today, thank you so much. This was such a joy, and I learned so much from you. 
Connie: Oh, thank you so much. I hope to see you soon in the near future.
Katie: And thank you as always for listening and sharing your most valuable resource, your time, with us today. We're both so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.