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Sauna Hype

Adding sauna-dome heat to talk therapy did no better than sham heat in a pilot trial

In this 2025 pilot trial, published in Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, 30 adults with major depression had eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy. They also had real or sham heat sessions in an infrared sauna dome.

The paper

A Randomized Trial Testing a Novel Mind and Body Intervention for Depression: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Whole-Body Hyperthermia (WBH)

Mason AE, Hartogensis W, Chowdhary A, Siwik CJ, et al.. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, 2025;14:27536130251387714.

Read the paper ↗PubMed 41146956 ↗Free full text ↗

See the study at a glance

Design
Single-blind pilot randomized controlled trial
People
30 adults with major depression
Who they were
Adults with major depressive disorder at the University of California, San Francisco. Fifteen went into each group, and 29 completed the final assessment.
What they did
Everyone had eight weekly sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy and four dome sessions two weeks apart. For the heat group the dome ran at about 57.2°C until rectal temperature reached 38.5°C or 140 minutes had passed. The sham dome ran at about 46.0°C and stopped once core temperature rose 0.1°C.
How long
Eight weeks

These numbers came out of it

−19.07

The heat group's scores on the Beck Depression Inventory dropped 19.07 points on average. Lower scores mean less depression.

−21.10

The sham group's scores dropped 21.10 points on average. Both groups also had cognitive behavioral therapy.

80.0%

In the heat group 80.0% no longer met the criteria for major depression, compared with 92.9% in the sham group.

All

Everyone in the heat group guessed which group they were in. In the sham group, 43% guessed right.

The researchers did this

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco ran this pilot trial to see whether heat adds anything to a standard depression treatment. All 30 adults with major depressive disorder had eight weekly sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy (a structured form of talk therapy) and four sessions in a far-infrared sauna dome.Source 1 · Randomized trialA Randomized Trial Testing a Novel Mind and Body Intervention for Depression: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Whole-Body Hyperthermia (WBH)Mason AE, Hartogensis W, Chowdhary A, et al.. Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health, 2025.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗

Only the dome sessions differed between the groups. For the heat group the air ran at about 57.2°C, and each session went on until rectal temperature reached 38.5°C or 140 minutes had passed. The sham dome ran at about 46.0°C and stopped once core temperature had risen 0.1°C.

Acceptability was the main outcome. Most participants said they would recommend the program (75.9%) and would enroll again (86.2%). Depression was a secondary outcome, and scores on the Beck Depression Inventory fell 19.07 points with heat and 21.10 points with sham. The share who no longer met the criteria for major depression was 80.0% with heat and 92.9% with sham.

The team had earlier tested the same combination in a study with no comparison group. Among the 12 people who finished it, scores fell 15.8 points and 11 no longer met the criteria for major depression.Source 2 · Clinical trialFeasibility and acceptability of an integrated mind-body intervention for depression: whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)Mason AE, Chowdhary A, Hartogensis W, et al.. International Journal of Hyperthermia, 2024.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗ Without a control group there was no way to tell how much of that came from heat, since cognitive behavioral therapy alone produces large improvements. In the team's first dome study, healthy adults took 82 minutes on average to reach a rectal temperature of 38.5°C.Source 3 · Clinical trialFeasibility and acceptability of a Whole-Body hyperthermia (WBH) protocolMason AE, Fisher SM, Chowdhary A, et al.. International Journal of Hyperthermia, 2021.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗

The study can't tell you these things

  • It was a pilot designed to test acceptability and was too small to reliably detect a difference in depression.
  • Everyone in the heat group guessed which group they were in, so expectations weren't balanced between the groups.
  • Both groups had cognitive behavioral therapy, so the trial can only measure what heat adds on top of a treatment that already brings large improvements.
  • Sessions were long and hot compared with home use. In the team's earlier study, reaching 38.5°C in the dome took 82 minutes on average.Source 3 · Clinical trialFeasibility and acceptability of a Whole-Body hyperthermia (WBH) protocolMason AE, Fisher SM, Chowdhary A, et al.. International Journal of Hyperthermia, 2021.Read the paper ↗PubMed ↗

We cited these sources

  1. 01Mason AE, Hartogensis W, Chowdhary A, Siwik CJ, Pandya LS, Jung E, et al.. A Randomized Trial Testing a Novel Mind and Body Intervention for Depression: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Whole-Body Hyperthermia (WBH). Global Advances in Integrative Medicine and Health. 2025;14:27536130251387714. doi:10.1177/27536130251387714 PMID 41146956
  2. 02Mason AE, Chowdhary A, Hartogensis W, Siwik CJ, Lupesko-Persky O, Pandya LS, et al.. Feasibility and acceptability of an integrated mind-body intervention for depression: whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). International Journal of Hyperthermia. 2024;41(1):2351459. doi:10.1080/02656736.2024.2351459 PMID 38743265
  3. 03Mason AE, Fisher SM, Chowdhary A, Guvva E, Veasna D, Floyd E, et al.. Feasibility and acceptability of a Whole-Body hyperthermia (WBH) protocol. International Journal of Hyperthermia. 2021;38(1):1529-1535. doi:10.1080/02656736.2021.1991010 PMID 34674592