Hi, my name is Eileen Durfee, and I'm a former nuclear power plant engineer, auditor, and inspector, who became sick and toxic from chemical exposure. Most of you know me as a Nutritional Balancing Practitioner, an inventor, and active grandmother of four. Now, I enjoy good health and pain-free living, but it always hasn't been that way. I've had pain most of my life. I was born with twisted hips and had to wear special shoes. I grew nine inches in three months. So, I am very familiar with chronic pain. I also suffered from Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, and just didn't have the energy to live life. I wasn't eliminating the toxins that I was being exposed to every day, and that definitely contributed to all the symptoms that I was having. First, I went to medical doctors, without much help, and I just couldn't believe that I had to be in chronic pain, or that I had to be a slave to medications. So, I started my journey of trying many different diets, fasts, therapies, you name it. Anything that might help me, I've tried it.
I learned about an amazing therapy that's probably helped me more than any other, and that's near infrared light. When I learned about near infrared light and sauna therapy, I thought, what's the big deal? I had a far infrared sauna, and was taking daily saunas and sweating lots, so I really didn't think there was much difference in far infrared and near infrared until I started using it. My son was at the University of Washington taking biology classes, and we had these discussions about near infrared light and what it does for the body. He said, “Mom, it’s photo therapy. Your body’s cells are absorbing that energy and it's causing the mitochondria, which produces all this energy, to create ATP.”
We eat to have energy, and our body has to metabolize all that to finally get nutrients to the cells to make energy. With our digestion systems, people are not experiencing a good supply of energy, and that's evidenced by how many people are drinking coffee and energy drinks. They're just slamming their bodies with stimulants to have the energy to make it through the day.
I used near infrared when I went on a trip, and I could not believe the results that I was getting. Day one, I really didn't sweat that much, and I thought, “Hmm, I'm not so sure about this.” Day two, I sweated a little bit more. By day three, I was sweating profusely, and I had this energy come over me. It was like a calming, clean, peaceful feeling, and then I knew there was really something to near infrared sauna therapy and I needed to make a switch.
So, I had this heavy, wood, clunky light panel, and cotton canvas to try to hold in the heat, and with my Hashimoto's and hypothyroidism, it took me a long time to sweat and I had to use an auxiliary heater. I knew that there had to be something better.
People call me the “gizmo woman” because it seems like I have a gadget for everything. I just went to sleep with this problem and came up with an idea. Light travels at the speed of light, so I figured what if we could create an insulative tent that kept all those healing frequencies inside there to re-bombard the body? It’s like recycling the healing light. Why let it leave? Also, why not skip having to turn on your sauna for 20-30 minutes before you get in? Sometimes you’re busy and you’ve got to go somewhere; if you got to preheat the sauna, you're not going to take a sauna that day. I don't know about you, but unless I can do something that is easy to fit in my daily routine, even if it's good for me, I probably won't do it. I know there are a lot of people out there that are toxic, overweight, and have chronic pain issues. I wanted to come up with a solution that was easy to incorporate into everyone's daily routine.
I came up with some thick, insulative panels. It’s actually a layered panel that provides R-12 insulation and retains 95% of the heat. In either one of these tents, the portable hot yoga studio or the convertible tent, you do not have to preheat the sauna. Just turn it on, go in there, and a phenomenal thing starts happening. I found that I was sweating in half the time. I eliminated the preheat and then, because of the maximized photo therapy and the quick rise in temperature, I was sweating twice as much as before. It was phenomenal.
Additionally, when I found out about near infrared, I would make portable wood panels and loan them out to people with cancer to give the gift of health. Since then, more studies have come out. Cancer.gov is shining near infrared light on inoperable tumors, and they're doing more and more tests that show that it is so beneficial. Hope4cancer.com also recommends that the only sauna you should ever take is near infrared.
So what about those saunas that provide full spectrum therapy? There's some that provide near, mid, and far infrared. In my old far infrared sauna, the ambient air temperature all around my body was about the same. But there's a phenomenon with a lamp sauna to take advantage of. You can actually benefit from twice the circulation when the ambient air temperature isn't the same all around your body. Most near infrared saunas on the market that have canvas do not get the temperature up high enough. The healing rays travel at the speed of light through the canvas and walls and escape, so the core body temperature is not heating up enough to give maximized benefits. People are using auxiliary heaters and putting them inside the canvas tents. With portable radiant exercise and the sauna studio, the light can shine on the trunk of the body, and your body will shunt the blood towards the light. It vasculates your tissues, and allows the water to escape from the blood stream to form sweat on the skin. Wipe the sweat down and turn 180 degrees, and then the body begins the process all over again, so you get double the circulation effect where your body shunts the blood and you sweat.
In the Sauna Fix system, we solve some problems. 1) We can maximize the photo therapy without any preheat. 2) We double the circulation effect so you can sweat in half the time.
One of the benefits of near infrared therapy for me is my back pain relief. I have been going to chiropractors and doing massage therapy my entire life, and practically as soon as I’d get out of the chiropractic office, my vertebrae would drift and I’d have the same problem. One of the things that I noticed after doing near infrared sauna therapy, compared to the far, is that my vertebrae were staying in place longer, and my pain was melting away during the sauna session. This is tremendous. Today, eight years after switching to a near infrared sauna, I go to the chiropractor maybe once a month for a tune-up, so my connective tissue has been positively impacted by near infrared therapy.
One of the concerns that I had with all the other near infrared saunas on the market was you have to sit. You sit down on a stool because the ceiling height is five feet. There are some people who have chronic back pain, and cannot sit and take a sauna. There are also some people that want to lie down and take a sauna. There is no other sauna in the world in which a person can sit down, stand up, or lie down, and take a sauna. I’m six-feet tall and one of my sons is six feet, five inches, so I designed the Sauna Fix system, so that someone who is six foot five can stand, or lay down, and take a sauna.
The next thing that's really fantastic about near infrared light is combining it with exercise. Jenn Bodnar, from Yoga Digest, had a sauna tent and she said, “Eileen, I want to do yoga in here!” So, she got a second tent, zipped the two together, and did a lot of poses. She said, “Eileen, it would be great if we could just do a full yoga practice with the near infrared light.” So, we created a larger version of the tent, which is only possible because it is R-12 insulated panel to keep the heat in there.
A study shows that 40 women riding bicycles, 20 with light, 20 without, were losing a tremendous amount of fat and weight. Their blood sugar levels were improving, they were feeling great, and the results were outstanding. If you do an exercise program, it's usually more than three days a week and more than 45 minutes a session, but that's all they did with these women: three days a week, 45 minutes, half of them had near infrared light shining on them, and they lost 444% more fat and weight. They felt better, their blood sugar improved, and it also contoured their bodies. They lost eight centimeters in the circumference of their bodies, and that's in a month. What exercise program can give you that? This is just tremendous. With the tents being larger, people can do stretching, or you could put your bicycle in there. You could do a variety of things.
One in six Americans is overweight. Children are becoming obese. It’s an epidemic proportion, and people are going to the gyms, they're paying for hot yoga memberships, they’re doing everything that they can to trim down and lose some weight. A lot of these people are not keeping the weight off. It's not a lifestyle for them. I wanted to solve these problems and provide a portable exercise studio that you could use in the convenience of your own home, and that you can do one exercise in and get the benefits of doing it four times. Since I learned about that German study with near infrared light, I never exercise unless I have the near infrared light shining on me. I don't know who would once they learn about that.
Near Infrared also helps with flexibility. When shining near infrared on your body, you begin to notice the stiffness, and the rotation limitations, begin to improve. I was really thankful to be able to start near infrared therapy because it transformed my life. Since implementing near infrared sauna therapy and exercise, I've seen a dramatic change in my body composition. I had been doing near infrared sauna therapy daily, and when I got my portable hot yoga studio at home, I began doing, not 45 minutes, but only 10 minutes of stretching. When I can get in that tent and do those poses and stretching, I’ll be sweating in 10 minutes, and then I finish off my sauna session for maybe another 10 minutes more. A strange thing happened. In a matter of 4-5 months, I lost nearly 25 pounds. I didn't change any other dietary habits or add any other exercise, other than the gentle stretching and poses under the near infrared light. I wasn't dramatically overweight. I'm six-feet tall, and I was 183 pounds, but that's too heavy for my frame. I really needed to lose 20-25 pounds and with near infrared and mild stretching and exercise, that was my solution.
Over the years, my body has gone through a lot: I was born with twisted hips, grew nine inches in three months, and was ran over by a car when I was 18. I have also suffered many injuries since then. There was a car wreck, where I had to have knee surgery, I fell off a ladder and got a concussion, and I broke my hand. To recover from all these things, and feel in better shape than before each accident, is amazing. Even people that go to chiropractors and physical therapists don't always recover from these accidents. I attribute my recovery to yes, using physical therapy, massage, chiropractors, but in addition to that; the ice, near infrared for the heat, doing the general stretching, and using the saunas. I really believe that’s what’s helped my body recover. After my car wreck, the MRI showed that I did have arthritis in my knees. With regular use of near infrared sauna therapy, I’ve been virtually pain-free and I've got pretty much all my mobility back.
Studies show that when you shine near infrared light on your skin, your body makes antioxidants. So, what better therapy to begin using to boost your antioxidant activity? Life keeps “life-ing”, and we are busy, so this was my solution: to give people a Sauna Fix every day.
Client testimonies:
This Sauna Fix system is unique. I always wanted to give people the gift of health because, if you’re not sick, you probably know someone who is suffering from some kind of disease, chronic pain, lack of energy, cancer, or something.
Part of the Sauna Fix’s system design is that it's portable. You can assemble the frame, put the tent panels on, and stick it on the bamboo mat in about 10 minutes without tools. The whole system comes with its own travel bag, and you get the tent panels, the bamboo mat with radiant backing, and the frame. You get two travel bags; the frame in one bag, and the tent panels and bamboo mats in the other. The sauna comes with its own travel bag, so it's a system you can take anywhere with you. You can loan it out to family members or friends who need to have this wonderful therapy, and the best part about it is you can plug it in to any outlet. A normal sauna requires you to hire an electrician and get a dedicated 20 Amp Breaker. If your hair dryer works in an outlet, so will the Sauna Fix.
