Sweating is a process that melts away the defenses and opens up pathways toward the center of who you are, the eye of your hurricane. In our sweat lodges all inner voices are welcome to be expressed. In expressing these many inner voices eventually you will hear the song of the soul that leads you to compassion for all living things.
Clogged respiratory passages are opened by heat, giving relief from colds and other minor respiratory problems. Sweating is such an effective de-toxifier that some physicians recommend different forms of sweating to supplement kidney machines. The sweating process flushes out toxic metals such as copper, lead, zinc, and mercury, which the body absorbs in polluted environments. However, the main focus of the lodge is on the spiritual climate where the body is a fully functioning partner. We honor the body by setting up the ceremony that requires its presence. We have found that much growth work in therapy and many spiritual traditions do not really require the presence of the body. For example, you could go through psychotherapy in most modalities without really paying much attention to your body. In the sweat lodge we celebrate our bodies, and they respond with greater health.
Finally, in a physiological sense,the presence of negative ions in a sweat lodge is as important as the heat itself. Scientists have found that if the air in an environment is charged with too few negative ions and too many positives, we become anxious, fatigued, and tense. A condition develops known as "pos-ion poisoning," and is linked to central air conditioning, environmental pollution, and confined spaces such as long periods of time in an automobile. This poisoning has been linked to heart attacks, asthma, migraine headaches, arthritis, and most allergies. Scientific studies have shown that splashing water on super-heated rocks produced an abundance of negative ions. (It is interesting that negative ions produce positive results.) However, the key, we believe, is in the balancing of positive and negative ions. It is just that our culture produces an imbalance of ions, and the sweat lodge rebalances the ions in our personal environment.
These physiological comments only describe in a surface way the deeper current and spirals of Sacred Energy present in the lodge.