Andrew Huberman Sauna Protocol: Full Breakdown

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The short version: Andrew Huberman's sauna protocol is 80–100°C (176–212°F) for about 1 hour of total sauna time per week, split across 2–3 sessions, for general health. For cardiovascular benefit he points at the Finnish data — 5–20 minutes per session, 2–3 times a week, up to 7. And there's a separate, occasional growth hormone protocol: four 30-minute sessions in one semi-fasted day, done no more than once a week. That's the framework.

Last tested: June 2026

I have a barrel sauna in the garden and use it two or three times a week, usually after a cold session in the ice bath. So I've run a version of Huberman's protocol for a couple of years now, and I've watched plenty of people misread it — chasing the growth hormone numbers every day, or assuming their infrared cabin at 55°C is doing the same thing the Finnish study measured at 80°C. It isn't. Here's the actual protocol, what each number is for, and where it goes wrong in practice.

The Protocol at a Glance

This table is the protocol. The rest of the article explains why each line is what it is, because the temperature and frequency numbers only make sense once you understand the mechanism behind each goal.

Where the numbers come from

Huberman's sauna recommendations lean on two bodies of evidence, and they pull in slightly different directions.

The first is the Finnish cohort research, most famously the 2015 study by Jari Laukkanen and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine. They tracked 2,315 middle-aged Finnish men for about 20 years and sorted them by how often they used a sauna. Compared with once-a-week users, the men who went 4–7 times a week had roughly 50% lower fatal cardiovascular disease, around 63% lower sudden cardiac death, and about 40% lower all-cause mortality. The 2–3x/week group sat in between, with about a 27% reduction in fatal cardiovascular events.

Two things to be honest about here. This is an observational study — it shows association, not proof that sauna causes the lower risk. Frequent sauna users might simply be healthier, wealthier, or more relaxed people to begin with. But the dose-response pattern — more sessions, lower risk, in a stepwise line — is the signal that makes researchers take it seriously, and the sauna temperatures in the study were genuinely hot (around 80°C on average).

The second body of evidence is the acute hormone work — short studies measuring what happens to growth hormone and cortisol during and after heat. This is where the eye-catching "16-fold growth hormone" figure comes from, and it's a completely different kind of result: a one-off spike measured in a lab, not a 20-year mortality outcome. Huberman is careful to keep these separate, and so should you. The cardiovascular benefit is about frequency over years. The growth hormone spike is about one intense, rare session.

Protocol 1 — General health (the default)

If you take nothing else from this, take this line: about an hour of sauna per week, split into 2–3 sessions, at 80–100°C.

This is the version Huberman frames as the baseline for mood, stress resilience and longevity, and it dovetails with a figure researcher Dr. Susanna Søberg has popularised — roughly 57 minutes of heat per week (paired with about 11 minutes of cold) as a minimum effective dose. Round it to an hour and you have a target that's easy to remember and easy to hit: three 20-minute sessions, or two 30-minute ones.

What it actually feels like at the bottom of that temperature range: heart rate up around 100–120 bpm, heavy sweating by the 8–10 minute mark, and a strong urge to leave somewhere past 15 minutes that you can ride out if you're acclimatised. That cardiovascular load — heart rate up, blood vessels dilating, the body working to shed heat — is the thing doing the work. It's close to what light cardio does to your circulation, which is part of why sauna gets called "passive cardio."

Where people get this wrong: they treat the hour as a ceiling and stop, or they sit in a cool infrared cabin and assume the clock is all that matters. Time is only a proxy for heat stress. If your sauna isn't hot enough to get your heart rate up and your sweat flowing, the minutes aren't buying you the same thing.

Protocol 2 — Cardiovascular benefit (frequency over duration)

For the heart-health endpoint specifically, the Finnish data points at frequency more than session length. The biggest reductions showed up in the 4–7 times per week group, so if cardiovascular risk is your main reason for sweating, more frequent shorter sessions beat one heroic weekly marathon.

Huberman's practical translation: 5–20 minutes per session, 2–3 times a week, up to 7. Note the temperature is the same 80–100°C — you're not going hotter for the heart, you're going more often. A short 10-minute sit most days of the week maps better onto the research than a single 45-minute session on Sunday.

This is also the protocol where a hot traditional or barrel sauna has a real edge over a cool infrared cabin, because the Finnish studies were all done at traditional sauna temperatures. You can still get there in infrared — you just have to go longer to reach the same level of heat stress, which I'll come back to.

Protocol 3 — Growth hormone (the rare, intense one)

This is the protocol everyone quotes and almost nobody should run weekly. The structure: four 30-minute sauna sessions in a single day at 80–100°C, with short cool-down breaks between them, done in a semi-fasted state (no food for 2–3 hours beforehand). Acute studies show heat exposure organised this way can raise growth hormone dramatically — up to 16-fold in one of the studies Huberman cites.

The catch is right there in the same research: the body adapts fast. Do this several days in a row and the growth hormone response falls off a cliff within about a week. That's why the rule is once a week, or once every ten days, at most. Run it more often and you get the discomfort without the hormonal payoff.

Two honest caveats. First, two hours of total sauna in a day is genuinely demanding and a real dehydration and cardiovascular load — this is not a beginner protocol, and it's not for anyone with cardiovascular issues without a doctor's sign-off. Second, an acute growth hormone spike is not the same as a meaningful long-term change in body composition; the evidence that this translates into visible results is thin. I treat it as an occasional novelty, not a weekly fixture, and I'd point most people at Protocols 1 and 2 instead.

The cold pairing — contrast and "end on cold"

Huberman almost never talks about heat without talking about cold, and the two protocols are designed to sit next to each other. The classic structure is contrast therapy — sauna, then a cold plunge or cold shower, repeated a few times — and the "end on cold" principle popularised by Søberg, where you finish on the cold exposure and let your body rewarm itself rather than warming up in a hot shower.

There's a real timing wrinkle worth knowing: cold exposure spikes dopamine and alertness, which is why Huberman puts it in the morning; sauna's rebound cooling supports sleep, which is why he leans the heat toward the afternoon or evening. If you're doing both in one contrast session, the cold-then-rewarm at the end is what tends to leave people feeling clear-headed and calm. I run mine the other way most days — sauna first, ice bath to finish — and end on the cold, which lines up with the principle. If you want the full structure, I wrote it up in the contrast therapy guide, and the cold half has its own breakdown in the Huberman cold plunge protocol.

What you need to run this at home

You don't need anything Huberman uses — you need a heat source that actually gets hot. A few honest notes on the hardware, because the type of sauna changes how you run the protocol:

• Traditional or barrel sauna — the closest match to the Finnish research, because it reaches 80–100°C. This is what I use, and it's the right tool if cardiovascular benefit or the growth hormone protocol is your goal. See the barrel sauna buying guide.
• Infrared cabin — runs cooler (typically 45–65°C), so it's not a like-for-like swap for the 80°C studies. You compensate with longer sessions — 30–45 minutes instead of 15 — until your heart rate and sweat rate match. Good for general health and relaxation; weaker for the high-temperature growth hormone work. Picks in best infrared saunas under $3,000.
• Sauna blanket — the budget entry point. It heats your body, not a room, and tops out cooler than a cabin, but for accumulating weekly heat minutes for mood and recovery it does the job. See best sauna blankets.

Whatever you use, the hydration rule is non-negotiable: at least 16 oz of water per 10 minutes, and electrolytes if you're going long. More on who I am and how I test on the about page, and the full sauna category is here.

FAQ

What is Andrew Huberman's sauna protocol?

Heat to 80–100°C (176–212°F) and accumulate about 1 hour of total sauna time per week across 2–3 sessions for general health. For cardiovascular benefit, 5–20 minutes per session, 2–3 times a week and up to 7. The growth hormone protocol — four 30-minute sessions in one semi-fasted day — is a separate, occasional add-on done no more than once a week.

How often does Huberman say to use a sauna?

2–3 sessions a week (about an hour total) for general health; up to 4–7 a week for the cardiovascular endpoint, where the Finnish data shows the strongest associations. The growth hormone protocol is the exception — once a week or less, because the body adapts and the hormone spike fades within days.

What temperature does Huberman recommend?

80–100°C (176–212°F) — a hot traditional sauna. The exact number matters less than the signal: hot enough to push your heart rate up and make you sweat heavily. Infrared cabins run cooler, so they need longer sessions to reach the same heat stress.

What is the growth hormone protocol?

Four 30-minute sessions at 80–100°C in a single day, short cool-downs between them, semi-fasted (no food 2–3 hours prior). Heat structured this way can raise growth hormone up to 16-fold acutely — but only if it's rare. Do it once a week at most; frequent use blunts the effect.

Morning or evening?

Afternoon or evening for sauna — the rebound cooling afterward supports sleep. That's the opposite of cold exposure, which Huberman puts in the morning for alertness. In a contrast session, finishing on cold is the rule.

Does the Finnish study prove sauna saves lives?

No — it's an observational association. The 2015 Laukkanen study found 4–7x/week users had ~50% lower fatal cardiovascular disease and ~40% lower all-cause mortality versus once-a-week users, but it can't prove cause. The clean dose-response pattern is what makes it persuasive.

Can an infrared sauna replicate this?

Partly. For general health, yes, with longer sessions. For the cardiovascular dose the research used hot traditional saunas, and for the growth hormone protocol the high temperature matters — a hot traditional or barrel sauna is the better tool for both.

My verdict

If I were starting from scratch, I'd ignore the growth hormone protocol entirely for the first few months and run Protocol 1: three 15–20 minute sessions a week in something that actually gets to 80°C, ending each one on cold. It's the version with the strongest evidence behind it, it's sustainable, and it's the one that's genuinely changed how I sleep and recover over two years of doing it. The 16-fold growth hormone number is the headline, but it's the least useful line in the protocol for most people. Get the weekly hour in, get hot enough to sweat hard, drink your water, and finish on cold. That's the whole thing.