Connecticut’s second beem Light Sauna opened in West Hartford’s Blue Back Square in July.

By Ronni Newton

A visit to beem Light Sauna, which opened in late July at 76 Memorial Road in West Hartford’s Blue Back Square, is nothing like a sauna experience you may have had after a workout at the gym.

“In a perfect world, you’d sauna every day,” said Kimberly Markey, general manager of the West Hartford studio, which is the company’s second franchise location in Connecticut. Yes, “sauna” is a verb, and an activity that provides a variety of health and wellness benefits for those who engage in the experience.

You can drop in, purchase a package, or even become a member of beem Light Sauna, and a visit includes the opportunity to enjoy a 40-minute sauna session in either a private room (solo sauna) or share the experience with a friend or partner in one of the two double “social” sauna spaces.

As opposed to traditional saunas, beem Light uses infrared light lamps to generate the heat, and the temperature remains at 135 degrees for the duration of your session.

“It heats your core first, to detox from the inside out on a cellular level,” Markey said, which is much more effective. When you first experience the sauna, you may not sweat for the first 20 to 25 minutes, she said, but then your body gets used to it and the detox – and sweating – will begin immediately, and you’ll be drenched right away. “The more consistent you are with it, the more your body is realizing it needs to [detox],” she added.

The benefits include stress relief, boosting your metabolism, boosting immunity, pain relief, and skin renewal. “And what we find with our members is it’s helping them sleep at night,” Markey said, as well as have more energy during the daytime.

Currently the West Hartford location has members ages 18 to 70, and many of the older members say it helps with arthritis as well as healing. The reasons for sauna-ing are really “across the board,” Markey said. It’s not recommended, however, for those who are pregnant or have heart conditions, she added.

Nini Ramos stated working at beem Light after realizing the impact it had on her own life. She has the autoimmune disease lupus, and had long been suffering with bouts of pain and inflammation to the extent that she said she essentially disassociated herself from her body. She was always exhausted.

After regular saunas, she said friends and family noticed how much more energy she had. “It sounds so cheesy to say, but it definitely changed my life,” she said, and now she saunas almost every day – and starts sweating immediately “in the best way.”

While you’re in the private sauna room, which has its own dressing room as well, you can be as zen as you choose to be, and wear as much or as little clothing as you choose. There are iPads where available so you can choose to listen to music – streamed from your own device via bluetooth or choose one of beem Light Sauna’s playlists – and you can even catch up on one of your favorite Netflix shows through their complimentary membership. You can read, and if you must, you can actually bring your phone into the sauna; it will get warm, but it won’t melt.

You can choose the color of the light in the sauna – adding a chromotherapy element to the experience. “Chromotherapy is an alternative medical practice that applies colors as treatment for various physical, mental, and emotional ailments,” the beem Light website states. Their AI virtual advisor, “luumi,” is resident in the lobby and will help you personalize your treatment plan, including the proper color, to achieve your desired wellness goal.

When you’re done, there’s a chilled, peppermint-scented towel to wipe off with, and shower facilities are available as well.

In addition to the infrared sauna, beem Light offers Red Light Therapy – a safe and healing non-UV light that stimulates cell regeneration. Markey said a 15-minute therapy session, which can be done in the same visit as a sauna, helps reduce inflammation and pain deep in the muscles, speeds wound healing, and boosts collagen production which can help with wrinkles, cellulite, eczema, rosacea, and hair loss. It can also boost testosterone in men, she said.

With seven solo suites, two social saunas, and two red light therapy rooms, the West Hartford location is one of the largest of the beem Light Saunas in the country. Currently they have about 20 locations, but the franchise is growing rapidly and they plan to have 60 open by the end of the year.

Beem Light also offers a variety of retail products, including exfoliators, face masks, dry brushes, and more.

More information about membership and grand opening specials can be found on the beem Light website.

Editor’s experience with the 40-minute infrared sauna: I wore workout attire. The sweating started 22 minutes into my first session. I did not think I could sit still for 40 minutes, but it went by much faster than I thought it would! After spending the first 10 minutes catching up on email and doing a social media check, I watched the end of an episode of a Netflix show (I had dozed off the night before), and then read the novel I had brought. After cooling down, and for the rest of the day and night, my skin felt amazing.

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