I have no idea if that claim is true, but what I did love about visiting Finland was the even the small apartment I rented had a sauna in it! It seems like it's a non-negotiable for even the smallest accommodations.
Yes, that it was especially rural environments and not having much options otherwise to live around while building.
Sauna that was built then wasn't just one hot room, but it also had at minimum small changing room dressing/undressing, relaxing between turns in steam room. Also if it was first building made then adding also lounge which served as living space with beds and cooking stove while building house was common. With sauna you had place to stay warm first winter, able to get warm water, wash clothes, yourselves and even a give birth old times. Building sauna first made lot of sense.
These days sauna for home builders is more about getting sauna somewhere in that floorplan where works well for the intended users of that house.
While it's true something like 90% of the accomodation have a sauna it's not like everything is planned around it. It's more like that it's the ONLY well soundproofed space, with nice atmosphere, that makes life enjoyable when your neighbors suck.
"Tar, acclaimed to have been formed from the sweat of Väinämöinen, a central character from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, was an important medicament to the former-day Finns. Tar actually did bear antiseptic features, which worked as a cure for infections. Lately tar has been recognised to include parts that can cause cancer, and the European Union has urged that its use should be avoided." [1]
I personally dont know how tar was used for health, but it was big export item of Finland during medieval times.
Vishnevski’s Liniment, which contains birch tar, was a common treatment for wound infections and burns in the Soviet bloc. However, this was something that individuals used because there was nothing else at hand.
Now, there are things like Fucidin, Polysporin and silver ointment for infected wounds and burns, respectively, that are safer and more effective.
Some people still swear by it, because “tradition” and probably some element of malignant patriotism too.
It's mildly anti-fungal as well, which makes it effective in dandruff shampoo since a lot of dandruff is caused by fungal overgrowth, aka seborrheic dermatitis.
Another weird/fun one is using bleach as an anti-inflammatory (topical only, of course...), although these days you can find derivative products that offer the same benefits but are much less harsh.
Besides water proofing wooden boats and long time ago ships pine and fir tar it's been used protecting wooden roof tiles when they were a thing and still are used old wooden churches keeping and restoring.
It's used small amounts in additive in soap or shampoo mostly as a scent, mouth pastille and lozenge a for taste, animal health care kind antibacterial and bug resistant etc. long time ago.
Quite lot of applications especially old times long time ago before more scientifically developed medicines were commonly available. These days less there but it's used as a scent or for flavour.
Go to an ER or UC and have them dress a wound for you. They will use a healthy dose of petroleum jelly and generally tell you to stay away from antibiotic ointments.
All of these studies are always performed by Finns (or SE / DK / NO + maybe Russia).
I'd love to see this (and other sauna studies) replicated by someone somewhere to the south or hotter climates in general (southern Europe, Africa, hotter parts of Asia and the Americas).
I doubt they would replicate it or any of the magical effects of saunas. Lots of the sauna studies suffer from the same issue where people self-report sauna usage rather than being assigned randomly to a treatment group. In countries where saunas are readily accessible and most people are under the impression that the more you use sauna the healthier you are, the ones that use the sauna less are probably because they tolerate it far worse. And that's probably related with age, comorbidities, physical condition, etc.
Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer". In countries where most people don't stand sauna for more than a few minutes, that self-selection bias won't exist.
Also location. In my country, saunas at home aren't as common in Finland, but basically every gym has one. So the people that use the sauna the most, are likely to be the most active.
As an Estonian, anything below 80°C is considered a "kids sauna". 80°C - 90°C is a cold-but-workable sauna and proper sauna starts from 90+°C. I'd assume it's the same in Finland as we share a lot of the sauna culture.
This would be same in Germany and eastern european countries too. But it really depend on humidity. High humidity saunas don't have to be hot and get tough pretty quicky. 100c dry sauna is lot more manageable than 60c humid sauna (atleast to me).
Also while 73°C is a proper sauna, there are plenty of hotter ones. 90°C is closer to what I'm used to at my apartment building's common sauna. I do take two breaks when I'm there for 30 mims though.
Would those be "dry saunas" or proper ones where you're allowed to throw water on the rocks? Adding humidity ('löyly') is kinda the point, and 73°C might be just fine for a small sauna, giving you a nice punchy löyly.
Depends on the location!
Very often, at public locations there is a "saua master" taking care, in smaller locations I have seen people handling this on their own.
And in one location there was a sign: "no private watering due to electrical issues"
Yes every sauna I have ever been to in Europe (spas, various gyms) have electric heater with stones on top. Infra saunas are only for cheapest installs at home and usually dont generate enough heat.
Also, 80° celzius minimum for proper saunas, I have been to >100 celzius ones and its a struggle to remain for 15 mins inside.
Another point - I consider the after-part most crucial for health benefits to me - as-cold-as-possible long shower or even better a similar dip pool. Few days after that my cold resistance is significantly higher. Just the heating of body in sauna I can reach also ie with cardio workout or free weights, which brings tons of other benefits.
I knew a guy that would bring a steak sealed in a vac seal bag to the gym and leave it in the sauna while he worked out. One hour later he was done working out and it was ready to eat too. Not sure I can actually recommend it to others but the novelty was interesting till they nearly kicked him out of the gym.
And also replicated with participants not used to high temperatures inside a typical Finnish sauna. As the study said such people are very difficult to find in Finland. But I wonder if a person who has never been to a real sauna would tolerate this study protocol (2*15 min at 73° Celsius) without any training.
Sauna and hot climates may sound counterintuitive, but it has been tested by most Finns that when you come out of a hot sauna any outside temperature feels cool.
I'm an immigrant in Scandinavia, originally from a hot country, in my experience a 73C steam sauna is quite tolerable for a 2*15 min session.
The first time I was in a sauna after moving was a bit harder than after getting used to it but doable.
Nowadays I just love them, my friends and I built a couple of saunas to leave by the lake in their summerhouses, the cravings of going from hot -> very cold, and back to the heat is hard to explain, and I totally recommend it.
Hammam is not as hot as sauna and not as dry. Sauna's air temperatures can reach above 100 degress Celsius and humidity is usually relatively low (around 20%).
> Hammam's temperatures are around 40-50 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 100%.
Which makes it absolutely unbearable. By the way, that combination of temperature + humidity will cause severe hyperthermia (which can be deadly) faster than people think.
I just cannot fathom comments like this. I’m preeetty sure that the vast majority of people spend half an hour a day doing nothing, in front of a screen of some type. How many people do you think there are there who don’t have thirty minutes of leisure time once per week?!
There's a world of a difference between being able to carve out 30 actually uninterrupted minutes (and realistically more; most people don't have a sauna in their home, so they'd need to spend some time getting there and back) and being able to zone out and stare at a screen for 30 minutes in bed or on public transit.
Not having an hour of uninterrupted leisure time per day, never mind per week (most Finns don’t go to sauna every day) still sounds pretty unfathomable, except maybe in some specific circumstances like being a fresh single parent or similar. In any case, in Finland people go to sauna together with even fairly young kids (like 3+ years old), with breaks as needed of course, even most adults don’t usually spend thirty continuous minutes in a 80°C sauna.
Virtually everyone everywhere can find free 30 minutes. And turn their devices off. Those who think they cannot would do well getting to a state where they can do this, at least 6, preferably 7 days a week.
Skipping screen time between waking up and getting up will might solve this problem for a significant fraction of the first world population. My 2c.
Huge difference between constantly being in passive alert mode waiting for the kid to wake up and cry their heart out, and proper uninterrupted “I know have x minutes for myself, no matter what” time.
AH, MANY THANKS!
That was the wording I was actually looking for when our twins arrived - I couldnt even sit down to read a printed newspaper article with 2 pages....
I've never read as much on my kindle as when my son was born. I didn't want to use my phone so any micro break was spent reading. Much harder to do now that my son is 4 years old, I'm less sleep deprived but there's less opportunities for micro breaks when I'm with him.
Less doomscrolling, less bing watching of dumb Netflix series. Sensible working hours. And a society that doesn’t demand constant reachability when being off work.
It is not a luxury. It is living with common sense.
That might have an effect, but these studies are probably mostly selecting for people who can tolerate a hostile environment for longer, which are usually healthier. I find it unlikely that sauna alone explains the fantastic, almost miraculous hazard ratios that these studies report.
Finland has saunas everywhere, having a sauna at home isn't even expensive average people have that, its just a cultural thing its like having a toilet at home it isn't something normal people can't afford.
Correct, most saunas at homes were they apartments or family homes, businesses, public saunas etc. were built using electric stoves when they became commonplace during -70's.
But traditional summer cottages and villas have been either intentionally or still built wood burning stoves unless three phase power is easily available not bring cost up too much because remote location and long distance to grid. We have about half a million summer cottages in Finland. Which almost all have saunas and I would guess that perhaps 5% would have electric saunas as most summer cottages are built quite long time ago and off grid.
There are fancy (luxury) summer cottages where there is not one but either two or even three saunas built or moved there. All different types of course if having many. One electric inside for convenience.
Traditional (continuous) wood burning sauna, "jatkuvalämmitteinen" in Finnish, right next to lake because that type is consider to give better 'löyly' (steam in sauna) than you get from electric stove and thus preferred by many.
Third if some have is usually oldest type, the smoke-sauna. Which is really nice to have if you can afford keeping and have patience to make use of it few times a year. It takes lot of time and bit of knowledge too to warm it up which can take up to 6-8 hours, before it's ready to start bathing there. This was most common type about hundred years ago in country side.
Fourth type is or mostly was between smoke-sauna and continuously burning stove sauna. Its stove burns wood during heating, but then during bathing it's just releasing heat accumulated during heating. This type name in Finnish is "kertalämmitteinen kiuas" ie. onceheated-stove. And was most common in towns and cities before continuously warming stove was invented and became popular about 60 years ago.
I go sauna four times a week, once evening where I live and three times a week early in morning when I go swimming to (county owned) swimming baths.
That is growing trend in Finland too. GenX and younger seemingly use less sauna compared to older generations.
Thus when it was common to build sauna for a while all new all least family size apparments late -80's and -90's that has been less common later decades. And it's become so common people not using saunas already built bathing and instead use it additional storage. Which has unfortunately caused even some fire accidents if stove circuit breaker was not disconnected. Last year we had this kind of happening when child apparently had played with the sauna timer switch and activated it.
People with high socioeconomic status work much more and have less free time. It’s absurd to claim otherwise.
EDIT: please before being outraged at my comment have a look at actual evidence, e.g. Time and income poverty by Tania Burchardt; bottom decile compared with top decile has 12 hours more free time a week!
Your point is even more graphically illustrated if you compare the extremes... Say trust fund babies to homeless people. The trust fund people spend at least ten hours a week reviewing investment and disciplining their entourage, whereas homeless people's time is completely their own.
> People with high socioeconomic status work much more and have less free time
I think you are misrepresenting (or perhaps, misunderstanding) the conclusion of these studies. The increased "free time" is most entirely due to high unemployment at the lower end of income.
If you control for unemployment and under-employment, the graphs pretty much flatten out (as you can observe in the later graphs of the publication you linked below)
No, I think considering only employed people is dishonest, there’s zero reason to do so. And if graph becomes flat then obviously assumption that high income people have more time is not true
If you want to make that argument, then we have to discuss whether those people choose to be underemployed, or are in that state due to fiscal policy that explicitly aims to prevent 100% employment
In the context of this discussion not at all - the comment I was replying to hinted that perhaps benefits from 30 min in sauna might be due to confounding stemming from time availability. Also all I'm saying is that poorest people (bottom 10%) generally have more free time than richest people (top 10%). I'm not discussing why, if it's system failure, their choice or anything else and I don't know why should I? Would this discussion somehow change how much free time each decile has? Of course not.
I don't get how you have considered all these details yet didn't try to steelman the "hint" better, e.g. 30 minutes of relaxed meditation compared to 30 minutes of sauna usage, as opposed to some vague definition of "do nothing" and whether different social classes effectively have very different baselines of doing nothing, such as their stress levels, does playing golf count as free time, or sunning on the deck of a cruise ship is that "doing nothing", etc. at which point the discussion about confounders really gets in the weeds. Unlike CPUs human in/activity is not like a no-op instruction
Sure - https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cr/CASEreport57.pdf
The difference between bottom and top decile is huge - bottom has approximately 12 hours more of free time a week! It’s consistent result that’s replicated multiple times in literature.
I’m afraid it’s you that’s disconnected from reality. I know it’s unfashionable to actually consider evidence, but please have a look at eg Time and income poverty
by Tania Burchardt. Low income people have MUCH more free time.
Anecdotal evidence. But since I started doing sauna regularly (once a week) I started to get sick less. I’m talking colds or flues. And the ones I did catch were much milder. Even with sick family members around I’m not catching it as often.
Also anecdotal evidence, I haven't been sick this whole past 12 months. Any change I made in the past 12 I could've contributed to this. Nothing particular comes to mind but there were lots of changes (e.g. work, home, diet). That's the issue.
You'd have to stop sauna for a while and see if it reverses to strengthen the anecdotal case I guess.
I heard that we often get cold/flu/sore throat when we get too cold outside, because the inside of our orifices is kept at a certain temperature to kill those bacteria/viruses. When we get too cold, we are unable to kill them fast enough, and get overrun. Staying in 70-100°C air for prolonged time must also heatshock those parts of our bodies, so I guess we kinda sterilize it that way.
Humidity is the key, Finnish style sauna is low humidity+ high temperature (85-115C is OK i think), while Russian banya-style is low temperature (60-80C with high humidity). Both of them produce about the same load on a human
My problem with turkish style hammam is that unless it's extremely well maintained it often smells of mold. When I went to some nice hammams in turkey, I didn't have that problem but outside of turkey, it's often unbearable.
That's interesting. I don't have much the habit of doing sauna, as you can likely tell, so I might have tried only high humidity saunas. I'll give it a try one day with low humidity if I find one.
73°C isn't unusual. I checked out what's source for the Wikipedia article that says it's 80 to 110°C. Oddly it's a Chicago Tribune article from 1970. I don't think I ever visited a 110°C sauna.
110C is not that unusual in the Nordics (although way above average, it's for tougher sauna goers). I've been in one. Not most people's cup of tea though, the experience is comparable to the opposite of a long cold plunge.
A dry sauna sounds terminally boring. The point of Finnish saunas is that they are dry and hot, but you can adjust the pain...experience, I mean, by throwing water on the rocks at intervals of your choice.
I was in a 110C sauna for 20 minutes today. Plus 15 minutes in a 70C one (hybrid infrared sauna). Max is 30 minutes at once at 70C. It does take some getting used to.
This temperature cheating is one of the things I see very often in Gyms & public places:
They announce with "fin sauna 90°", and then its only 80 or 82,so stealing some performance :-D
Sauna is the perfect activity to add to most people's everyday routine. It is 30-60 minutes of relaxation for the body and mind, which nicely fill in the slot between dinner and bedtime, instead of TV/Netflix or doom scrolling in the sofa.
It does indeed increase internal temperature. Perhaps an artificial fever is part of it but I believe the science currently around heat shock proteins.
Yes, if by hot bath you mean submerging yourself to neck level in 40ºC or above water for 20-30 minutes. There's no reason to believe any "heat therapy" modality is superior to another as long as you suffer equal heat stress.
For the record, if you're not acclimated, intense heat exposure is a lot more agonising than 30 minutes of exercise for less benefit. If you haven't experienced a properly tuned sauna in your life you are in for a ride. What's being studied in the literature is nothing like your standard hotel experience.
The standard hotel experience is sitting wrapped in a towel and longing for my winter coat! Actually I would probably feel similarly in this study, 73°c is really cold for sauna. 90°c-100°c is the sweet spot
How are you suffering equal heat stress from being submerged in moderately warm water and breathing very hot air? I could imagine quite different effects on airways and skin, for example. "Exactly the same effect" seems like the unexpected outcome here.
> intense heat exposure is a lot more agonising than 30 minutes of exercise for less benefit
Having to do absolutely nothing other than not leaving is quite different from pushing through a physical activity that can also easily be causing all kinds of discomfort.
It's all about raising your core temperature, water transfers heat to the body much more efficiently than air, so water at 104F ends up raising your body core temperature as much as a dry sauna at 170F. I did some experimentation on this, I have access to a dry sauna at my gym and I track my HR and exertion levels, I did the same with the hot tub at home making sure the water temperature doesn't go below 104F and im fully submerged to the neck, 30 mins session in both cases. The graphs look pretty much identical, same HR uptrends. So as far as cardio effects and heat shock proteins I do believe they are the same, not sure if there could be any benefit to breathing dry hot air for the lungs, but so far most benefits from sauna come from raising core temp
Too lazy to find it, but Dr Rhonda Patrick (a longtime advocate for saunas for their health benefits) reported that hot tubs can provide the same results as saunas -- and they are much more pleasant to use.
Not to beat my own dead horse but at the heat stress needed to cause an adaptation there’s nothing pleasant about the experience. If it’s not causing nausea and palpitations, it’s not hot enough.
Have you tried submerging yourself in moderately hot water, I wonder? And have you spent some time pondering the difference in heat transfer between convection and conduction?
> How are you suffering equal heat stress from being submerged in moderately warm water
by the rules of this universe, you can't survive being submerged in 40C water for a prolonged period of time (even 37C would kill you as well), because humans produce heat and if you can't dispose of it you'll overheat and be dead soon enough
It might not do the exact same, but it will have some effect. A lot of the benefit comes from the raised heart rate and opening of the blood vessels that the sauna produces, and I can expect that a warm bath would also have a similar effect. I think both are also known to reduce stress, which can help to lower blood pressure.
Still there are studies that regular sauna does decrease testosterone production. It's not hard to counter though, ice packs applied to testicles ( not direct ice, ice in a cloth) during sauna are effective for that purpose.
And maybe Finns don't go to sauna when they plan to conceive? Does Finland have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies?
Finland's fertility rate drove off a cliff in the 60's like in so many other countries. If sauna has an overall effect we wouldn't know as we've nothing to compare with -- going to sauna is rather universal and the tradition is ancient.
In Finland we have old saying: "If liquor, tar and sauna won’t help, an illness is fatal"
Is it true that new houses are constructed/architectured as "sauna first" and then everything else is planned around the sauna?
or is that just an urban legend claim?
I have no idea if that claim is true, but what I did love about visiting Finland was the even the small apartment I rented had a sauna in it! It seems like it's a non-negotiable for even the smallest accommodations.
Not around the sauna per se, but sauna is often built first because it serves as a place to live while you're building the house!
>sauna is often built first because it serves as a place to live while you're building the house
wouldn't a kitchen accomplish that goal better?
Yes, that it was especially rural environments and not having much options otherwise to live around while building.
Sauna that was built then wasn't just one hot room, but it also had at minimum small changing room dressing/undressing, relaxing between turns in steam room. Also if it was first building made then adding also lounge which served as living space with beds and cooking stove while building house was common. With sauna you had place to stay warm first winter, able to get warm water, wash clothes, yourselves and even a give birth old times. Building sauna first made lot of sense.
These days sauna for home builders is more about getting sauna somewhere in that floorplan where works well for the intended users of that house.
While it's true something like 90% of the accomodation have a sauna it's not like everything is planned around it. It's more like that it's the ONLY well soundproofed space, with nice atmosphere, that makes life enjoyable when your neighbors suck.
Trust your instincts.
I would say booze rather than liquor. Liquor sounds too fancy.
Tar?
"Tar, acclaimed to have been formed from the sweat of Väinämöinen, a central character from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, was an important medicament to the former-day Finns. Tar actually did bear antiseptic features, which worked as a cure for infections. Lately tar has been recognised to include parts that can cause cancer, and the European Union has urged that its use should be avoided." [1]
I personally dont know how tar was used for health, but it was big export item of Finland during medieval times.
[1]https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/themes/themes/health-a-wellbein...
Vishnevski’s Liniment, which contains birch tar, was a common treatment for wound infections and burns in the Soviet bloc. However, this was something that individuals used because there was nothing else at hand.
Now, there are things like Fucidin, Polysporin and silver ointment for infected wounds and burns, respectively, that are safer and more effective.
Some people still swear by it, because “tradition” and probably some element of malignant patriotism too.
Tar based, (anti)Dandruff Shampoo is still a thing
I only know how it’s used for psoriasis as part of the Goeckerman method [1] but allegedly there’s some general anti-inflammatory effect.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3735239/
It's mildly anti-fungal as well, which makes it effective in dandruff shampoo since a lot of dandruff is caused by fungal overgrowth, aka seborrheic dermatitis.
Another weird/fun one is using bleach as an anti-inflammatory (topical only, of course...), although these days you can find derivative products that offer the same benefits but are much less harsh.
Do you... eat the tar? Put it on your skin? What exactly do you do with it?
Besides water proofing wooden boats and long time ago ships pine and fir tar it's been used protecting wooden roof tiles when they were a thing and still are used old wooden churches keeping and restoring.
It's used small amounts in additive in soap or shampoo mostly as a scent, mouth pastille and lozenge a for taste, animal health care kind antibacterial and bug resistant etc. long time ago.
Quite lot of applications especially old times long time ago before more scientifically developed medicines were commonly available. These days less there but it's used as a scent or for flavour.
I think you can just replace it with Vaseline (Petroleum jelly) for 99% of the benefits
That's not antiseptic
Go to an ER or UC and have them dress a wound for you. They will use a healthy dose of petroleum jelly and generally tell you to stay away from antibiotic ointments.
Use honey instead.
Not directly, but it acts as a barrier against microbes.
Tar. Specifically wood tar,
Pine tar is used in topical medicine for dermatology around the world I don't think it's limited to anywhere particular.
Isn't that the same stuff as in soldering flux?
Smells good, for sure. But I don't know if it promotes good health.
In Finland, they are most likely using birch tar.
Nah, it's pine.
And coal tar
Not the tapes, tar pit tar, the black thingy used in boats. And now that I read what's the translation it seems to be asphalt actually.
Pine sap. You can get a schnapps of it, obviously.
Are there any scientific results showing that this helps?
All of these studies are always performed by Finns (or SE / DK / NO + maybe Russia).
I'd love to see this (and other sauna studies) replicated by someone somewhere to the south or hotter climates in general (southern Europe, Africa, hotter parts of Asia and the Americas).
I doubt they would replicate it or any of the magical effects of saunas. Lots of the sauna studies suffer from the same issue where people self-report sauna usage rather than being assigned randomly to a treatment group. In countries where saunas are readily accessible and most people are under the impression that the more you use sauna the healthier you are, the ones that use the sauna less are probably because they tolerate it far worse. And that's probably related with age, comorbidities, physical condition, etc.
Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer". In countries where most people don't stand sauna for more than a few minutes, that self-selection bias won't exist.
Also location. In my country, saunas at home aren't as common in Finland, but basically every gym has one. So the people that use the sauna the most, are likely to be the most active.
There’s a saying in Finland that foreign "saunas" are not true saunas at all, but rather just "untypically warm rooms".
The experiments where at 73°C which is a lot hotter than most gym/hotel/spa saunas I’ve been in outside Finland
As an Estonian, anything below 80°C is considered a "kids sauna". 80°C - 90°C is a cold-but-workable sauna and proper sauna starts from 90+°C. I'd assume it's the same in Finland as we share a lot of the sauna culture.
This would be same in Germany and eastern european countries too. But it really depend on humidity. High humidity saunas don't have to be hot and get tough pretty quicky. 100c dry sauna is lot more manageable than 60c humid sauna (atleast to me).
Also while 73°C is a proper sauna, there are plenty of hotter ones. 90°C is closer to what I'm used to at my apartment building's common sauna. I do take two breaks when I'm there for 30 mims though.
73° hot?
Here in mainland Europe, a "classic fin sauna" is usually at least 90°++
Would those be "dry saunas" or proper ones where you're allowed to throw water on the rocks? Adding humidity ('löyly') is kinda the point, and 73°C might be just fine for a small sauna, giving you a nice punchy löyly.
> hrow water on the rocks?
Depends on the location! Very often, at public locations there is a "saua master" taking care, in smaller locations I have seen people handling this on their own.
And in one location there was a sign: "no private watering due to electrical issues"
Yes every sauna I have ever been to in Europe (spas, various gyms) have electric heater with stones on top. Infra saunas are only for cheapest installs at home and usually dont generate enough heat.
Also, 80° celzius minimum for proper saunas, I have been to >100 celzius ones and its a struggle to remain for 15 mins inside.
Another point - I consider the after-part most crucial for health benefits to me - as-cold-as-possible long shower or even better a similar dip pool. Few days after that my cold resistance is significantly higher. Just the heating of body in sauna I can reach also ie with cardio workout or free weights, which brings tons of other benefits.
That "electric heater stones of top" is usually called stove, "kiuas" in Finnish :)
Anything beyond 90 C is not a sauna :) Better to have 90+ and hot steam as in Russian sauna (banya) :)
you can sous vide beef and pork at a lower temperature than that
I knew a guy that would bring a steak sealed in a vac seal bag to the gym and leave it in the sauna while he worked out. One hour later he was done working out and it was ready to eat too. Not sure I can actually recommend it to others but the novelty was interesting till they nearly kicked him out of the gym.
Sounds a bit like using your dishwasher to cook your dinner - https://parallelplates.com/dishwashers-still-full-meals/
I won’t want to use my dishwasher as a sauna though /s
And also replicated with participants not used to high temperatures inside a typical Finnish sauna. As the study said such people are very difficult to find in Finland. But I wonder if a person who has never been to a real sauna would tolerate this study protocol (2*15 min at 73° Celsius) without any training.
Sauna and hot climates may sound counterintuitive, but it has been tested by most Finns that when you come out of a hot sauna any outside temperature feels cool.
I'm an immigrant in Scandinavia, originally from a hot country, in my experience a 73C steam sauna is quite tolerable for a 2*15 min session.
The first time I was in a sauna after moving was a bit harder than after getting used to it but doable.
Nowadays I just love them, my friends and I built a couple of saunas to leave by the lake in their summerhouses, the cravings of going from hot -> very cold, and back to the heat is hard to explain, and I totally recommend it.
Ever heard of hamam?
Hammam is not as hot as sauna and not as dry. Sauna's air temperatures can reach above 100 degress Celsius and humidity is usually relatively low (around 20%).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna
Hammam's temperatures are around 40-50 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 100%.
These are very different conditions, with very different body response.
> Hammam's temperatures are around 40-50 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 100%.
Which makes it absolutely unbearable. By the way, that combination of temperature + humidity will cause severe hyperthermia (which can be deadly) faster than people think.
There is also a World Championship with up to 130°
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sauna_Championships
:-D
Was - there was a world championship
The last time it was held, a Russian died and a Finn ended up in hospital with severe burns.
The problem is that staying as long as possible in a sauna can be fatal.
So, you’re telling me the Finn won?
I have not, what is it?
A steam sauna originating in Turkey, popular in many Arabic countries.
It may originate from Roman's thermae: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermae
It is hard to study this in a place with less access to saunas.
Saunas are very cheap to buy and/or build, certainly within the budget of an average research grant.
>mitigate the adverse effects of low socioeconomic status
Makes me wonder how much of it is Sauna, vs just the luxury of having the time to go do nothing for ~30 minutes.
I just cannot fathom comments like this. I’m preeetty sure that the vast majority of people spend half an hour a day doing nothing, in front of a screen of some type. How many people do you think there are there who don’t have thirty minutes of leisure time once per week?!
There's a world of a difference between being able to carve out 30 actually uninterrupted minutes (and realistically more; most people don't have a sauna in their home, so they'd need to spend some time getting there and back) and being able to zone out and stare at a screen for 30 minutes in bed or on public transit.
> and realistically more; most people don't have a sauna in their home
Most people have a sauna in their home, this is Finland.
And those that don't have usually access to one in the building that they can use.
Or if they don't have that, can just go to one of the numerous public saunas.
Not having an hour of uninterrupted leisure time per day, never mind per week (most Finns don’t go to sauna every day) still sounds pretty unfathomable, except maybe in some specific circumstances like being a fresh single parent or similar. In any case, in Finland people go to sauna together with even fairly young kids (like 3+ years old), with breaks as needed of course, even most adults don’t usually spend thirty continuous minutes in a 80°C sauna.
Virtually everyone everywhere can find free 30 minutes. And turn their devices off. Those who think they cannot would do well getting to a state where they can do this, at least 6, preferably 7 days a week.
Skipping screen time between waking up and getting up will might solve this problem for a significant fraction of the first world population. My 2c.
And it is so hot that you can't use your phone full of addicting apps that ruin your sanity.
You're describing a tool. It can destroy your sanity yes, but it also enables sanity if that makes sense.
Fresh parents without relatives to help out.
We still managed fine. All young kids sleep quite a lot. Newborns a crapton. Older kids who don't are old enough to sauna too.
If it's winter, put the baby in the pram outside, while you do a quick sauna session?
Check out the screen time log for fresh parents.
I remember the first few months being so crazy. Feedings every two hours, and each feeding took an hour.
But still time for naps, short walks, etc. part of the survival was to work in little microbreaks when the baby was sleeping.
Huge difference between constantly being in passive alert mode waiting for the kid to wake up and cry their heart out, and proper uninterrupted “I know have x minutes for myself, no matter what” time.
> being in passive alert mode
AH, MANY THANKS! That was the wording I was actually looking for when our twins arrived - I couldnt even sit down to read a printed newspaper article with 2 pages....
I've never read as much on my kindle as when my son was born. I didn't want to use my phone so any micro break was spent reading. Much harder to do now that my son is 4 years old, I'm less sleep deprived but there's less opportunities for micro breaks when I'm with him.
Are you even living if you're not spending every single minute breathing and shitting your work and/or kids?
You "cannot fathom" the privilege your have or life experience you lack to believe this unconditionally.
Less doomscrolling, less bing watching of dumb Netflix series. Sensible working hours. And a society that doesn’t demand constant reachability when being off work.
It is not a luxury. It is living with common sense.
That might have an effect, but these studies are probably mostly selecting for people who can tolerate a hostile environment for longer, which are usually healthier. I find it unlikely that sauna alone explains the fantastic, almost miraculous hazard ratios that these studies report.
As an American: I soak in a hot tub for 30 minutes or more, at fairly high heat. At least a few times a week.
Sometimes posting on Hackernews.
It’s one of the high points of my day (the soak, not the posting).
This “I wonder” just screams lazy thinking.
just make sure your charger is faaar away from the tube, please. (and thats also true for your phone charger :-)
Thanks for the warm thoughts :) (yes, I went there).
My phone charge lasts longer than 30 minutes. And it’s provably water resistant to tub depths.
I certainly don’t code in the tub. Strictly reading and discourse.
I'm curious what harm you think could come from that?
Ehhhh?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/girl-16-electrocute...
https://www.reddit.com/r/hungary/comments/1k7hxqq/meghalt_a_...
Doing nothing for 30 minutes does not release cytokines.
But it _will_ reduce cortisol, which is known to increase the likelihood of infections
I nearly made a screen time comment but you are right, its facility availability and travel time issue more than anything
Finland has saunas everywhere, having a sauna at home isn't even expensive average people have that, its just a cultural thing its like having a toilet at home it isn't something normal people can't afford.
Not all saunas are the same though. Traditional hotbox-ed wood burning saunas and modern electrics are the same thing but also kinda not.
I don't think they used wood burning saunas in this study, basically all saunas today are electric.
Correct, most saunas at homes were they apartments or family homes, businesses, public saunas etc. were built using electric stoves when they became commonplace during -70's.
But traditional summer cottages and villas have been either intentionally or still built wood burning stoves unless three phase power is easily available not bring cost up too much because remote location and long distance to grid. We have about half a million summer cottages in Finland. Which almost all have saunas and I would guess that perhaps 5% would have electric saunas as most summer cottages are built quite long time ago and off grid.
There are fancy (luxury) summer cottages where there is not one but either two or even three saunas built or moved there. All different types of course if having many. One electric inside for convenience.
Traditional (continuous) wood burning sauna, "jatkuvalämmitteinen" in Finnish, right next to lake because that type is consider to give better 'löyly' (steam in sauna) than you get from electric stove and thus preferred by many.
Third if some have is usually oldest type, the smoke-sauna. Which is really nice to have if you can afford keeping and have patience to make use of it few times a year. It takes lot of time and bit of knowledge too to warm it up which can take up to 6-8 hours, before it's ready to start bathing there. This was most common type about hundred years ago in country side.
Fourth type is or mostly was between smoke-sauna and continuously burning stove sauna. Its stove burns wood during heating, but then during bathing it's just releasing heat accumulated during heating. This type name in Finnish is "kertalämmitteinen kiuas" ie. onceheated-stove. And was most common in towns and cities before continuously warming stove was invented and became popular about 60 years ago.
I go sauna four times a week, once evening where I live and three times a week early in morning when I go swimming to (county owned) swimming baths.
e: typos, and clearer expressions.
No travel time. Most Finnish houses have a sauna built in.
And Swedish houses, particularly detached houses built or renovated the 70s. Typically used for storing boxes.
That is growing trend in Finland too. GenX and younger seemingly use less sauna compared to older generations.
Thus when it was common to build sauna for a while all new all least family size apparments late -80's and -90's that has been less common later decades. And it's become so common people not using saunas already built bathing and instead use it additional storage. Which has unfortunately caused even some fire accidents if stove circuit breaker was not disconnected. Last year we had this kind of happening when child apparently had played with the sauna timer switch and activated it.
People with high socioeconomic status work much more and have less free time. It’s absurd to claim otherwise.
EDIT: please before being outraged at my comment have a look at actual evidence, e.g. Time and income poverty by Tania Burchardt; bottom decile compared with top decile has 12 hours more free time a week!
Your point is even more graphically illustrated if you compare the extremes... Say trust fund babies to homeless people. The trust fund people spend at least ten hours a week reviewing investment and disciplining their entourage, whereas homeless people's time is completely their own.
People with 2 minimum wage jobs have even less time.
> People with high socioeconomic status work much more and have less free time
I think you are misrepresenting (or perhaps, misunderstanding) the conclusion of these studies. The increased "free time" is most entirely due to high unemployment at the lower end of income.
If you control for unemployment and under-employment, the graphs pretty much flatten out (as you can observe in the later graphs of the publication you linked below)
No, I think considering only employed people is dishonest, there’s zero reason to do so. And if graph becomes flat then obviously assumption that high income people have more time is not true
If you want to make that argument, then we have to discuss whether those people choose to be underemployed, or are in that state due to fiscal policy that explicitly aims to prevent 100% employment
In the context of this discussion not at all - the comment I was replying to hinted that perhaps benefits from 30 min in sauna might be due to confounding stemming from time availability. Also all I'm saying is that poorest people (bottom 10%) generally have more free time than richest people (top 10%). I'm not discussing why, if it's system failure, their choice or anything else and I don't know why should I? Would this discussion somehow change how much free time each decile has? Of course not.
I don't get how you have considered all these details yet didn't try to steelman the "hint" better, e.g. 30 minutes of relaxed meditation compared to 30 minutes of sauna usage, as opposed to some vague definition of "do nothing" and whether different social classes effectively have very different baselines of doing nothing, such as their stress levels, does playing golf count as free time, or sunning on the deck of a cruise ship is that "doing nothing", etc. at which point the discussion about confounders really gets in the weeds. Unlike CPUs human in/activity is not like a no-op instruction
Citation needed.
Edit: it’s absolutely not true universally and it’s ridiculous to suggest it is. Comparing averages will be very tricky as well.
Sure - https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cr/CASEreport57.pdf The difference between bottom and top decile is huge - bottom has approximately 12 hours more of free time a week! It’s consistent result that’s replicated multiple times in literature.
how utterly disconnected from reality you are
I’m afraid it’s you that’s disconnected from reality. I know it’s unfashionable to actually consider evidence, but please have a look at eg Time and income poverty by Tania Burchardt. Low income people have MUCH more free time.
Anecdotal evidence. But since I started doing sauna regularly (once a week) I started to get sick less. I’m talking colds or flues. And the ones I did catch were much milder. Even with sick family members around I’m not catching it as often.
Also anecdotal evidence, I haven't been sick this whole past 12 months. Any change I made in the past 12 I could've contributed to this. Nothing particular comes to mind but there were lots of changes (e.g. work, home, diet). That's the issue.
You'd have to stop sauna for a while and see if it reverses to strengthen the anecdotal case I guess.
It’s also great for certain mental health issues: spending time naked with a mixed crowd (yes mixed female and male) can be eye opening.
Saunas are a great leveller between humans all living the same experience yet feeling alone in doing so.
I heard that we often get cold/flu/sore throat when we get too cold outside, because the inside of our orifices is kept at a certain temperature to kill those bacteria/viruses. When we get too cold, we are unable to kill them fast enough, and get overrun. Staying in 70-100°C air for prolonged time must also heatshock those parts of our bodies, so I guess we kinda sterilize it that way.
At least my 2c why I think its helping
+1
> A total of 51 adults (...) were exposed to a 30-minute session of acute FSB at a temperature of + 73°C
Woah, that seems like a lot for me. I can usually stand maybe 60ºC for like 10 maybe 15 min. I don't think I'd be able to stand 30 min under 73ºC.
Humidity is the key, Finnish style sauna is low humidity+ high temperature (85-115C is OK i think), while Russian banya-style is low temperature (60-80C with high humidity). Both of them produce about the same load on a human
Right, and Turkish-style hammam is 50C at 100% humidity. It's the only one I cannot stand.
My problem with turkish style hammam is that unless it's extremely well maintained it often smells of mold. When I went to some nice hammams in turkey, I didn't have that problem but outside of turkey, it's often unbearable.
That's interesting. I don't have much the habit of doing sauna, as you can likely tell, so I might have tried only high humidity saunas. I'll give it a try one day with low humidity if I find one.
73°C is a bit unusual cold for a Finnish sauna. Wikipedia says:
> The temperature in Finnish saunas is 80 to 110 °C (176 to 230 °F), usually 80–90 °C (176–194 °F)
And with that temperature, I think 10–15 minutes are pretty standard.
73°C isn't unusual. I checked out what's source for the Wikipedia article that says it's 80 to 110°C. Oddly it's a Chicago Tribune article from 1970. I don't think I ever visited a 110°C sauna.
110C is not that unusual in the Nordics (although way above average, it's for tougher sauna goers). I've been in one. Not most people's cup of tea though, the experience is comparable to the opposite of a long cold plunge.
110 is only on the top shelf, middle or lower is much cooler. For a dry sauna you really want to be well into the 100s to get a proper kick out of it.
A dry sauna sounds terminally boring. The point of Finnish saunas is that they are dry and hot, but you can adjust the pain...experience, I mean, by throwing water on the rocks at intervals of your choice.
Whisking can make up for the boringness of a dry sauna (hitting yourself with some birch branches).
I was in a 110C sauna for 20 minutes today. Plus 15 minutes in a 70C one (hybrid infrared sauna). Max is 30 minutes at once at 70C. It does take some getting used to.
This is one of the most famous public saunas in Finland: https://www.kotiharjunsauna.fi/en
If the temperature there is not close to 120°C, we are kind of disappointed.
This temperature cheating is one of the things I see very often in Gyms & public places: They announce with "fin sauna 90°", and then its only 80 or 82,so stealing some performance :-D
It's a multi-level sauna though, so it's "choose-your-own-temperature" (due to the hot air gradient), not everybody is there for the 120C experience.
I wager you are not Finnish.
Not even a wager. Just out of ~100C sauna after 20 mins straight. Pretty normal, and I'm not Finnish. In that area though.
Brazilian! XD
The sauna at my gym is regularly over 180F and I do 30 minute sessions. It is a dry sauna however, no steam.
I’m not sure if I want a response of cytokine storms. MCAS is what comes to mind.
IIUC the operating theory is that a short burst of acute inflammatory stimulus clears out the system to below the prior baseline.
Its not a storm though.
Sauna is the perfect activity to add to most people's everyday routine. It is 30-60 minutes of relaxation for the body and mind, which nicely fill in the slot between dinner and bedtime, instead of TV/Netflix or doom scrolling in the sofa.
I’ve always wondered if it raises internal body temperature? Is it basically an induced fever?
It does indeed increase internal temperature. Perhaps an artificial fever is part of it but I believe the science currently around heat shock proteins.
Hmm. So what about a 30 to 50 minute run wearing sweatpants / hoodie?
I doubt high heart rate is a good mix for high temperature, you want them to balance out, see also homeostasis from high school biology.
I believe that heavy exercise can also increase heat shock proteins, but don't quote me. This info is all readily accessible online.
Sample size is tiny fwiw.
Sauna basically is the "hot winter" simulator.
Does a long hot bath do the same?
Yes, if by hot bath you mean submerging yourself to neck level in 40ºC or above water for 20-30 minutes. There's no reason to believe any "heat therapy" modality is superior to another as long as you suffer equal heat stress.
For the record, if you're not acclimated, intense heat exposure is a lot more agonising than 30 minutes of exercise for less benefit. If you haven't experienced a properly tuned sauna in your life you are in for a ride. What's being studied in the literature is nothing like your standard hotel experience.
The standard hotel experience is sitting wrapped in a towel and longing for my winter coat! Actually I would probably feel similarly in this study, 73°c is really cold for sauna. 90°c-100°c is the sweet spot
How are you suffering equal heat stress from being submerged in moderately warm water and breathing very hot air? I could imagine quite different effects on airways and skin, for example. "Exactly the same effect" seems like the unexpected outcome here.
> intense heat exposure is a lot more agonising than 30 minutes of exercise for less benefit
Having to do absolutely nothing other than not leaving is quite different from pushing through a physical activity that can also easily be causing all kinds of discomfort.
It's all about raising your core temperature, water transfers heat to the body much more efficiently than air, so water at 104F ends up raising your body core temperature as much as a dry sauna at 170F. I did some experimentation on this, I have access to a dry sauna at my gym and I track my HR and exertion levels, I did the same with the hot tub at home making sure the water temperature doesn't go below 104F and im fully submerged to the neck, 30 mins session in both cases. The graphs look pretty much identical, same HR uptrends. So as far as cardio effects and heat shock proteins I do believe they are the same, not sure if there could be any benefit to breathing dry hot air for the lungs, but so far most benefits from sauna come from raising core temp
Too lazy to find it, but Dr Rhonda Patrick (a longtime advocate for saunas for their health benefits) reported that hot tubs can provide the same results as saunas -- and they are much more pleasant to use.
Not to beat my own dead horse but at the heat stress needed to cause an adaptation there’s nothing pleasant about the experience. If it’s not causing nausea and palpitations, it’s not hot enough.
Have you tried submerging yourself in moderately hot water, I wonder? And have you spent some time pondering the difference in heat transfer between convection and conduction?
> How are you suffering equal heat stress from being submerged in moderately warm water
by the rules of this universe, you can't survive being submerged in 40C water for a prolonged period of time (even 37C would kill you as well), because humans produce heat and if you can't dispose of it you'll overheat and be dead soon enough
It might not do the exact same, but it will have some effect. A lot of the benefit comes from the raised heart rate and opening of the blood vessels that the sauna produces, and I can expect that a warm bath would also have a similar effect. I think both are also known to reduce stress, which can help to lower blood pressure.
If you are a man, the hot water has a deleterious effect on your testicles' ability to make sperm. But so do saunas apparently.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23411620/
That one was 80-90C, which is a really hot sauna.
Just to clarify - it’s a temporary effect - lasts for 3-6 months
Finns go to sauna at least once every week and haven't gone extinct yet.
Still there are studies that regular sauna does decrease testosterone production. It's not hard to counter though, ice packs applied to testicles ( not direct ice, ice in a cloth) during sauna are effective for that purpose.
And maybe Finns don't go to sauna when they plan to conceive? Does Finland have a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies?
Finland's fertility rate drove off a cliff in the 60's like in so many other countries. If sauna has an overall effect we wouldn't know as we've nothing to compare with -- going to sauna is rather universal and the tradition is ancient.
Cant be true:
I went to sauna 3 - 4 times a week, ex-girlfriend got pregnant 2 month after cancelling the pill (while I still went to sauna)
Then I’m gonna start doing it on my death bed!
Almost certainly but most people don’t find it as enjoyable. Also the problem of keeping the bath hot enough for 20-30 mins.
Hot tub, onsen, etc...