Here's Why You Need A Sauna In Your Life
Finnish writer, Väinö Linna, and director, Edvine Laine, chilling hard in a sauna. (Circa 1964)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
It’s not often I’ll break the fourth wall here, but, my client gave me carte blanche to do as much.
Same time, he did also remind me to play this card when I saw it truly fit to do so.
And when he said that, he also it made it clear he was counting on my judgment.
You can understand why I was like, “Absolutely.”
I’ll tell you, when it comes to men’s health, I’d rather talk straight.
They say “time is money,” but I say time is health, and there’s no time like now to hack yours for the better. I’ve seen good men suffer for not knowing this, and I’ve lost a couple who’d wish they’d changed some things in their youth. Before you know it, this play’ll be over. So why not make sure act three’s bump-free?
And yeah, if I have experience with the subject at hand, I’ll take the reins for a bit. Why not, you know? And no, this article ain’t for the faint of heart. It’ll get a bit weird in here, but don’t worry about it.
The first time I sweated balls in a sauna was in 1999.
I was 16, and besides acing exams and dodging the death knell of Y2K, all that mattered to the adolescent version of this scribe was working the fuck out. My best friend had pushed me to lift weights for nearly a year before he finally got me to do it. Plus, my then football coach told me the only way to get a leg up on the other guy was by lifting heavier than him.
Lifting sucked hard as a novice, though not for the actual act itself, but rather for the fact we’d wake up everyday at 5:00 a.m. to do it. If you live in Canada, that’s basically nighttime come deep winter. But we’d always say the same thing, “Short-term pain, long-term gain.” Plus, I wake up at that time now, as a 39-year-old adult man, and trust me, you get way more done. But that’s another story for another time, one you’ll find one on this very blog soon.
An all-access membership at that Stoney Creek gym (it’s still around) meant enjoying privileges like complimentary training tips on the spot and discounts on programs like the Zone Diet (remember that thing?), and both were awesome.
But this was pre-inflation, so, you know.
That aforesaid card also granted entry to the club’s sauna, a 12 by (maybe) eight room with wooden panels from head to toe, a small mound of hot stones, and two long benches that ran the length of the space. There wasn't a more awkward, yet more relaxing place on earth for a young man at the time.
“I’m not going in there… naked.”
We may as well have both said it at the same time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we did say it at the same time. Disclaimer: I am a heterosexual fella, though I appreciate and respect all sexual orientations, and same with my pal. But you can see why sharing a room with seniors in the nude could furrow a brow at that age. Still, we knew then that there was a rite of passage to be endured, one whose value would echo that of singing “I’m a Little Teapot” during initiation week, or eating wall after hitting a perfect jump on your toboggan. If it meant character development, chances are we’d do it.
Shit, if it meant looking good in front of girls, we’d do it.
The point is, I learned then, as a teen, that life with and without a sauna were two different things; With regular sauna use (let’s call it three days a week, 25 minutes each session), days flew by, my focus sharpened, my stress took a beating, I could run longer and faster, and everything just felt better.
Before my intro to saunas, some days felt slow, while I’d feel more sluggish.
But more than anything, that sauna was a void in which noise and exams and life had no place.
It’s just you and your deep breaths.
Sometimes you’ll have to bear a chat or two within your proximity, but for the most part, it’s quiet in saunas. Everyone in there just wants a break from it all.
My pal and I still lift to this day, though not in the same gym. He does his thing and I do mine. The guy’s married, so, you know. And to this day, we’re glad we hit that sauna, and we both still use them. I’ve got a cousin who lets me use his, and the solitude is priceless. But if it weren’t for my introduction those little cabins of canned heat, we may not be able to run the way we do today (my pal runs marathons and I play soccer football with religious regularity).
Don’t think I’ll bank on anecdotal proof to promote saunas; There’s no shortage of science that proves sweating hard in high heat makes for better health, all of which is backed by real, peer-reviewed data supporting this idea. And yes, some of that data’s based on randomized control trials.
You want something relatively recent? In 2018, Hindawi — a known publisher of open-access scientific findings — released a motherload of proof for the boon that is “dry sauna bathing,” courtesy of two Australian scientists who scoured 40 clinical trials conducted from 2000 “onward.” Basically, while they admit to needing more data to make a hard call about it, the group’s research denoted “health benefits” from dry sauna bathing. Also, the jury’s still out on which sorts of conditions would respond best to the heat.
For starters, saunas are an awesome detoxifier; Sweating helps the body rid itself of toxicants we absorb without even knowing it, garbage like “heavy metals, pesticides and various petrochemicals,” and the report even says we can (sometimes) excrete things like mercury via sweating as fast as we can by peeing it all out.
Regular sauna use can help you breathe better, too—especially if you have a cold. Check out this bit from that same Hindawi report: “Another randomized controlled trial studied common cold sufferers in Germany (n = 157) sitting for 3 minutes fully winter-dressed in a Finnish sauna daily over 3 days breathing in piped “hot dry” sauna air versus control “cool dry” room temperature air while wearing a face mask. Only on day 2 assessment, a decrease in symptom severity scoring was detected in treatment versus control groups [−1.0 (−2.0–−0.1), p= 0.04, 95% CI] but this finding was not sustained through days 3, 5, and 7 of study.”
A man holds it down in a traditional Russian banya.
Photo: Ion Chibzii | Wikimedia Commons
Don’t forget—that aforesaid report’s linchpin is Finnish sauna bathing—it’sthe most common form of this therapy cited therein. Unlike, say, a steam room, Finnish saunas — typically fashioned from wood or logs — leverage “dry heat” from hot stones to half roast you. It’ll usually get up to 80 to 100 degrees Celsius in one of those things (humidity hovers somewhere between 10 and 30%), and while saunas can be great for cardiovascular health, research from that aforementioned Hindawi report shows folks with heart conditions fair poorly in them.
Get this: Saunas are big in Finland. They are to the Fins what bocce is to the Italian men on your street: A way of life and an escape from it at the same time. According to this 2021 article from McGill.ca, sauna use is a “centuries-old” practice for those Scandinavians. Many a Finnish abode boasts one, plus they’re everywhere to be found up there. How awesome is that? By the way, if it gets too dry in there for you, pour a bit of water on those rocks for a little “loyly,” a Finnis term for vapor.
On the whole Finnish front, a 2015 article published in the Heart Health section of Harvard’s site revealed something curious, too: Regular sauna bathing can add a few years to your life and, like I mentioned before, it’s good for a heart that’s complication-free. The article’s based on a medical report courtesy of the University of Eastern Finland, in which researchers monitored the health of 2,300 middle-aged Finnish men over 20 years—all of whom used 175-degree (Fahrenheit) saunas for “an average 14 minutes a week.” Here’s where it gets dark, but nonetheless informative: In those 20 years, 49% of the men who did this once a week died, “compared with 38% of those who went two to three times a week and just 31% of those who went four to seven times a week.
That same Harvard Health piece also said hitting the sauna more than once a week was “associated with lower death rates from cardiovascular disease and stroke.”
Here’s the one thing you won’t find in all those studies: Saunas are addicting. Once you get past the fact that keeping your eyes open means seeing balls, and once you get used to that odd, dry burn in your first breath or two, you’ll love it.
If you need to get out of your head, or if life grinds you to the bone, trust me, you’ll love it.
Don’t underestimate your body’s adaptability, either. You’ll get used to it.
And don’t overthink it (read: don’t look around).
Do what I did: Just get in, chill out, then get out.
Easy.