Am curious about comparatives between sauna and cryo. Extremes of all kinds encourage certain protective/restorative responses in these biological machines.
Why not both? Usually during the winter you have access to extremely cold showers. Where I live it is what we do - fight with snowballs outside or in the pool and then in the sauna
> Heat shock proteins are produced by cells in response to exposure to stressful conditions (heat, cold, UV light, and during wound healing or tissue remodeling)
> Many members of this group function to stabilize new proteins to ensure correct folding or by helping to refold proteins that were damaged by the cell stress.
I have read numerous things about the benfits of sauna, and fairly minimal downsides if healthy, and not mixed with drugs/alcohol and done in moderation.
Although I love cold weather, and grew up some years in a fairly cold area, the concern I have about varying cryo treatment is the difference between passive cryo, and active cryo therapies involving exertion. This because of the well-known relationship between cold and heart attacks stemming from exercise with cold, often seen in snow shoveling [1], [2].
I feel like there is a balance here somewhere that the proponents never talk about - there is definitely a too much. Also, as with anything, the benefits are vastly overstated. Tangentially related - cold showers - when you read about them, it's some magic thing, when you do it, you just get used to it in a couple of days and it doesn't do much anything for you.
Fasting for 3 days (with water). Nothing happens. You maybe lose half a pound of fat if you walk for 4+ hours on the last day.
Etc.
Anyway, the core point is that there is a significant shock if you jump from a sauna into a cold pool. Don't try it after reading and then get a heart attack.
Seriously, in many part of the world during the summer you can just go outside. Although I wonder what the relative humidity is of a typical sauna and where it falls on the spectrum between Southeastern to Southwestern US.
Build one in your back yard. At the end of the day, it's a shed with a bench, a heater and a bunch of rocks. It might be good for your health or it might be woo, but at least you'll have a sauna and that's its own reward.
My townhouse neighbor had one built on her back deck - it's small, looks like only a single person can use it at a time, but it fits nicely on her deck, and only needs a 120V outlet.
As it is not easy to feel the real meaning of comments over the internet: rich enough is very vague, but being rich to do this, in life, means inflexible, whether by circumstance or choice. On HN it is mostly choice: people say only the rich can afford it because they themselces choose to live somewhere where you have to be extremely wealthy to have space. With wfh, you can get nice houses with gardens, or, in some countries huge swats of land with a villa or multiple houses for 3-6 months pay at a faang. I get people don't want that: I thought it was for old folk until I lived in such a place for a 6 month sabbatical. I never left.
Really? I doubt that. Perhaps most buildings, as storey buildings do often have a shared sauna. As an anecdote, I have lived perhaps in 6 rented apartments, and two of them had a sauna, and I don't think I decidedly chose non-sauna option.
Here's some article in Finnish about the current trend that new apartments don't necessarily have
a sauna: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9393813
It could be that most households have but also I've seen an article that people use them plainly as storage rooms.
And that YLE article about a trend change is after there was a recent-ish trend to start building saunas in apartments. So older apartments don't have saunas unless retrofitted, and newer ones are starting to be less likely to have them.
On the other hand, there's a lot of people like me too; one sauna in the basement, one smoke sauna a bit further away from the house (near a river), and a regular outdoor sauna in the yard. Sauna is serious business! :)
Sure, if you have both control of property adequate to be allowed to build one and surplus space to build one. The cost of actually constructing it isn’t the only thing wealth is relevant to.
As I am sweating while writing this note, may I recommend Dakar/Senegal where you can have free sauna anywhere. If you step outside, you also get a free tanning session.
Buy a portable japanese ofuro tub and heater. You can get a reasonable setup for less than $1000 and they are specifically designed to fit in small spaces (like box showers)
I am sure all the gym owners in the US would love to open their saunas up for use.
They surely aren't supportive of the current situation during these "Covid times." It only takes our collective will and resolve to allow our businesses to reopen, without restrictions and without guilt, shame, and fear of reprisal.
Sauna itself with proper temperature 80 Celsius(353K) would likely be one of the most safe places for Covid transformation. On other hand risk around showers and changing rooms are likely quite a lot higher.
Where are you that the gyms aren't open? I've been going to my Gym's sauna for 4 months now that its been open. I am vaccinated, the masks are optional in the gym, and its a great relaxing experience after work.
they have dinky portable ones on amazon for few hundred.
It's great for sweating out, not sure about how vetted the build material is given that silver colored coating insides of fabric seems to rub off.
also, can't remember the source but I believe excessive use (everyday, 30m+) contributes poorly to testicle health, to the point of making you infertile for a while. I imagine optimal sauna usage would involve using an icepack or alike if you did it everyday.
That's just it. In Finland sauna is something that is an expected utility in a house like a bedroom or toilet. So while there is research in how sleep or toilet behaviour affects health, there is no "bedroom" industry trying to upsell the benefit of having a distinct room for your bed, or a toilet industry convincing you it's a good idea to use the loo.
Rhonda Patrick actually founded FoundMyFitness.com .
Is there a name for this? ... when people try to get their views to look more legitimate by claiming their research received grants from legit-sounding institutions that they also happen to own? Dean Ornish and Deepak Chopra are some of the originators of this concept.
We could punnily label this dark pattern as (psychological) credential stuffing.
They are breaching the psychological defenses of your wetware trust-service by re-purposing the same credentials you previously trusted elsewhere ;)
...and the double-entendre is they are fluffing up their own personal credentials by having a seemingly separate entity they control vouch for themselves as worthy of your attention.
Yes, I think they would be about the same, although when you sweat in a sauna it goes to the floor, whereas in a bathtub it hangs out in the bathwater. So as far as cleansing of toxins goes, maybe one is better than the other. There was another article exploring the Japanese custom of bathing at onsen, and how it is also loosely linked to extended lifespan, so I believe you are correct with your statement.
I believe there are some heavy metals that you can only really get out of your body via sweating. But “granola” people have built up a whole story about sweating and toxin clearing that AFAIK has no basis in science.
Citation needed for that first part. A quick google says there is no evidence that sweating out toxins improves health and the liver and kidneys remove far more toxins than sweat glands
It's probably hard to measure, but subjectively one feels better and thinks more clearly, so call it what you will. Saying that something is not affirmed by science is not equivalent to saying it is denied by science.
No, mass spectrometers are not that hard to operate.
> subjectively one feels better and thinks more clearly
How is that related to toxins? Is coffee also removing toxins because it helps me think more clearly in the morning? Is complaining about public transport to a friend also removing toxins because it makes me feel better?
> Saying that something is not affirmed by science is not equivalent to saying it is denied by science.
Thankfully science has given us tools to base our conclusions on more than our fallible subjective impressions and whimsical correlations. "It seems to help, must be that we're removing something bad" is how you get bloodletting.
So based on the unnecessarily hostile feedback I can now explain that I was using the word toxin quite loosely and simply meant some undesirable waste products in the body. I did not actually mean tetrodotoxin or something like what a puffer fish would give you on a not-so-friendly poke. Sweating out waste products helps, and the heat also sticks with you for a while after a sauna session or a long bath, so that probably stimulates the organs into doing their natural processes better, clearing out yet more waste products. I don't get why this is such a contentious claim, either you get benefits from it and you do it, or you live your whole life waiting for someone else to prove its good before you try it out for yourself. I remind you of the incompleteness theorem, that there are truths that are true yet are unreachable by axiomatic induction.
> I remind you of the incompleteness theorem, that there are truths that are true yet are unreachable by axiomatic induction.
Science can strictly speaking not prove any truth, so the incompleteness theorem is irrelevant. Science tries to establish useful models. A model's usefulness is determined by its ability to predict the future (roughly speaking), whereas models whose predictions turn out untrue are eventually discarded.
It is perfectly fine to throw in hypotheses for how things work - that's how science advances. But there is a fine line between suggesting a causation and assuming that it is true just because it makes sense but hasn't been scientifically tested yet. That's more or less the opposite of science, which is (I guess) why there has been a relatively strong response to your statements. That way lies healing crystals.
Absolutely wrong, toxin has a very specific and concrete meaning ("a harmful substance produced within living cells or organisms") so if you're going to employ that word in this context you better be prepared to justify it by measuring aforementioned toxins and defining exactly what those physical substances are.
Fresh air is usually nicer than stale, old air. And when one sweats out "old water" it gets replaced by the fresh water one intakes. I bet if we collected enough sweat from sauna-goers and sprinters we would find things in it that you would rather have not in your body. Of course, I can already hear the chorus of indolence cheer "there's no science to support this claim" and yet there is also no science to deny it. The body is a gigantic circulatory system, out with the old, in with the new, I don't see why it would be any different with sweat.
Yes, our bodies have a specialized method for removing "old water" so it can be replaced by the fresh water one intakes. Urination. Your kidneys are working day and night to dump those "things in it that you would rather have not in your body" into your urine - not your sweat.
Animals that sweat are a minority. The idea that there are toxins that can only be collected and removed and by your sweat glands, instead of your kidneys, should be treated with suspicion.
I would also like to point out that even if one can detect the "presence of toxins" in sweat, however that is defined, it is not proof that sweat is an effective, efficient, or primary vector of their removal - it only proves that those toxins permeating your body happen to leach into your sweat. The rest of your body could either be removing 10000x as much of the same toxin every time you urinate compared to an hour of sweating, and the sweat could just have some insignificant dregs that happened to leach in - or there could be 100000x as much of the toxin remaining in your body no matter how much you sweat, either diffuse or concentrated in some non-sweat-gland-adjacent organs, making their removal through sweat completely ineffective.
Sweat does contain more than water and salt (urea for example). This is actually long established. But these substances are hardly toxins, even though the body has reasons excreting them.
It's still unclear how you think the concentration of these things on the skin will be lower with sweat dripping down (and evaporating) than when surrounded by a hundred liters of bathwater though.
My reasoning was pretty simple: if you sit in a bath things can leave your body and also have ample opportunity to re-enter your body. Your comment on relative concentrations is helpful and makes me reconsider this notion. As a naive and simple-minded person I think of entering a bath whilst covered in mud. Yes, the relative concentrations of mud on my skin's surface and mud in the water would clearly suggest I am "clean," but will I really feel clean stepping out of a tub that looks more opaque than clear? Maybe it is no surprise I have such trouble understanding the world with my simple-minded approaches.
> Yes, I think they would be about the same, although when you sweat in a sauna it goes to the floor, whereas in a bathtub it hangs out in the bathwater. So as far as cleansing of toxins goes, maybe one is better than the other.
This seems nonsensical. During the activity, bathing has your sweat diluted by a factor of at least 100, whereas your skin remains covered in sweat in a sauna. Afterwards, you remove the sweat (rinsing and/or towel) in both cases.
The previous post literally said "it goes to the floor", so clearly was talking about sweat dripping down. That obviously requires enough un-evaporated sweat on your skin for droplets to form.
And even in the context of dry sauna, are you saying the mentioned toxins will all evaporate? Because if not, they will actually accumulate on your skin (whereas in a bath they will be diluted by the bathwater).
Health benefits from dry sauna start at a minimum of around 170ºF, but more typically at 180ºF, and often up to 195ºF. A "slightly too hot bath" would be around maybe 110ºF. Water at 170ºF would scald you within seconds.
Infrared sauna typically heats up to 150ºF, but this heats you from the inside, and so has a similar efficacy to 180ºF dry sauna.
The question is "did it trigger hyperthermia" not "was the thing that caused hyperthermia 170 degrees". A bath does not need to be anywhere near 170 degrees to trigger the same level of hyperthermia since it is able to store and deliver heat much more efficiently than air (hence why 170 degree water would severely burn you).
Remember your core body temperature need only change a degree or two to trigger strong responses from the body. After about 5 degrees you're into hyperpyrexia which is life threating.
I've been wanting to build one for a while but I see so many pre-owned infrared saunas available on the cheap. Any consensus if it's just as good? The article references one study that used infrared that reported positive effect.
My wife has an infrared sauna and loves it. I’ve used it a few times and it gets pretty hot. You sweat a lot, so I’m assuming it’s getting the same effect
Maybe the same health effects, but definitely not the same experience. A traditional Finnish sauna isn't just a hot room; löyly (the steam that is created by throwing water on the hot rocks of the stove) is a core part of taking a sauna, and that's missing in an infrared sauna.
Bought a 3 person infrared sauna (through Costco) for about 1600$ 12 years ago.
There were periods we didn't use it but generally at least a couple times a week.
Gets you hot, helps you sweat, can be relaxing in itself.
But it's not same 'experience' as a traditional sauna.
I would probably say it was one of the best purchases I have made based on how much we used it, still running strong, has definately helped us over the years.
I live in Sweden, so I have, and most of them would have just given me the Finnish piercing blank stare of "why are you hurting my brain with stupid questions like that?"
To be clear: The smoke comes inside only when you heat the sauna and goes out trough small opening in the wall. You bath after the fire is out, not when the sauna is full of smoke.
This is correct, however you will still breathe in smoke "residue", which can be a bit uncomfortable and it will also cling to your body/hair. Even if you wash thoroughly after the sauna, you will notice a smoke smell on your hair.
A smoke sauna is just an inferior version of the modern Finnish sauna. It's a bit of a hassle to prepare and I personally dislike the "smoke effect".
So called "aitokiuas" type stoves replicates the gentle heat feeling that comes from heat storing smoke sauna without the smoke. They can be electric or wood stoves.
Finns rarely discuss or think about benefits or reasons for taking a sauna.
Most Finns are accustomed to going to sauna weekly. It’s such an ingrained part of our live that don’t really think about it.
We’ve got 5 million people and 2,5 million saunas.
Sauna is free from distractions like electronics, it’s free of associations relating to productivity and work, so it becomes a meditation of sorts, but we usually don’t try to make it so.
Sauna is sauna. Sauna’s purpose is sauna. The benefit of sauna is sauna.
That's not exactly what a smoke sauna is. It's a sauna with a big load of stone that's heated up over a long time. There's no chimney, so once the heating is done and the fire has died out, the smoke is aired out. The large thermal mass of the stone keeps the sauna hot.
As for the reason, the design is just really old. It's how you heat a sauna when you don't have a chimney. As a side effect, the long heating, the large thermal mass, and supposedly the soot that collects on the walls combine to produce a reputedly smoother experience with the heat seeming to be more even than in a more modern sauna.
Most saunas are great. I had the opportunity to restore a 100+ yr smoke sauna[0] some years ago. Definitely a more special experience in the smoke sauna imo. But im biased :)
[0]http://www.siimut.ee/cv/gal-sauna/
veritasium has a video about this that basically says the same thing about stressing the body (e.g. expose yourself to cold, eat less protein, do strenuous exercise) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRt7LjqJ45k , extreme heat would probably also have the same effect
I sauna every single day. I started about 4 years ago. When I got my sauna I could only go for 2-3 minutes at time without having to take a break. Now I am comfortable for 15 minutes and struggling for last 5-7 minutes. I usually go 20-22 minutes at 175-195F. I enjoy it, I have no idea if there are major health effects. Its always rejuvenating in the moment and relaxing after.
I bought an old school one. I ordered from https://almostheaven.com/ and it was a great delivery experience so I recommend them, but there are plenty of other sauna companies out there. And the infrared is just not something I am familiar with so I stayed away. I purchased the small 4 person sauna, but got the bigger heater to get it hotter quicker. I don't regret it, but I don't recommend it either.
I actually just built a 6 person one from the same vendor last week and am extraordinarily happy with it. There were some minor flaws (the packing on the pallet was undesirable and several of the staves were warped) but overall it is a good product from a reputable vendor that I feel like I will use for the rest of my life.
I have the same unit from them, it's great. But I am worried about how long it will last - is yours covered or did you add any protective coating to the outside wood?
Just use it weekly and let the stove run hot an hour more after you’re done if there’s any hint of moistness in the wood. It’s better to never turn the heat off immediately after using. I’m a finn and the thing looks very proper with the harvia stove and all
This is such a great tip! Thank you!! I think this will make a big difference and I can't believe I haven't been doing this. I do run a dehumidifier in my basement where the sauna is located, but I think keeping the heat on for an hour after is a game changer for longevity.
A couple of the things that surprised me when I got my sauna was how gross it is. For me, I am lucky its a personal sauna. I sweat everywhere. And people think of saunas and they think of a spa, but its a workout and mental challenge for me every single time.
Yes, it can be gross. Thats why there are rules in public saunas, like shower before. Use a towel. Shower after before jumping into the cold basin, ...
Always shower beforehand, sit on a towel or a tissue, afterwards rinse the benches with some water. Wash the sauna more properly a few times a year or so.
It sounds like it's too hot if it's a workout and a mental challenge every time. It should be mostly relaxing. Get out when it starts getting painful.
I would recommend to move it outside as there’s probably not enough ventilation for it to dry between uses. The sweat should vaporize without trace almost within minutes when the stove is hot. It doesn’t need cover outside and can handle rain and snow no problem. Just don’t let it get buried in snow for extended periods of time. The possible electric connections need to be protected from water though.
The sweat does vaporize, but I still think keeping it hot helps to clean it maybe? I also like the smell of a hot sauna. The main reason I don't do that and I run the dehumidifier is that I like to flip the power off to the sauna at the panel when I am done, just in case. The dehumidifier is heavy duty fwiw.
Sounds good then! I'd try running it hot after use -trick to see if it makes any difference. You could probably get good 50 years of use out of it if you treat the wooden parts inside with oil such as [1]. The sauna should be extremely dry before treating it and you can do that by running it couple of hours hot without using. The oil needs to be non toxic and non water soluble so high temperatures won't vaporize any toxins from it to your breathing air. It deepens the color of the wood a bit but should look even better.
Outside wood? Is your sauna outside? Or the wood on the outside of the sauna?
I didn't protect mine, just put it together from the factory. But mine is indoors. I think the wood will need replacing within the next 4 years probably, but the heater seems like it will last forever.
No. When its super hot and getting towards the end, the mind starts to say 'stupid me, its too much heat from the oversized heater' but when I am back to rational, I don't think thats the case. I just don't think I am saving that much time, so not sure if it was necessary.
Have you tried walking outside in 37.8 C weather? It's blistering hot. Your body should be quite a bit warmer than the environment because we have to radiate heat away to preserve homeostasis. 21 C is a comfortable room temperature.
I find 100F to be pretty warm for the hot tub, after 15 minutes I'm too warm and ready to get out (or sit up on the top step to cool off).
We usually keep it at 101F in the winter (since it feels nice to walk out in the cold and soak for 15 minutes) and 98 in the summer -- at 97 I can stay in indefinitely, but my wife gets cold at 15 minutes, so 98 is a compromise.
I wonder if a 100 degree hot tub has a similar benefit as a hot sauna.
I'm similar— slightly warmer in the winter so you get that nice core-temp boost to enjoy afterward, plus a pillow of steam to sit in during.
But yeah, it's striking how putting it down to 96F can quite quickly make you feel a chill. And not the refreshing chill of jumping into a much-colder-than-that swimming pool, but like the bone chill of having had the heat bled out of you.
The issue is that wet bulb temperatures above 35°C aren't hospitable to human life for very long. That's why sauna sessions are limited and frequently punctuated by going into the cold.
Humans radiate a lot of heat, and if we can't dump that waste heat into our environments or take advantage of evaporative cooling, we overheat. Saunas condition people to survive this for longer periods, but they're not something you could make use of in the tropics without any air conditioning, for instance.
I moved to Finland, and soon settled into a routine of going twice a week. Generally a session lasts for an hour or ninety-minutes:
* Take a shower.
* Go to the sauna, and sit there for 10-15 minutes. Temperature around 95-100.
* Come out, drink a beer, sometimes in the lobby, sometimes on the balcony, sometimes outdoors wrapped in a towel. The latter is especially satisfying in winter when the outdoor temperature is -15, -20, or so.
* Have a shower, and go back inside.
The process repeats 2-4 times, until I'm nice and relaxed. Monday & Friday is my average routine, but if friends are coming over I might do an extra session.
lucky bastards. Judging that such setting is everywhere here in US, it looks like some public standard prohibit higher than 160 or something like this. Playing with the temperature sensors (like cold toweling it) i usually can get it to only 180-190F at some places with 195F (90C) at best.
There are often mini-saunas at the local swimming pools which have similarly underwhelming temperatures.
They're nice, but they're not as nice. (Though I suspect in my case at least partly because if I go to a pool I often have a five year old with me, and he wants to leave very quickly - plus I've come to associate drinking beer with being near a sauna!)
I built a super cheap "traditional" dry sauna. It's basically an electric burner, a pot to increase surface area and humidity, a 25 foot roll of thermal foil, and a sleeping bag as the ceiling. I disassembled the burner, removed all the plastic pieces, and short circuited the safety cutoff. It's jank AF, but in the end less than 100$. AFAIK there aren't any dry saunas under $1000 - the heater alone is ~$200. Mine is also portable, so it's in the garage in summer and in the laundry room in winter. There are portable infrared saunas for ~$100, but most studies are on the "dry" type. I rubber band a block of ice to my phone and do my reading/social media in there, so the time cost is reduced.
So you pull that tube over yourself and then cover the top with the sleeping bag? No worries about air circulation or passing out? Is it pitch black in there?
> So you pull that tube over yourself and then cover the top with the sleeping bag?
Yep. Ghetto AF. That's why the chair is there to elevate the sleeping bag - otherwise I wouldn't be able to reach the sleeping bag from inside the tube.
> No worries about air circulation or passing out?
Circulation is fine. It's far from airtight - air creeps in from the bottom through the cracks, and I can always just open a small hole in the "ceiling" if needed. Never done it though cause it doesn't get stuffy. Haven't passed out, though that would be seriously dangerous since the heating element is exposed and I'd likely be burned.
> Is it pitch black in there?
Yes, so that's why there's a nightlight on an extension cable in the pic. Also a flashlight on my phone.
Do you live in the states? I live in Estonia and these are the types of Saunas you see eveywhere. These days more factories are popping up with more interesting/modern takes on the traditional sauna.
Shameless plug for my brother who started building luxury saunas during lockdown and they ship worldwide. Check out https://haljas.com
Saunas are very interesting, but I think it's important to keep it in perspective: Many of the sauna papers theorize that the sauna might mimic some, though not all, of the positive effects of exercise:
> Interestingly, many of the physiological responses to sauna use (described in detail below) are remarkably similar to those experienced during moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, and sauna use has been proposed as an alternative to aerobic exercise for people who are unable to engage in physical activity due to chronic disease or physical limitations
If you don't have a sauna but you're looking for positive health benefits, some moderate intensity aerobic exercise could provide more health benefits anyway.
Even heat shock proteins, which many people have come to associate with sauna use, are expressed during exercise.
Of course, it's easier to sit in a sauna than to jog or run, but we should keep it in perspective: Saunas are currently at the peak of their hype cycle due to popularization on certain outlets like the Joe Rogan podcast. It's reminiscent of a few years ago when Reservatrol was all over podcasts and the news as a wonder supplement after popular media exaggerated the research. Exercise is still king.
EDIT: Of course, both can be better than either one alone, but if you're limited on time and/or resources then don't feel left out: Exercise is much, much cheaper than a sauna.
I agree with this and was wondering the same thing. Would love to see randomized studies comparing a) control, b) sauna c) exercise d) sauna + exercise.
On the other hand, anecdotally, lots of Russian weighlifters swear by sauna benefits and have been doing it for decades as a recovery from grueling daily heavy sessions.
Is there an energy efficient type of Sauna yet? It seems a huge waste of energy to heat a room to such high temperatures, using it for maybe an hour and then let it all puff away.
The rooms are small though. Is it a waste of energy to heat an entire oven to bake a cake, only to let the heat all puff away? It would only be a waste if you heated the sauna, but then didn't use it.
I remember heating a small sauna at a friends' house with wood (something like 3 square meters), you don't need much if the sauna is reasonably isolated to the outside.
I was suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for almost a year in 2019. I was devastated both physically and mentally.
Two months before COVID, after watched Laird Hamilton's interview about Sauna, I started to do Sauna 20mins-25mins and practice meditation every day after a workout. After doing it for three months, I fully recovered from the IPF.
It only stops progressing. According to my doctor, the scar tissue is impossible to reverse. Luckily, It didn't affect my cardiovascular ability. I can still surf big waves like a normal surfer.
Does anyone have other good resources on what saunas do to the body? I just started using the one at my climbing gym and was pretty amazed at how I felt afterwards. It's really nice. I'm very curious what is happening physiologically.
During COVID do public saunas require masks? Is that safe given the hot conditions? More generally what do sauna experienced people suggest we look for in selecting a place?
From what I remember of Veritasium's video on ageing (https://youtu.be/QRt7LjqJ45k) there is evidence to support the idea that various activities which are stressful for the body are good at slowing or even reversing ageing. They mentioned fasting, aerobic exercise, and exposure to cold temperatures, so it would make sense to me that saunas would work similarly.
'Pop Squad' is the top rated episode of 'Love, Death & Robots Season 2'[1] in which humans have cracked longevity and so offspring (children) are banned; treated as pests and you can correlate what name 'Pop Squad' refers to. (Warning: Very dark theme).
I go to the sauna regularly for over 30 years now. My parents have a Finish electric dry sauna at home in Germany. Also we did vacation in Finland regularly. And I lived in Finland for a year.
Sometime in the 90ties, saunas became quite common in Germany for some reason. Initially it was only some single saunas in addition to some fun pool. Later that expanded to more and more saunas, and then we got whole sauna areas with 10-20 different saunas, and they became very common. We have many of such places now in every bigger city. Those sauna areas have lots of events like putting water with different herbs on the hot stones every 30 minutes in different saunas, where you also get fresh fruits, drinks or other things. These 10-20 saunas cover all common styles like Finish, Russian, Turkish, and many others.
We also have a sauna at our university in Germany (probably also not really uncommon).
It's not just very relaxing. Which by itself is already very nice. Esp also after some extensive sport session.
But it's also a very nice social event. At the university, it's always nice to chat with lots of different people. When I lived in Finland (Erasmus), we also had a sauna at our student hostel, and basically every other place as well. It was always a regular event.
It's also interesting to see the cultural differences.
In Germany, everyone is naked, and the atmosphere varies a lot, depending where you go. Often it's quiet (more expensive public places), sometimes it's chatty (e.g. university), sometimes it can be annoying (cheap public places).
In Finland, you also have public saunas, but nothing like these big sauna areas like in Germany. It's usually 1-3 saunas, and you wear swimming trunks. The student hostel sauna was probably a bit special due to the Erasmus students. Sometimes we went with other Finish students to their private saunas. They usually put lots of water on the hot stones.
I also visited a friend once in Russia in Yekaterinburg. We also went to sauna a lot with other local friends of him, and also in our hotel. Russians put even much more water on the hot stones, and usually stay shorter in it (10 minutes or so), but make it hotter, and go more often.
Ah that might be a bad translation from German. When you put water on the hot stones, to get some steam.
I just checked the English Wikipedia on sauna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna) and it seems that the English language does not have a word for this?
Yeah, I'm conceptually familiar with the action, but I can't think of a particular word for it. I don't use saunas a lot, though, so it's possible there is one.
I am frequently paranoid about things that people don't think. One of those is inhaling microparticles from whatever wood/plastic combos get overheated there.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 210 ms ] thread> Many members of this group function to stabilize new proteins to ensure correct folding or by helping to refold proteins that were damaged by the cell stress.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_shock_protein
Although I love cold weather, and grew up some years in a fairly cold area, the concern I have about varying cryo treatment is the difference between passive cryo, and active cryo therapies involving exertion. This because of the well-known relationship between cold and heart attacks stemming from exercise with cold, often seen in snow shoveling [1], [2].
[1] https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/how-to/cold-...
[2] https://www.clevelandheartlab.com/blog/the-heart-risk-that-c...
Last winter I was drenched in sweat while shoveling my yard and it was -15c outside. Only wore slim pants and long sleeve shirt.
Fasting for 3 days (with water). Nothing happens. You maybe lose half a pound of fat if you walk for 4+ hours on the last day.
Etc.
Anyway, the core point is that there is a significant shock if you jump from a sauna into a cold pool. Don't try it after reading and then get a heart attack.
https://www.badwater.com/event/badwater-135/
You can also find portable indoor saunas:
https://www.amazon.com/portable-saunas-home/s?k=portable+sau...
Here's some article in Finnish about the current trend that new apartments don't necessarily have a sauna: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9393813
It could be that most households have but also I've seen an article that people use them plainly as storage rooms.
https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_asuminen_en.h...
They surely aren't supportive of the current situation during these "Covid times." It only takes our collective will and resolve to allow our businesses to reopen, without restrictions and without guilt, shame, and fear of reprisal.
It's great for sweating out, not sure about how vetted the build material is given that silver colored coating insides of fabric seems to rub off.
also, can't remember the source but I believe excessive use (everyday, 30m+) contributes poorly to testicle health, to the point of making you infertile for a while. I imagine optimal sauna usage would involve using an icepack or alike if you did it everyday.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
This is by Finnish researchers. Finland has no “sauna industry” that would need lobbying, everyone basically has one or has access to one alredy.
Is there a name for this? ... when people try to get their views to look more legitimate by claiming their research received grants from legit-sounding institutions that they also happen to own? Dean Ornish and Deepak Chopra are some of the originators of this concept.
They are breaching the psychological defenses of your wetware trust-service by re-purposing the same credentials you previously trusted elsewhere ;)
...and the double-entendre is they are fluffing up their own personal credentials by having a seemingly separate entity they control vouch for themselves as worthy of your attention.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/well...
Toxins are naturally occurring poisons of plant or animal origin. Not heavy metals, not man made toxic chemicals. The word is widely misused.
If you have been poisoned by a snake, octopus, or platypus, seek medical help rather than the sauna. Stung by a nettle, maybe.
No, mass spectrometers are not that hard to operate.
> subjectively one feels better and thinks more clearly
How is that related to toxins? Is coffee also removing toxins because it helps me think more clearly in the morning? Is complaining about public transport to a friend also removing toxins because it makes me feel better?
> Saying that something is not affirmed by science is not equivalent to saying it is denied by science.
Thankfully science has given us tools to base our conclusions on more than our fallible subjective impressions and whimsical correlations. "It seems to help, must be that we're removing something bad" is how you get bloodletting.
Science can strictly speaking not prove any truth, so the incompleteness theorem is irrelevant. Science tries to establish useful models. A model's usefulness is determined by its ability to predict the future (roughly speaking), whereas models whose predictions turn out untrue are eventually discarded.
It is perfectly fine to throw in hypotheses for how things work - that's how science advances. But there is a fine line between suggesting a causation and assuming that it is true just because it makes sense but hasn't been scientifically tested yet. That's more or less the opposite of science, which is (I guess) why there has been a relatively strong response to your statements. That way lies healing crystals.
Could you elaborate on this?
Animals that sweat are a minority. The idea that there are toxins that can only be collected and removed and by your sweat glands, instead of your kidneys, should be treated with suspicion.
I would also like to point out that even if one can detect the "presence of toxins" in sweat, however that is defined, it is not proof that sweat is an effective, efficient, or primary vector of their removal - it only proves that those toxins permeating your body happen to leach into your sweat. The rest of your body could either be removing 10000x as much of the same toxin every time you urinate compared to an hour of sweating, and the sweat could just have some insignificant dregs that happened to leach in - or there could be 100000x as much of the toxin remaining in your body no matter how much you sweat, either diffuse or concentrated in some non-sweat-gland-adjacent organs, making their removal through sweat completely ineffective.
It's still unclear how you think the concentration of these things on the skin will be lower with sweat dripping down (and evaporating) than when surrounded by a hundred liters of bathwater though.
This seems nonsensical. During the activity, bathing has your sweat diluted by a factor of at least 100, whereas your skin remains covered in sweat in a sauna. Afterwards, you remove the sweat (rinsing and/or towel) in both cases.
Your sweat in a dry sauna is a way for your body to cool itself, while you always “feel wet” you’re actually constantly evaporating sweat off you.
In fact, if you ever stop sweating in a dry sauna, leave. You are de-hydrated and it’s no longer safe for you in a sauna.
And even in the context of dry sauna, are you saying the mentioned toxins will all evaporate? Because if not, they will actually accumulate on your skin (whereas in a bath they will be diluted by the bathwater).
Health benefits from dry sauna start at a minimum of around 170ºF, but more typically at 180ºF, and often up to 195ºF. A "slightly too hot bath" would be around maybe 110ºF. Water at 170ºF would scald you within seconds.
Infrared sauna typically heats up to 150ºF, but this heats you from the inside, and so has a similar efficacy to 180ºF dry sauna.
Remember your core body temperature need only change a degree or two to trigger strong responses from the body. After about 5 degrees you're into hyperpyrexia which is life threating.
https://www.cfp.ca/content/55/7/691.short
Bought a 3 person infrared sauna (through Costco) for about 1600$ 12 years ago.
There were periods we didn't use it but generally at least a couple times a week.
Gets you hot, helps you sweat, can be relaxing in itself.
But it's not same 'experience' as a traditional sauna.
I would probably say it was one of the best purchases I have made based on how much we used it, still running strong, has definately helped us over the years.
Answer: We don't need a reason for sauna.
To be clear: The smoke comes inside only when you heat the sauna and goes out trough small opening in the wall. You bath after the fire is out, not when the sauna is full of smoke.
What is left is the smell of smoke in the walls.
A smoke sauna is just an inferior version of the modern Finnish sauna. It's a bit of a hassle to prepare and I personally dislike the "smoke effect".
So called "aitokiuas" type stoves replicates the gentle heat feeling that comes from heat storing smoke sauna without the smoke. They can be electric or wood stoves.
https://narvi.fi/en/product/aitokiuas-ak47-ak57k/
Most Finns are accustomed to going to sauna weekly. It’s such an ingrained part of our live that don’t really think about it.
We’ve got 5 million people and 2,5 million saunas.
Sauna is free from distractions like electronics, it’s free of associations relating to productivity and work, so it becomes a meditation of sorts, but we usually don’t try to make it so.
Sauna is sauna. Sauna’s purpose is sauna. The benefit of sauna is sauna.
As for the reason, the design is just really old. It's how you heat a sauna when you don't have a chimney. As a side effect, the long heating, the large thermal mass, and supposedly the soot that collects on the walls combine to produce a reputedly smoother experience with the heat seeming to be more even than in a more modern sauna.
This is an interesting sentence construct that can be interpreted in two completely different ways!
I bought an old school one. I ordered from https://almostheaven.com/ and it was a great delivery experience so I recommend them, but there are plenty of other sauna companies out there. And the infrared is just not something I am familiar with so I stayed away. I purchased the small 4 person sauna, but got the bigger heater to get it hotter quicker. I don't regret it, but I don't recommend it either.
-when you get in: splash some water on your jewelry. -And bathrobes. Love a good wrap in a bathrobe after a sauna.
A couple of the things that surprised me when I got my sauna was how gross it is. For me, I am lucky its a personal sauna. I sweat everywhere. And people think of saunas and they think of a spa, but its a workout and mental challenge for me every single time.
But I still would prefer my personal sauna
It sounds like it's too hot if it's a workout and a mental challenge every time. It should be mostly relaxing. Get out when it starts getting painful.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Liberon-003815-Finishing-Oil-Liter/dp...
I didn't protect mine, just put it together from the factory. But mine is indoors. I think the wood will need replacing within the next 4 years probably, but the heater seems like it will last forever.
Any speccific inconveniences with oversized heater?
We usually keep it at 101F in the winter (since it feels nice to walk out in the cold and soak for 15 minutes) and 98 in the summer -- at 97 I can stay in indefinitely, but my wife gets cold at 15 minutes, so 98 is a compromise.
I wonder if a 100 degree hot tub has a similar benefit as a hot sauna.
But yeah, it's striking how putting it down to 96F can quite quickly make you feel a chill. And not the refreshing chill of jumping into a much-colder-than-that swimming pool, but like the bone chill of having had the heat bled out of you.
Humans radiate a lot of heat, and if we can't dump that waste heat into our environments or take advantage of evaporative cooling, we overheat. Saunas condition people to survive this for longer periods, but they're not something you could make use of in the tropics without any air conditioning, for instance.
* Take a shower.
* Go to the sauna, and sit there for 10-15 minutes. Temperature around 95-100.
* Come out, drink a beer, sometimes in the lobby, sometimes on the balcony, sometimes outdoors wrapped in a towel. The latter is especially satisfying in winter when the outdoor temperature is -15, -20, or so.
* Have a shower, and go back inside.
The process repeats 2-4 times, until I'm nice and relaxed. Monday & Friday is my average routine, but if friends are coming over I might do an extra session.
lucky bastards. Judging that such setting is everywhere here in US, it looks like some public standard prohibit higher than 160 or something like this. Playing with the temperature sensors (like cold toweling it) i usually can get it to only 180-190F at some places with 195F (90C) at best.
They're nice, but they're not as nice. (Though I suspect in my case at least partly because if I go to a pool I often have a five year old with me, and he wants to leave very quickly - plus I've come to associate drinking beer with being near a sauna!)
https://i.imgur.com/Lml7Vms.jpg
About 1 year in and I haven't burned down the house... yet.
Yep. Ghetto AF. That's why the chair is there to elevate the sleeping bag - otherwise I wouldn't be able to reach the sleeping bag from inside the tube.
> No worries about air circulation or passing out?
Circulation is fine. It's far from airtight - air creeps in from the bottom through the cracks, and I can always just open a small hole in the "ceiling" if needed. Never done it though cause it doesn't get stuffy. Haven't passed out, though that would be seriously dangerous since the heating element is exposed and I'd likely be burned.
> Is it pitch black in there?
Yes, so that's why there's a nightlight on an extension cable in the pic. Also a flashlight on my phone.
I thought about an outdoor sauna but I'm worried it would become just another insect and spider habitat that I don't want to go near...
Shameless plug for my brother who started building luxury saunas during lockdown and they ship worldwide. Check out https://haljas.com
0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitterbug_Perfume
> Interestingly, many of the physiological responses to sauna use (described in detail below) are remarkably similar to those experienced during moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, and sauna use has been proposed as an alternative to aerobic exercise for people who are unable to engage in physical activity due to chronic disease or physical limitations
If you don't have a sauna but you're looking for positive health benefits, some moderate intensity aerobic exercise could provide more health benefits anyway.
Even heat shock proteins, which many people have come to associate with sauna use, are expressed during exercise.
Of course, it's easier to sit in a sauna than to jog or run, but we should keep it in perspective: Saunas are currently at the peak of their hype cycle due to popularization on certain outlets like the Joe Rogan podcast. It's reminiscent of a few years ago when Reservatrol was all over podcasts and the news as a wonder supplement after popular media exaggerated the research. Exercise is still king.
EDIT: Of course, both can be better than either one alone, but if you're limited on time and/or resources then don't feel left out: Exercise is much, much cheaper than a sauna.
Also on the topic of cheaper, at the end of the original paper is some evidence that hot baths offer similar benefits to saunas.
On the other hand, anecdotally, lots of Russian weighlifters swear by sauna benefits and have been doing it for decades as a recovery from grueling daily heavy sessions.
I was suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for almost a year in 2019. I was devastated both physically and mentally.
Two months before COVID, after watched Laird Hamilton's interview about Sauna, I started to do Sauna 20mins-25mins and practice meditation every day after a workout. After doing it for three months, I fully recovered from the IPF.
If I google "pulmonary fibrosis reversal" a number of things come up although they all appear to still be in the research phase. Never say never.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w9t5
0. Avoid DNA damage
1. Eat less (IF + caloric restriction)
2. Eat less protein
3. HIIT
4. Be Cold
5. Be Hot
'Pop Squad' is the top rated episode of 'Love, Death & Robots Season 2'[1] in which humans have cracked longevity and so offspring (children) are banned; treated as pests and you can correlate what name 'Pop Squad' refers to. (Warning: Very dark theme).
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10468230/
Sometime in the 90ties, saunas became quite common in Germany for some reason. Initially it was only some single saunas in addition to some fun pool. Later that expanded to more and more saunas, and then we got whole sauna areas with 10-20 different saunas, and they became very common. We have many of such places now in every bigger city. Those sauna areas have lots of events like putting water with different herbs on the hot stones every 30 minutes in different saunas, where you also get fresh fruits, drinks or other things. These 10-20 saunas cover all common styles like Finish, Russian, Turkish, and many others.
We also have a sauna at our university in Germany (probably also not really uncommon).
It's not just very relaxing. Which by itself is already very nice. Esp also after some extensive sport session.
But it's also a very nice social event. At the university, it's always nice to chat with lots of different people. When I lived in Finland (Erasmus), we also had a sauna at our student hostel, and basically every other place as well. It was always a regular event.
It's also interesting to see the cultural differences.
In Germany, everyone is naked, and the atmosphere varies a lot, depending where you go. Often it's quiet (more expensive public places), sometimes it's chatty (e.g. university), sometimes it can be annoying (cheap public places).
In Finland, you also have public saunas, but nothing like these big sauna areas like in Germany. It's usually 1-3 saunas, and you wear swimming trunks. The student hostel sauna was probably a bit special due to the Erasmus students. Sometimes we went with other Finish students to their private saunas. They usually put lots of water on the hot stones.
I also visited a friend once in Russia in Yekaterinburg. We also went to sauna a lot with other local friends of him, and also in our hotel. Russians put even much more water on the hot stones, and usually stay shorter in it (10 minutes or so), but make it hotter, and go more often.
That was just my experience.
I just checked the English Wikipedia on sauna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna) and it seems that the English language does not have a word for this?