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.
Due to lack of running water in those times (and still in many cottages) cooking is done above a fire, water is brought from the lake. A kitchen won't serve you well if you're just trying to get through a long winter of -30c.
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.
The cheaper apartments tend to not have private saunas built into the bathroom, but most apartment complexes at least have a shared sauna on the top floor. Residents can book a block of personal time in advance.
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.
I take a mild bleach bath sometimes and it’s quite invigorating. Seems to kill off a lot of skin surface bacteria which can sometimes be beneficial (there’s good and bad bacteria on your skin).
Not to be done too often but every once in a while I find it helpful. Not all that different from a strongly chlorinated pool.
Another cool one, especially if you don’t have a sauna, is doing a mustard bath. You will sweat like a stuck pig
lol. They make formulations you can buy but I make my own. A cup of ground mustard seed, which I buy fairly cheap online, and a few tablespoons of baking soda, plus some essentials oils mainly to cut through the mustard smell.
Pour that in a warm bath and soak for 20 mins. Then get out and wrap yourself in a towel and continue sweating for 15 mins or so.
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.
If you want to experience positive health effects from sauna, you don't have to set records in heat and duration. You just get hot and sweat as much as you feel is fine. So you can do it in almost all conditions. Sweating out bad stuff from your body, activating the blood flow, unless you are at risk of a aneurysm - of course it is beneficial, even though it doesn't magically turn your health around. But a proper sauna and ice bath do revive and make you feel reborn. Try it at least at some point and then you can judge if it did not make you feel more alive and healthier and that all the studies around it a "probably bullshit".
There are two separate issues there. One, you feeling good about going to the sauna. If you feel good, that’s nice. But it’s your personal feeling from it. I personally did not have the same opinion about my lungs feeling as I was breathing fire, but to each their own. I’d rather do other nicer things to activate blood flow and feel revived.
The other is the health benefits, and that can only be measured from serious studies and not from how you or me feel about it later.
Feeling good and with lasting energy is pretty much the same as having good health.
"The other is the health benefits, and that can only be measured from serious studies and not from how you or me feel about it later."
Yes and there are studies, so do you have anything concrete why they ain't beneficial, besides your personal dislike?
You lead with "Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer" that implies you did not even read them. (Besides, allmost everyone goes to Sauna in the nordic countries, that implies allmost everyone there is healthy by your logic)
But if Sauna for you was breathing fire .. one easy solution is to go to a less hot sauna.
> Feeling good and with lasting energy is pretty much the same as having good health.
I'm referring to feeling like that specifically after the sauna. I also feel great after eating a great steak and yet it's not the same as having good health.
> Yes and there are studies, so do you have anything concrete why they ain't beneficial, besides your personal dislike?
> You lead with "Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer" that implies you did not even read them.
Not that they are not beneficial, but that the benefits are not as large as they are assumed to be. The main reason is that there are no randomized trials and practically no replications outside of nordic countries. Also, if you compare the risk reduction reported by sauna use to other health interventions, you'll quickly see that it doesn't really make that much sense. Depending on the studies, you'll see risk ratios that say that frequent sauna use is as effective (or more) as doing high intensity exercise or smoking cessation.
> (Besides, allmost everyone goes to Sauna in the nordic countries, that implies allmost everyone there is healthy by your logic)
Actually, you have that backwards. If finnish people go so much to the sauna compared to other countries and it's as good as the studies say, why are they not much more healthy than other countries? Prevalence of cardiovascular disease in Finland is pretty similar to other countries. Same with life expectancy.
There are two options: either the finns are doing something radically different from other countries that negates the benefits from sauna use; or the risk reduction shown from the studies is not real.
The most likely explanation is that sauna provides similar benefits as any of the other interventions based around mildly stressing your body: somewhat beneficial but nothing magical, with probably an additional, significant placebo effect.
> But if Sauna for you was breathing fire .. one easy solution is to go to a less hot sauna.
Another easy solution is to not go to a sauna and just do anything else that's beneficial to me in that time and not extremely uncomfortable. I already live in Spain, I get more than my fair share of hot uncomfortable environments.
"I already live in Spain, I get more than my fair share of hot uncomfortable environments."
Well yes, that might be enough, which might be the reason there ain't so many saunas in spain, but lots of them in colder climates. (I don't go to Sauna in summer either)
So yes, to be precise, the general statement "Sauna is good for you" is probably not true in general. There are also lots of other factors, the individual tolerance to heat and your heart condition(at times I enjoy 110 degree Sauna for a long time, but if I am weak, 60 degree can already be too much for more than a few minutes), then the general atmosphere in the Sauna, is it clean, are there nice people or people you feel like getting their diseases from by sharing the same room and sweat, ... in short, do you feel safe and comfortable there (placebo is real, but so are germs).
So in general, if you don't enjoy it, don't go. But also spain can be cold I experienced, so I do recommend to try out the heat effect in a controlled environment if you have the opportunity for a nice Sauna where no one pressures you to endure more than you want to.
My partner is also from a warmer climate and she did not like Sauna first, but step by step she now enjoys it.
I don't know about that. As in yes I agree but that seems to apply to Western countries in general. For example in Tunisia, people go to public baths at least once a week and part of that involves sitting in a hot steamy room for 30+ minutes. So here you have an example for a population that does use sauna (in a way) but aren't relying on self-reporting.
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).
Indeed, humidity matters a lot. Most our saunas here are löyly (in Finnish) saunas, so you get a rollercoaster of dry - humid - dry cycles. Once you get to 100+c and throw a good amount of water on the stones, it can get quite challenging to endure :)
Everybody has their personal preference of course. For me, the sweet spot seems to be a moderately humid sauna at 93c. At that point, the löyly is not too harsh yet but is still hot enough to make you feel alive :)
I also prefer around 90-100c with swings of humidity. I think it's most exciting exactly because you can make it temporarily more intensive with the "humid wave".
It's the most popular type of sauna - "the sauna" for a reason.
Whether sauna is hot or not depends on whether you enjoy the cold water plunge afterwards :)
The typical preset on dry saunas in Bay Area is ~165 F (73 C). Which is cold. Waste of time and money :). Usually, by closing or pouring cold water on sensor, one can make it to 180-190 F (82-87 C) - this is where you start to feel like you are in sauna, though it takes prolong time to heat you up enough to enjoy the cold plunge. If you're lucky enough, you can get to 200, 210, 220 F (104 C) - this is where you start to feel relaxed like as if the heat is working inside you.
>Are you actually throwing water? Because even with 80 the steam is pretty hot
Of course those numbers would be impossible to enjoy in steam sauna. The only steam sauna that had a wall thermometer that i've visited in recent years was showing 55 C when it already felt pretty well and hot.
Note - steam sauna and "throwing water" are 2 different things. The steam sauna is a machine generating a lot of steam, so the room is close to 100% humidity.
The "throwing water" is like Russian "banya" - it is in-between of dry and steam, though frequently is more close to dry Finnish sauna - wooden walls, stove, etc. where in addition to the heated air, you'd throw a water on the heater/stones thus adding a hit of hot steam to that air (in some "banya" configurations if you happen to be close to and in the immediate path of that steam you can sometimes get light burns).
Just a clarification as it may not be clear from your message. A Finnish ("dry") sauna always includes throwing water on the stove, which is called "löyly".
People have different preferences for the warmth of the sauna -- as low as 65°C for some elderly folks, all the way up to 120°C for more hardcore people -- but water is always thrown on the stove. You won't get burns, but it can have a real sting. It's enjoyable, but may feel uncomfortable as a new experience.
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"
The men's sauna at Harjutori in Helsinki has a pullchain (with a handle of wood, natch), by the entrance to the room. When you walk into the men's sauna (which is BIG), you can inquire whether löyly is needed, and affirmative answers dictate a tug or two or three on the chain, which releases bursts of steam.
And anyone on the highest bench really gets cooked.
I think I've heard US it's mostly no water at all on stove and Germany I've heard they have had these sauna-masters who come and cast water on stove.
Neither of these are practised anywhere in Finland at least. But there are at least one Finnish swimming bath where they had to limit steam competitions and made a button controlled mechanism to administer water instead of free usage. Not because electrical shock prevention but because bad human behaviour per se.
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 on top" is usually called stove, "kiuas" in Finnish :)
When needing to define type of stove, it's electric stove, wood heated stove. Latter has two types, which continuous wood burning is still common (this stove you can add burning wood during bathing) and older not so much any more used before bathing heated type stove which you cannot add wood while bathing. Oldest type is smoke-sauna, which doesn't have chimney at all. Wood is burnt in stove when heating, then when burnt enough sauna is ventilated first and then bathing starts.
But all these different heating elements are commonly stoves, just adding electric-, wood-, or smoke- stove is added context requiring.
Infra saunas then have those lamps of course, no stove there.
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.
On a recent visit to Finland I found out that basically all supermarkets sell aluminium foil bags for the purpose of cooking sausages on the sauna stove while you use the sauna.
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.
Northern Spaniard there, bring a Saunaa lover Finn with one of these climate-change induced hours at 43C at some day or two in Summer... in the Atlantic, in Bilbao, which is... inside a valley.
I've been in saunas at 60-70C and the feeling inside was much bearable because of the lack of humidity than 43C under a climate closer to UK than inner/Mediterranean Spain.
What about Japanese hot springs? ("onsen")
Those are typically around 40°C but could be up to 60°C. Because it is hot water and not hot air the temperature would be transferred differently to the body though, so I don't think the numeric temperature is directly comparable.
Onsen baths are taken all year round: including summers that get hotter than in Finland, but especially enjoyed in winter.
I am a Spanish guy currently living in Japan, and honestly I hate sauna but love onsen. Most on my Spanish colleagues seem to think the same. I guess the main factor being that both Spain and Japan are have really hot summers, so why would you get in a hot room to sweat like a pig when you are already sweating outside?
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.
Is this actual stat? Or do you mean “have access to” instead of actually “at their home” i.e. a private sauna they can use at any time 24/7, because from my lived experience I doubt the latter.
Essentially all residential buildings in Finland have saunas. Freestanding houses have private ones, apartments have communal ones but you can book a private time slot.
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.
The meaning is either ‘I’m too busy to have time to relax’ or ‘I’m too poor not to work all day’, at which point I think of a quote from Office Space: “you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing. Look at my cousin, he’s broke and he don’t do shit.”
It’s a typical crab bucket mentality, wanting to make you feel bad because you have a minimum of self-respect. Can’t have that in this economy.
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.
Sensible working hours is a luxury for many people, at least in the United States. Especially the ones considered low socioeconomic status. 40 hours a week at minimum wage will barely pay the median rent in my state. That leaves nothing for food, health care, utilities, transportation, etc.
Congrats. For those of us who can’t afford to build one, we still enjoy the heat through other means.
Or at least I do.
There’s just something extraordinarily relaxing about going from the high heat (though obviously not too high) until one can’t bear it, then transitioning to a cool off.
It’s nice. Sauna doesn’t have to be that expensive. On par with a hot tub. Way less maintenance. Can be installed outdoors. It does suck if you can’t. Public Sauna run at a nice temp are not easy to find in the US.
Got any from countries with electrical codes from this century? GFCI protection has been required by code in bathrooms basically everywhere for 50 years.
In the US, I regularly see bathrooms and kitchens without GFCI.
I looked up the history:
1961 GFCI invented by a professor at UC Berkeley
1971 Added to NEC code for outdoor outlets
1981 … bathrooms
1987 … kitchens
2005 … laundry rooms and unfinished basements
2014 … crawlspaces, around pools and hot tubs
Lots of bathrooms haven't been renovated (or at least not with permits) in the last 45 years, apparently!
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.
Unfortunately, yes, just about everything beyond the basics in longevity stuff has that as a possible confounder. Sauna is a fairly passive thing, though, I would expect less of an effect.
It’s not only that confounder but also the fact that the studies show massive risk reductions that are really surprising. Considering how much finns apparently go to the sauna compared to similar countries and how good the sauna appears to be based on the studies, it’s weird that they have similar health stats at a country level.
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.
In Finland and most of Europe have 230V one phase, 400v in three phase. And bare single phase subscription haven't even been available new houses for at least 45 years any more.
But if you buy an old summer cottage further away from permanent living areas it may well be that a) you don't even have grid there or b) if you have it's single phase and three phase upgrade would be too expensive because you are being billed building cost for that work all in front.
Using that single phase for sauna stove needs then so much that it's not allowed by code or if you would be able to convince some electrician do some kind fo switching other devices off when stove is on most perhaps do not like to pursue that and choose wood stove their sauna instead. That's known working solution and remote location it's also a secondary heat source incase grid were down due some storm fallen trees on wires which mess cleaning takes several days etc.
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!
> 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
You can read the reports and then you will know what counts as a free time, it's clearly defined. Note that I'm not saying that socioeconomic status might not confound results - I'm just saying that available free time most likely does not and that poorest decile generally has much more free time than richest decile. I don't get why is it so hard to accept?
Because the vast majority of underemployed folks aren't underemployed by choice. The wealthy folks who decide to work 100-hour weeks on their startup, on the other hand, are making an explicit choice to spend their time that way, instead of lounging by the pool.
If the argument is "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time", that's a very different argument than "poor people have more free time"
There's also the confounding factor of the type of work folks are doing by socioeconomic status. The person packing heavy crates part time in an amazon warehouse may be working fewer hours than the software engineer at AWS, but they also may need higher recovery time due to the toll the physical nature of the work takes on their bodies.
In this subject matter - the health benefits of a sauna - it doesn't matter why somebody has enough free time to take a sauna.
Is eating healthy more healthy for somebody who is rich and can hire a private chef, than it is for somebody who is unemployed and has a lot of time to cook healthy food.
Is exercise more healthy for a rich person than for a poor person?
> If the argument is "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time", that's a very different argument than "poor people have more free time"
I'm sorry but are you seriously considering "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time" to be real and widespread - among rich - phenomenon?
Having worked in a couple of FAANGs, for/alongside a whole raft of IPO-winning folks who had no real need to ever work again, my experience is that it absolutely is a widespread phenomenon (though I'm sure they view it more as "finding meaning through work" than "play-acting")
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.
It's funny that you make this flippant remark, while people completely seriously use as absurd reverse scenario (for some reason asking to restrict analysis just to people working 2 minimum wage jobs and exclude people that are unemployed). I already know that people do not update their beliefs even when they are shown evidence that clearly shows they are wrong, but it's frustrating to experience every time nonetheless.
What you are describing is not evidence, it is a willful misuse (charitably perhaps, a misunderstanding) of statistics. It is exactly analogous to using a mean in a distribution with extreme outliers. The only reason is to hurl numbers around in an attempt to shore up a purely political position.
> What you are describing is not evidence, it is a willful misuse (charitably perhaps, a misunderstanding) of statistics.
It is evidence that you don't want to accept because it's not compatible with your world view. And what do you offer instead - assumption that poor people are hard working folks and that rich people are slackers? And that's somehow not an attempt to shore up a purely political position? Please show ANY evidence supporting your thesis. Also it's not misuse of statistics at all! Mean is perfectly appropriate statistic here. Again - you make some assumption providing no support for it whatsoever.
That claim doesn't stand a chance? It's obviously non-linear; once you're really up there in the higher echelons of wealth, I'm sure you get a lot of time back.
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.
It's astounding how easily people here swallowed the ~opposite claim -- that low income people can't find 30 minutes of leisure time, versus how they howl and object to yours. Even after you provide evidence, something never demanded or provided of the first claim.
Imagine two kids get the weekend off from school. One kid gets money to order pizza, ride a fast taxi to the movies, and pay someone else to clean their room. They get to spend the whole weekend just playing and having fun. The other kid has no extra money. They have to spend their weekend cleaning the house, cooking meals from scratch, walking a long way just to get anywhere, and babysitting their little sibling.
On a piece of paper, both kids had the exact same amount of "free time" away from school. But in real life, the second kid was actually working the whole time.
Wealthy people can buy back their time by paying for things like daycare, grocery delivery, takeout, and house cleaning. People with less money can't afford to buy these shortcuts, so they have to do all this unpaid work themselves. This eats up their free hours.
Jobs that pay less often change workers' schedules at the last minute, so they can never plan their days or get enough sleep. They also might have to ride slow public buses for a long time to get to work. This means their free time is broken into stressful little pieces, like waiting at a bus stop or waiting for an unexpected shift to start.
Even when they do get an hour to sit down, they are usually very stressed about paying bills. When your brain is constantly worrying about survival, taking a break doesn't feel relaxing, and can even make you feel more anxious.
So, while wealthy people might officially work more hours at their jobs, the money they make lets them buy real, relaxing rest. People with less money might have fewer official job hours, but their "free time" is entirely stolen by unpaid chores, unpredictable schedules, and the stressful work of just trying to survive.
The long and short of it is that poor people work longer hours; they simply receive less formal recognition for it.
Your attempts to hide these facts and paint poverty as enviable in this dimension are disgustingly inhumane.
> Your attempts to hide these facts and paint poverty as enviable in this dimension are disgustingly inhumane.
The report I'm citing is using residuals after paid work, unpaid work and personal care. I suggest you should actually look at evidence instead of using some made up stories. Do poor people like one in your scenario exist? Of course. Are they large group? There's absolutely no reason to believe that (unless your world view depends on that) because evidence shows something completely opposite.
It's surprising how gullible people here are - how can you actually believe that poor people do not have free 30 minutes a day? Please look at stats of time watching TV/day vs income. And if you want to have ACTUAL discussion I suggest you should focus on facts, not inventing tearjerker stories.
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.
Don’t know. But I am in the top 1% of this country regarding income as an engineer (staff/fellow level). I don’t work more than 32h-35h per week - actually I never have and was never expected to. Living and working in a sane society and country. I fanatically turn off work email or work msgs when not working. I am not available for no one. Not even the C-levels or any clients. I concentrate on me and my family. No need to be a slave to “commitments” that don’t mean a thing in the long run.
And everyone has the same 24h. And it is just their choice and will to either dedicate 30min to their well being or not. It is not about having less time. Just prioritizing the same 24h that everyone has differently. Everything else is just finding excuses which of course is much easier than changing your life.
You are correct. OP is ridiculously short on both common sense and a healthy sense of perspective. The fact is, simply, that while the poor actually work more hours, they're just not compensated commensurate with their labors.
That's not what evidence shows. Surely you must realise that actual evidence is worth more than "common sense" and "healthy sense of perspective"? You just made up some assumption with nothing to back it up.
I did, and I found out for example that TV consumption is much higher in low income deciles compared with high income deciles. The claim that they do not have free 30 minutes a day is impossible to defend. Also under-compensation is completely tangent to this discussion, I don't know why would you bring it up. Do you think I'm talking that it's great to be poor? Because I'm not saying that.
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.
For the record, "mixed crowd" is for people who already know each other or maybe are at some kind of (countryside?) event. Public facilities are segregated by sex, and most private functions with a single sauna will organise separate sessions.
Families will typically sauna all together, altho this system can break down when kids hit puberty.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Yes. And if you can get it to 102F your body will produce heat shock proteins. Which are good for a whole bunch of reasons, but also can be very bad if you have any tumors, as it makes damaged cells more resistant to apoptosis.
It does indeed increase internal temperature. Perhaps an artificial fever is part of it but I believe the science currently around heat shock proteins.
It’s like saying you don’t want to exercise because it induces tachycardia and hypertension. The point is that you are training your body to adapt to overstimulation in a context and dose dependent manner.
Back in Eastern Europe I frequently visited public "sauna" with my parents. It included jumping into freezing water after three heat sessions and the only thing you feel is just tingling in your skin. During those years all my respiratory illnesses were very brief and never affected lower areas (like bronchitis). The very first year I've emigrated I've got pneumonia and needed antibiotics twice during the cold season. The doctor told me it's just different viruses and I didn't have immunity for those (which is ridiculous considering globalization and I wasn't in an isolated tribe before).
For my parents though I think it was net health negative as public sauna was always accompanied with a lot of alcohol.
Onsen (hot springs) are very common and popular in Japan. Nowadays, they almost always have sauna as well. In Tokyo there's probably a sauna within ~15 minutes of just about anywhere.
The thing about sauna I love the most is rare moment of absolute clarity after hot/cold cycle. I rarely can think so clearly, even if it's only for ten minutes, than after putting my body to stress by sauna heat.
I had a water heater go out, and I took cold showers for a while, even after I fixed it. I felt absolutely awake after getting out of the shower. It also didn't fog the bathroom mirrors.
I stopped because one day I took a warm shower and just gave it up. Don't know if taking hot showers was a lack of discipline, or sanity returning.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> If it’s not causing nausea and palpitations, it’s not hot enough.
This is just so wrong. I use a 110C sauna pretty much daily, and I've done very hot onsens before, and I've never got nausea. The closest I've come is feeling lightheaded, but that's only when I combine it with ice baths. If you're feeling nauseous, you probably have a poor diet or an electrolyte imbalance
Let me guess that when it comes to exercise you think that you have to experience pain or almost pass out to get optimal adaptations? I guarantee that pushing your body to that level is highly counterproductive
> 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
So while I definitely think it's possible that hot baths and sauna have similar effects, I don't think this can be shown by simple thermodynamics and would require medical studies. Some sibling comments have already mentioned some.
To be clear, my objection was only to the supposed explanation/assertion of resulting core temperature being all that matters, not to the possibility that that's true.
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?
> Have you tried submerging yourself in moderately hot water, I wonder?
Yes.
> have you spent some time pondering the difference in heat transfer between convection and conduction?
Also yes, but not in this context. I don't think basic thermodynamics (alone) is the right lens through which to analyze the health benefits of either. Without empirical studies, I feel like there can easily be plausible-sounding thermodynamic arguments for completely opposite outcomes.
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
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.
In Finland we have old saying: "If liquor, tar and sauna won’t help, an illness is fatal"
The tar ointment I bought in Mariehamn is fantastic for healing small infected cuts and bruises. Highly recommend.
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?
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!
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.
>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?
Due to lack of running water in those times (and still in many cottages) cooking is done above a fire, water is brought from the lake. A kitchen won't serve you well if you're just trying to get through a long winter of -30c.
The sauna provides heating.
Average yearly temperature in Finland is reported as 6.5 Celsius
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.
The cheaper apartments tend to not have private saunas built into the bathroom, but most apartment complexes at least have a shared sauna on the top floor. Residents can book a block of personal time in advance.
In most buildings the shared sauna is on the first floor (basement) and not top.
Also there can be blocks of time regularly scheduled, for example on weekends.
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.
Even small brand new apartments tend to have their own sauna, which is quite impressive.
Trust your instincts.
I would say booze rather than liquor. Liquor sounds too fancy.
It's call alcohol
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
It is great stuff, I use it regularly. It makes my grey hair go all frizzy and flyaway, so that is a plus.
Yeah, works great but may cause cancer…
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.
I take a mild bleach bath sometimes and it’s quite invigorating. Seems to kill off a lot of skin surface bacteria which can sometimes be beneficial (there’s good and bad bacteria on your skin).
Not to be done too often but every once in a while I find it helpful. Not all that different from a strongly chlorinated pool.
Another cool one, especially if you don’t have a sauna, is doing a mustard bath. You will sweat like a stuck pig
> ... doing a mustard bath.
So many questions...
American, English, or Dijon?
*Sponsored by Heinz? ;)
lol. They make formulations you can buy but I make my own. A cup of ground mustard seed, which I buy fairly cheap online, and a few tablespoons of baking soda, plus some essentials oils mainly to cut through the mustard smell.
Pour that in a warm bath and soak for 20 mins. Then get out and wrap yourself in a towel and continue sweating for 15 mins or so.
piss on your feet (not in the sauna)
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 believe they were asking in the context of the quote at the start of the thread - "If liquor, tar and sauna won’t help, an illness is fatal."
I'm also still unclear on how it was used to treat human illness (treating boats and roofs is clear enough)
Sometimes you eat the delicious tar, yes!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terva_Leijona
I'm guessing these might no longer contain actual tar.
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.
In Finland, they are most likely using birch tar.
Nah, it's pine.
Isn't that the same stuff as in soldering flux?
Smells good, for sure. But I don't know if it promotes good health.
And coal tar
Pine sap. You can get a schnapps of it, obviously.
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.
Checked life expectancy in Finland: I guess you use booze to offset the positive effects of sauna :)
Are there any scientific results showing that this helps?
I'm not even Finnish and I came here to post this.
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.
If you want to experience positive health effects from sauna, you don't have to set records in heat and duration. You just get hot and sweat as much as you feel is fine. So you can do it in almost all conditions. Sweating out bad stuff from your body, activating the blood flow, unless you are at risk of a aneurysm - of course it is beneficial, even though it doesn't magically turn your health around. But a proper sauna and ice bath do revive and make you feel reborn. Try it at least at some point and then you can judge if it did not make you feel more alive and healthier and that all the studies around it a "probably bullshit".
There are two separate issues there. One, you feeling good about going to the sauna. If you feel good, that’s nice. But it’s your personal feeling from it. I personally did not have the same opinion about my lungs feeling as I was breathing fire, but to each their own. I’d rather do other nicer things to activate blood flow and feel revived.
The other is the health benefits, and that can only be measured from serious studies and not from how you or me feel about it later.
Feeling good and with lasting energy is pretty much the same as having good health.
"The other is the health benefits, and that can only be measured from serious studies and not from how you or me feel about it later."
Yes and there are studies, so do you have anything concrete why they ain't beneficial, besides your personal dislike?
You lead with "Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer" that implies you did not even read them. (Besides, allmost everyone goes to Sauna in the nordic countries, that implies allmost everyone there is healthy by your logic)
But if Sauna for you was breathing fire .. one easy solution is to go to a less hot sauna.
> Feeling good and with lasting energy is pretty much the same as having good health.
I'm referring to feeling like that specifically after the sauna. I also feel great after eating a great steak and yet it's not the same as having good health.
> Yes and there are studies, so do you have anything concrete why they ain't beneficial, besides your personal dislike?
> You lead with "Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer" that implies you did not even read them.
Not that they are not beneficial, but that the benefits are not as large as they are assumed to be. The main reason is that there are no randomized trials and practically no replications outside of nordic countries. Also, if you compare the risk reduction reported by sauna use to other health interventions, you'll quickly see that it doesn't really make that much sense. Depending on the studies, you'll see risk ratios that say that frequent sauna use is as effective (or more) as doing high intensity exercise or smoking cessation.
> (Besides, allmost everyone goes to Sauna in the nordic countries, that implies allmost everyone there is healthy by your logic)
Actually, you have that backwards. If finnish people go so much to the sauna compared to other countries and it's as good as the studies say, why are they not much more healthy than other countries? Prevalence of cardiovascular disease in Finland is pretty similar to other countries. Same with life expectancy. There are two options: either the finns are doing something radically different from other countries that negates the benefits from sauna use; or the risk reduction shown from the studies is not real.
The most likely explanation is that sauna provides similar benefits as any of the other interventions based around mildly stressing your body: somewhat beneficial but nothing magical, with probably an additional, significant placebo effect.
> But if Sauna for you was breathing fire .. one easy solution is to go to a less hot sauna.
Another easy solution is to not go to a sauna and just do anything else that's beneficial to me in that time and not extremely uncomfortable. I already live in Spain, I get more than my fair share of hot uncomfortable environments.
"I already live in Spain, I get more than my fair share of hot uncomfortable environments."
Well yes, that might be enough, which might be the reason there ain't so many saunas in spain, but lots of them in colder climates. (I don't go to Sauna in summer either)
So yes, to be precise, the general statement "Sauna is good for you" is probably not true in general. There are also lots of other factors, the individual tolerance to heat and your heart condition(at times I enjoy 110 degree Sauna for a long time, but if I am weak, 60 degree can already be too much for more than a few minutes), then the general atmosphere in the Sauna, is it clean, are there nice people or people you feel like getting their diseases from by sharing the same room and sweat, ... in short, do you feel safe and comfortable there (placebo is real, but so are germs).
So in general, if you don't enjoy it, don't go. But also spain can be cold I experienced, so I do recommend to try out the heat effect in a controlled environment if you have the opportunity for a nice Sauna where no one pressures you to endure more than you want to.
My partner is also from a warmer climate and she did not like Sauna first, but step by step she now enjoys it.
I don't know about that. As in yes I agree but that seems to apply to Western countries in general. For example in Tunisia, people go to public baths at least once a week and part of that involves sitting in a hot steamy room for 30+ minutes. So here you have an example for a population that does use sauna (in a way) but aren't relying on self-reporting.
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).
Indeed, humidity matters a lot. Most our saunas here are löyly (in Finnish) saunas, so you get a rollercoaster of dry - humid - dry cycles. Once you get to 100+c and throw a good amount of water on the stones, it can get quite challenging to endure :)
Everybody has their personal preference of course. For me, the sweet spot seems to be a moderately humid sauna at 93c. At that point, the löyly is not too harsh yet but is still hot enough to make you feel alive :)
I also prefer around 90-100c with swings of humidity. I think it's most exciting exactly because you can make it temporarily more intensive with the "humid wave".
It's the most popular type of sauna - "the sauna" for a reason.
My steam room (at home) at 116F/47C is close to the upper limit of bearable for me. But that's a lot more humidity than even a humid sauna.
90+ sauna sounds painful. Are you actually throwing water? Because even with 80 the steam is pretty hot
Whether sauna is hot or not depends on whether you enjoy the cold water plunge afterwards :)
The typical preset on dry saunas in Bay Area is ~165 F (73 C). Which is cold. Waste of time and money :). Usually, by closing or pouring cold water on sensor, one can make it to 180-190 F (82-87 C) - this is where you start to feel like you are in sauna, though it takes prolong time to heat you up enough to enjoy the cold plunge. If you're lucky enough, you can get to 200, 210, 220 F (104 C) - this is where you start to feel relaxed like as if the heat is working inside you.
>Are you actually throwing water? Because even with 80 the steam is pretty hot
Of course those numbers would be impossible to enjoy in steam sauna. The only steam sauna that had a wall thermometer that i've visited in recent years was showing 55 C when it already felt pretty well and hot.
Note - steam sauna and "throwing water" are 2 different things. The steam sauna is a machine generating a lot of steam, so the room is close to 100% humidity.
The "throwing water" is like Russian "banya" - it is in-between of dry and steam, though frequently is more close to dry Finnish sauna - wooden walls, stove, etc. where in addition to the heated air, you'd throw a water on the heater/stones thus adding a hit of hot steam to that air (in some "banya" configurations if you happen to be close to and in the immediate path of that steam you can sometimes get light burns).
Just a clarification as it may not be clear from your message. A Finnish ("dry") sauna always includes throwing water on the stove, which is called "löyly".
People have different preferences for the warmth of the sauna -- as low as 65°C for some elderly folks, all the way up to 120°C for more hardcore people -- but water is always thrown on the stove. You won't get burns, but it can have a real sting. It's enjoyable, but may feel uncomfortable as a new experience.
When a swimhall has two saunas, a "hot" and a "hotter", I'd guess they are at about 70°C and 90°C.
70-90 seems reasonable, 90 is already over my comfort which is around 80, but the post talked about >90 degrees which just seems stupidly hot
I don't know anyone who wants sauna that hot - steam is involved. Numbers over 90 sound like dry heat only. My 0,02€.
Since when has Finnish sauna been dry? As a Finn I have never been in a dry sauna. We always throw water on the stones.
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.
What percent humidity? That is just as important as temperature for understanding how tolerable a particular sauna is.
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"
The men's sauna at Harjutori in Helsinki has a pullchain (with a handle of wood, natch), by the entrance to the room. When you walk into the men's sauna (which is BIG), you can inquire whether löyly is needed, and affirmative answers dictate a tug or two or three on the chain, which releases bursts of steam.
And anyone on the highest bench really gets cooked.
I think I've heard US it's mostly no water at all on stove and Germany I've heard they have had these sauna-masters who come and cast water on stove.
Neither of these are practised anywhere in Finland at least. But there are at least one Finnish swimming bath where they had to limit steam competitions and made a button controlled mechanism to administer water instead of free usage. Not because electrical shock prevention but because bad human behaviour per se.
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 on top" is usually called stove, "kiuas" in Finnish :)
When needing to define type of stove, it's electric stove, wood heated stove. Latter has two types, which continuous wood burning is still common (this stove you can add burning wood during bathing) and older not so much any more used before bathing heated type stove which you cannot add wood while bathing. Oldest type is smoke-sauna, which doesn't have chimney at all. Wood is burnt in stove when heating, then when burnt enough sauna is ventilated first and then bathing starts.
But all these different heating elements are commonly stoves, just adding electric-, wood-, or smoke- stove is added context requiring.
Infra saunas then have those lamps of course, no stove there.
This is one of the primary reasons I use a sauna; the cardiovascular benefits. I hate doing cardio exercises at the gym or elsewhere.
Alas, Finns are not particularly healthy in the cardiovascular department. I don't believe there are any major benefits.
It's much improved tho. A campaign started years ago to wean the general population off the addiction to dairy products.
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.
On a recent visit to Finland I found out that basically all supermarkets sell aluminium foil bags for the purpose of cooking sausages on the sauna stove while you use the sauna.
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
I think you intended to link a different article. That one’s not about cooking with your dishwasher.
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.
It's sensory overload as a reaction to cold dark grey murky winters.
Northern Spaniard there, bring a Saunaa lover Finn with one of these climate-change induced hours at 43C at some day or two in Summer... in the Atlantic, in Bilbao, which is... inside a valley.
I've been in saunas at 60-70C and the feeling inside was much bearable because of the lack of humidity than 43C under a climate closer to UK than inner/Mediterranean Spain.
Only 1 test subject, but might at least be interesting read: https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.com/blogs/news/sauna-protocol
What about Japanese hot springs? ("onsen") Those are typically around 40°C but could be up to 60°C. Because it is hot water and not hot air the temperature would be transferred differently to the body though, so I don't think the numeric temperature is directly comparable.
Onsen baths are taken all year round: including summers that get hotter than in Finland, but especially enjoyed in winter.
I am a Spanish guy currently living in Japan, and honestly I hate sauna but love onsen. Most on my Spanish colleagues seem to think the same. I guess the main factor being that both Spain and Japan are have really hot summers, so why would you get in a hot room to sweat like a pig when you are already sweating outside?
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.
> The problem is that staying as long as possible in a sauna can be fatal.
One used to read regularly (like a few times a year) about someone who came home drunk and went to (electric) sauna and passed out... and died.
Saunas in new construction now all have timers.
So, you’re telling me the Finn won?
They were both disqualified as they did not leave the sauna unaided.
A different 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.
Is this actual stat? Or do you mean “have access to” instead of actually “at their home” i.e. a private sauna they can use at any time 24/7, because from my lived experience I doubt the latter.
Essentially all residential buildings in Finland have saunas. Freestanding houses have private ones, apartments have communal ones but you can book a private time slot.
Yeah, so the latter as I suspected
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.
If it's winter, put the baby in the pram outside, while you do a quick sauna session?
Infants sleep a lot. You have to adjust to their schedule, though.
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.
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.
Are you even living if you're not spending every single minute breathing and shitting your work and/or kids?
The meaning is either ‘I’m too busy to have time to relax’ or ‘I’m too poor not to work all day’, at which point I think of a quote from Office Space: “you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing. Look at my cousin, he’s broke and he don’t do shit.”
It’s a typical crab bucket mentality, wanting to make you feel bad because you have a minimum of self-respect. Can’t have that in this economy.
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.
Sensible working hours is a luxury for many people, at least in the United States. Especially the ones considered low socioeconomic status. 40 hours a week at minimum wage will barely pay the median rent in my state. That leaves nothing for food, health care, utilities, transportation, etc.
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.
As an American, I built a proper sauna. Love it.
Congrats. For those of us who can’t afford to build one, we still enjoy the heat through other means.
Or at least I do.
There’s just something extraordinarily relaxing about going from the high heat (though obviously not too high) until one can’t bear it, then transitioning to a cool off.
It’s nice. Sauna doesn’t have to be that expensive. On par with a hot tub. Way less maintenance. Can be installed outdoors. It does suck if you can’t. Public Sauna run at a nice temp are not easy to find in the US.
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_...
Got any from countries with electrical codes from this century? GFCI protection has been required by code in bathrooms basically everywhere for 50 years.
> Got any from...
Sure! France,2021: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/frankreich-verkabeltes-handy...
In the US, I regularly see bathrooms and kitchens without GFCI.
I looked up the history:
Lots of bathrooms haven't been renovated (or at least not with permits) in the last 45 years, apparently!Doing nothing for 30 minutes does not release cytokines.
But it _will_ reduce cortisol, which is known to increase the likelihood of infections
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.
Unfortunately, yes, just about everything beyond the basics in longevity stuff has that as a possible confounder. Sauna is a fairly passive thing, though, I would expect less of an effect.
It’s not only that confounder but also the fact that the studies show massive risk reductions that are really surprising. Considering how much finns apparently go to the sauna compared to similar countries and how good the sauna appears to be based on the studies, it’s weird that they have similar health stats at a country level.
Who doesn’t have 30 minutes per week to do nothing? I am genuinely asking.
I don't know but I'm feeling for this guy right now.
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.
In the USA, you do not need 3 phase power for a good electric sauna. Residential is all supplied with single phase 240AC which works just fine.
[EDIT: I should have single phase, which is more conventional ]
In Finland and most of Europe have 230V one phase, 400v in three phase. And bare single phase subscription haven't even been available new houses for at least 45 years any more.
But if you buy an old summer cottage further away from permanent living areas it may well be that a) you don't even have grid there or b) if you have it's single phase and three phase upgrade would be too expensive because you are being billed building cost for that work all in front.
Using that single phase for sauna stove needs then so much that it's not allowed by code or if you would be able to convince some electrician do some kind fo switching other devices off when stove is on most perhaps do not like to pursue that and choose wood stove their sauna instead. That's known working solution and remote location it's also a secondary heat source incase grid were down due some storm fallen trees on wires which mess cleaning takes several days etc.
1. I should have said single phase, since that's the typical (if somewhat inaccurate) description of US residential power.
2. If you have 230V single phase, not sure why you couldn't run a sauna from that, unless there is some other heavy load to be run concurrently.
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!
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
You can read the reports and then you will know what counts as a free time, it's clearly defined. Note that I'm not saying that socioeconomic status might not confound results - I'm just saying that available free time most likely does not and that poorest decile generally has much more free time than richest decile. I don't get why is it so hard to accept?
Why should you exclude unemployed or underemployed? What would be the reason for that, other than to turn statistics into lies?
Because the vast majority of underemployed folks aren't underemployed by choice. The wealthy folks who decide to work 100-hour weeks on their startup, on the other hand, are making an explicit choice to spend their time that way, instead of lounging by the pool.
If the argument is "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time", that's a very different argument than "poor people have more free time"
There's also the confounding factor of the type of work folks are doing by socioeconomic status. The person packing heavy crates part time in an amazon warehouse may be working fewer hours than the software engineer at AWS, but they also may need higher recovery time due to the toll the physical nature of the work takes on their bodies.
In this subject matter - the health benefits of a sauna - it doesn't matter why somebody has enough free time to take a sauna.
Is eating healthy more healthy for somebody who is rich and can hire a private chef, than it is for somebody who is unemployed and has a lot of time to cook healthy food.
Is exercise more healthy for a rich person than for a poor person?
> If the argument is "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time", that's a very different argument than "poor people have more free time"
I'm sorry but are you seriously considering "bored rich folks like to play-act working in their free time" to be real and widespread - among rich - phenomenon?
Having worked in a couple of FAANGs, for/alongside a whole raft of IPO-winning folks who had no real need to ever work again, my experience is that it absolutely is a widespread phenomenon (though I'm sure they view it more as "finding meaning through work" than "play-acting")
How can you think it's widespread when you restrict your analysis to top 0.1% outliers?
Because the rich are by definition a tiny group of outliers?
Pretty much every FAANG engineer is in the top 5% of US by net worth. The ones who got lucky on an IPO are top 2% at worst, often top 1%.
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.
It's funny that you make this flippant remark, while people completely seriously use as absurd reverse scenario (for some reason asking to restrict analysis just to people working 2 minimum wage jobs and exclude people that are unemployed). I already know that people do not update their beliefs even when they are shown evidence that clearly shows they are wrong, but it's frustrating to experience every time nonetheless.
What you are describing is not evidence, it is a willful misuse (charitably perhaps, a misunderstanding) of statistics. It is exactly analogous to using a mean in a distribution with extreme outliers. The only reason is to hurl numbers around in an attempt to shore up a purely political position.
> What you are describing is not evidence, it is a willful misuse (charitably perhaps, a misunderstanding) of statistics.
It is evidence that you don't want to accept because it's not compatible with your world view. And what do you offer instead - assumption that poor people are hard working folks and that rich people are slackers? And that's somehow not an attempt to shore up a purely political position? Please show ANY evidence supporting your thesis. Also it's not misuse of statistics at all! Mean is perfectly appropriate statistic here. Again - you make some assumption providing no support for it whatsoever.
That claim doesn't stand a chance? It's obviously non-linear; once you're really up there in the higher echelons of wealth, I'm sure you get a lot of time back.
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.
It's astounding how easily people here swallowed the ~opposite claim -- that low income people can't find 30 minutes of leisure time, versus how they howl and object to yours. Even after you provide evidence, something never demanded or provided of the first claim.
Imagine two kids get the weekend off from school. One kid gets money to order pizza, ride a fast taxi to the movies, and pay someone else to clean their room. They get to spend the whole weekend just playing and having fun. The other kid has no extra money. They have to spend their weekend cleaning the house, cooking meals from scratch, walking a long way just to get anywhere, and babysitting their little sibling.
On a piece of paper, both kids had the exact same amount of "free time" away from school. But in real life, the second kid was actually working the whole time.
Wealthy people can buy back their time by paying for things like daycare, grocery delivery, takeout, and house cleaning. People with less money can't afford to buy these shortcuts, so they have to do all this unpaid work themselves. This eats up their free hours.
Jobs that pay less often change workers' schedules at the last minute, so they can never plan their days or get enough sleep. They also might have to ride slow public buses for a long time to get to work. This means their free time is broken into stressful little pieces, like waiting at a bus stop or waiting for an unexpected shift to start.
Even when they do get an hour to sit down, they are usually very stressed about paying bills. When your brain is constantly worrying about survival, taking a break doesn't feel relaxing, and can even make you feel more anxious.
So, while wealthy people might officially work more hours at their jobs, the money they make lets them buy real, relaxing rest. People with less money might have fewer official job hours, but their "free time" is entirely stolen by unpaid chores, unpredictable schedules, and the stressful work of just trying to survive.
The long and short of it is that poor people work longer hours; they simply receive less formal recognition for it.
Your attempts to hide these facts and paint poverty as enviable in this dimension are disgustingly inhumane.
> Your attempts to hide these facts and paint poverty as enviable in this dimension are disgustingly inhumane.
The report I'm citing is using residuals after paid work, unpaid work and personal care. I suggest you should actually look at evidence instead of using some made up stories. Do poor people like one in your scenario exist? Of course. Are they large group? There's absolutely no reason to believe that (unless your world view depends on that) because evidence shows something completely opposite. It's surprising how gullible people here are - how can you actually believe that poor people do not have free 30 minutes a day? Please look at stats of time watching TV/day vs income. And if you want to have ACTUAL discussion I suggest you should focus on facts, not inventing tearjerker stories.
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.
Don’t know. But I am in the top 1% of this country regarding income as an engineer (staff/fellow level). I don’t work more than 32h-35h per week - actually I never have and was never expected to. Living and working in a sane society and country. I fanatically turn off work email or work msgs when not working. I am not available for no one. Not even the C-levels or any clients. I concentrate on me and my family. No need to be a slave to “commitments” that don’t mean a thing in the long run.
Good for you!
And everyone has the same 24h. And it is just their choice and will to either dedicate 30min to their well being or not. It is not about having less time. Just prioritizing the same 24h that everyone has differently. Everything else is just finding excuses which of course is much easier than changing your life.
But they don't
They do - https://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/cr/CASEreport57.pdf
You are correct. OP is ridiculously short on both common sense and a healthy sense of perspective. The fact is, simply, that while the poor actually work more hours, they're just not compensated commensurate with their labors.
That's not what evidence shows. Surely you must realise that actual evidence is worth more than "common sense" and "healthy sense of perspective"? You just made up some assumption with nothing to back it up.
I've seen the evidence, and it's obvious that low-SES work is under-compensated and ill-classified.
I didn't make anything up, I looked at you sources and then I did more reading.
And you can, too.
I did, and I found out for example that TV consumption is much higher in low income deciles compared with high income deciles. The claim that they do not have free 30 minutes a day is impossible to defend. Also under-compensation is completely tangent to this discussion, I don't know why would you bring it up. Do you think I'm talking that it's great to be poor? Because I'm not saying that.
> they do not have free 30 minutes a day
I'm not making that claim, but keep on tilting at windmills if you like.
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.
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.
For the record, "mixed crowd" is for people who already know each other or maybe are at some kind of (countryside?) event. Public facilities are segregated by sex, and most private functions with a single sauna will organise separate sessions.
Families will typically sauna all together, altho this system can break down when kids hit puberty.
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
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.
+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.
it is also very common to pour some water on the hot rocks. you feel the temperature a lot more, the instant the water gets poured.
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.
I haven’t used a >95C but every sauna I’ve been to in Europe has options for 80 or above. They sometimes have cold ones at 70 or whatever too
No point in going to saunas in America or uk as they require wearing clothes.
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).
Well, not the branches as such but their leaves.
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.
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.
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
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.
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’ve always wondered if it raises internal body temperature? Is it basically an induced fever?
Yes. And if you can get it to 102F your body will produce heat shock proteins. Which are good for a whole bunch of reasons, but also can be very bad if you have any tumors, as it makes damaged cells more resistant to apoptosis.
Yeah, the article is saying core body temperature changes by 2C.
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.
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.
It’s like saying you don’t want to exercise because it induces tachycardia and hypertension. The point is that you are training your body to adapt to overstimulation in a context and dose dependent manner.
Its not a storm though.
Back in Eastern Europe I frequently visited public "sauna" with my parents. It included jumping into freezing water after three heat sessions and the only thing you feel is just tingling in your skin. During those years all my respiratory illnesses were very brief and never affected lower areas (like bronchitis). The very first year I've emigrated I've got pneumonia and needed antibiotics twice during the cold season. The doctor told me it's just different viruses and I didn't have immunity for those (which is ridiculous considering globalization and I wasn't in an isolated tribe before).
For my parents though I think it was net health negative as public sauna was always accompanied with a lot of alcohol.
Cold showers - good for immune system. Heat expose - good as well. I guess what doesn’t kills us - makes us stronger is true after all.
Cryotherapy, also.
I'm wondering if what's actually going on is the temperature swings are what's important, not how they come about.
I have also seen both scuba diving and skydiving suggested as beneficial due to the oxygen changes.
Could this perhaps be a form of exercise for the body's regulatory systems?
What about non-Finnish sauna heat? Or do I have to go to Finland?
Sample size is tiny fwiw.
I have been searching for benefits associated with hot yoga as well, but the area is very underexplored as far as i can tell.
Why do Hongkongers (no sauna culture) and Japanese have higher life expectancy than Finns?
Onsen (hot springs) are very common and popular in Japan. Nowadays, they almost always have sauna as well. In Tokyo there's probably a sauna within ~15 minutes of just about anywhere.
Because Sauna isn’t a magical, just beneficial?
The thing about sauna I love the most is rare moment of absolute clarity after hot/cold cycle. I rarely can think so clearly, even if it's only for ten minutes, than after putting my body to stress by sauna heat.
Weirdly I never saw any explanation.
I had a water heater go out, and I took cold showers for a while, even after I fixed it. I felt absolutely awake after getting out of the shower. It also didn't fog the bathroom mirrors.
I stopped because one day I took a warm shower and just gave it up. Don't know if taking hot showers was a lack of discipline, or sanity returning.
Nordic strong men and strong women.
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.
Sauna basically is the "hot winter" simulator.
Does a long hot bath do the same?
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!
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.
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.
> If it’s not causing nausea and palpitations, it’s not hot enough.
This is just so wrong. I use a 110C sauna pretty much daily, and I've done very hot onsens before, and I've never got nausea. The closest I've come is feeling lightheaded, but that's only when I combine it with ice baths. If you're feeling nauseous, you probably have a poor diet or an electrolyte imbalance
Let me guess that when it comes to exercise you think that you have to experience pain or almost pass out to get optimal adaptations? I guarantee that pushing your body to that level is highly counterproductive
> 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
The goal isn't to not survive though, is it?
So while I definitely think it's possible that hot baths and sauna have similar effects, I don't think this can be shown by simple thermodynamics and would require medical studies. Some sibling comments have already mentioned some.
To be clear, my objection was only to the supposed explanation/assertion of resulting core temperature being all that matters, not to the possibility that that's true.
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?
> Have you tried submerging yourself in moderately hot water, I wonder?
Yes.
> have you spent some time pondering the difference in heat transfer between convection and conduction?
Also yes, but not in this context. I don't think basic thermodynamics (alone) is the right lens through which to analyze the health benefits of either. Without empirical studies, I feel like there can easily be plausible-sounding thermodynamic arguments for completely opposite outcomes.
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
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.
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...