Sauna use as a lifestyle practice to extend healthspan
sciencedirect.com
sciencedirect.com
0. Avoid DNA damage
1. Eat less (IF + caloric restriction)
2. Eat less protein
3. HIIT
4. Be Cold
5. Be Hot
'Pop Squad' is the top rated episode of 'Love, Death & Robots Season 2'[1] in which humans have cracked longevity and so offspring (children) are banned; treated as pests and you can correlate what name 'Pop Squad' refers to. (Warning: Very dark theme).
Answer: We don't need a reason for sauna.
To be clear: The smoke comes inside only when you heat the sauna and goes out trough small opening in the wall. You bath after the fire is out, not when the sauna is full of smoke.
What is left is the smell of smoke in the walls.
A smoke sauna is just an inferior version of the modern Finnish sauna. It's a bit of a hassle to prepare and I personally dislike the "smoke effect".
So called "aitokiuas" type stoves replicates the gentle heat feeling that comes from heat storing smoke sauna without the smoke. They can be electric or wood stoves.
Most Finns are accustomed to going to sauna weekly. It’s such an ingrained part of our live that don’t really think about it.
We’ve got 5 million people and 2,5 million saunas.
Sauna is free from distractions like electronics, it’s free of associations relating to productivity and work, so it becomes a meditation of sorts, but we usually don’t try to make it so.
Sauna is sauna. Sauna’s purpose is sauna. The benefit of sauna is sauna.
As for the reason, the design is just really old. It's how you heat a sauna when you don't have a chimney. As a side effect, the long heating, the large thermal mass, and supposedly the soot that collects on the walls combine to produce a reputedly smoother experience with the heat seeming to be more even than in a more modern sauna.
This is an interesting sentence construct that can be interpreted in two completely different ways!
I bought an old school one. I ordered from https://almostheaven.com/ and it was a great delivery experience so I recommend them, but there are plenty of other sauna companies out there. And the infrared is just not something I am familiar with so I stayed away. I purchased the small 4 person sauna, but got the bigger heater to get it hotter quicker. I don't regret it, but I don't recommend it either.
-when you get in: splash some water on your jewelry. -And bathrobes. Love a good wrap in a bathrobe after a sauna.
A couple of the things that surprised me when I got my sauna was how gross it is. For me, I am lucky its a personal sauna. I sweat everywhere. And people think of saunas and they think of a spa, but its a workout and mental challenge for me every single time.
But I still would prefer my personal sauna
It sounds like it's too hot if it's a workout and a mental challenge every time. It should be mostly relaxing. Get out when it starts getting painful.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Liberon-003815-Finishing-Oil-Liter/dp...
I didn't protect mine, just put it together from the factory. But mine is indoors. I think the wood will need replacing within the next 4 years probably, but the heater seems like it will last forever.
Any speccific inconveniences with oversized heater?
We usually keep it at 101F in the winter (since it feels nice to walk out in the cold and soak for 15 minutes) and 98 in the summer -- at 97 I can stay in indefinitely, but my wife gets cold at 15 minutes, so 98 is a compromise.
I wonder if a 100 degree hot tub has a similar benefit as a hot sauna.
But yeah, it's striking how putting it down to 96F can quite quickly make you feel a chill. And not the refreshing chill of jumping into a much-colder-than-that swimming pool, but like the bone chill of having had the heat bled out of you.
Humans radiate a lot of heat, and if we can't dump that waste heat into our environments or take advantage of evaporative cooling, we overheat. Saunas condition people to survive this for longer periods, but they're not something you could make use of in the tropics without any air conditioning, for instance.
* Take a shower.
* Go to the sauna, and sit there for 10-15 minutes. Temperature around 95-100.
* Come out, drink a beer, sometimes in the lobby, sometimes on the balcony, sometimes outdoors wrapped in a towel. The latter is especially satisfying in winter when the outdoor temperature is -15, -20, or so.
* Have a shower, and go back inside.
The process repeats 2-4 times, until I'm nice and relaxed. Monday & Friday is my average routine, but if friends are coming over I might do an extra session.
lucky bastards. Judging that such setting is everywhere here in US, it looks like some public standard prohibit higher than 160 or something like this. Playing with the temperature sensors (like cold toweling it) i usually can get it to only 180-190F at some places with 195F (90C) at best.
They're nice, but they're not as nice. (Though I suspect in my case at least partly because if I go to a pool I often have a five year old with me, and he wants to leave very quickly - plus I've come to associate drinking beer with being near a sauna!)
https://i.imgur.com/Lml7Vms.jpg
About 1 year in and I haven't burned down the house... yet.
Yep. Ghetto AF. That's why the chair is there to elevate the sleeping bag - otherwise I wouldn't be able to reach the sleeping bag from inside the tube.
> No worries about air circulation or passing out?
Circulation is fine. It's far from airtight - air creeps in from the bottom through the cracks, and I can always just open a small hole in the "ceiling" if needed. Never done it though cause it doesn't get stuffy. Haven't passed out, though that would be seriously dangerous since the heating element is exposed and I'd likely be burned.
> Is it pitch black in there?
Yes, so that's why there's a nightlight on an extension cable in the pic. Also a flashlight on my phone.
I thought about an outdoor sauna but I'm worried it would become just another insect and spider habitat that I don't want to go near...
Shameless plug for my brother who started building luxury saunas during lockdown and they ship worldwide. Check out https://haljas.com
> Interestingly, many of the physiological responses to sauna use (described in detail below) are remarkably similar to those experienced during moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, and sauna use has been proposed as an alternative to aerobic exercise for people who are unable to engage in physical activity due to chronic disease or physical limitations
If you don't have a sauna but you're looking for positive health benefits, some moderate intensity aerobic exercise could provide more health benefits anyway.
Even heat shock proteins, which many people have come to associate with sauna use, are expressed during exercise.
Of course, it's easier to sit in a sauna than to jog or run, but we should keep it in perspective: Saunas are currently at the peak of their hype cycle due to popularization on certain outlets like the Joe Rogan podcast. It's reminiscent of a few years ago when Reservatrol was all over podcasts and the news as a wonder supplement after popular media exaggerated the research. Exercise is still king.
EDIT: Of course, both can be better than either one alone, but if you're limited on time and/or resources then don't feel left out: Exercise is much, much cheaper than a sauna.
Also on the topic of cheaper, at the end of the original paper is some evidence that hot baths offer similar benefits to saunas.
On the other hand, anecdotally, lots of Russian weighlifters swear by sauna benefits and have been doing it for decades as a recovery from grueling daily heavy sessions.
I was suffering from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis for almost a year in 2019. I was devastated both physically and mentally.
Two months before COVID, after watched Laird Hamilton's interview about Sauna, I started to do Sauna 20mins-25mins and practice meditation every day after a workout. After doing it for three months, I fully recovered from the IPF.
If I google "pulmonary fibrosis reversal" a number of things come up although they all appear to still be in the research phase. Never say never.
> Many members of this group function to stabilize new proteins to ensure correct folding or by helping to refold proteins that were damaged by the cell stress.
Although I love cold weather, and grew up some years in a fairly cold area, the concern I have about varying cryo treatment is the difference between passive cryo, and active cryo therapies involving exertion. This because of the well-known relationship between cold and heart attacks stemming from exercise with cold, often seen in snow shoveling [1], [2].
[1] https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/home-and-family/how-to/cold-...
[2] https://www.clevelandheartlab.com/blog/the-heart-risk-that-c...
Last winter I was drenched in sweat while shoveling my yard and it was -15c outside. Only wore slim pants and long sleeve shirt.
Fasting for 3 days (with water). Nothing happens. You maybe lose half a pound of fat if you walk for 4+ hours on the last day.
Etc.
Anyway, the core point is that there is a significant shock if you jump from a sauna into a cold pool. Don't try it after reading and then get a heart attack.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/well...
Toxins are naturally occurring poisons of plant or animal origin. Not heavy metals, not man made toxic chemicals. The word is widely misused.
If you have been poisoned by a snake, octopus, or platypus, seek medical help rather than the sauna. Stung by a nettle, maybe.
No, mass spectrometers are not that hard to operate.
> subjectively one feels better and thinks more clearly
How is that related to toxins? Is coffee also removing toxins because it helps me think more clearly in the morning? Is complaining about public transport to a friend also removing toxins because it makes me feel better?
> Saying that something is not affirmed by science is not equivalent to saying it is denied by science.
Thankfully science has given us tools to base our conclusions on more than our fallible subjective impressions and whimsical correlations. "It seems to help, must be that we're removing something bad" is how you get bloodletting.
Science can strictly speaking not prove any truth, so the incompleteness theorem is irrelevant. Science tries to establish useful models. A model's usefulness is determined by its ability to predict the future (roughly speaking), whereas models whose predictions turn out untrue are eventually discarded.
It is perfectly fine to throw in hypotheses for how things work - that's how science advances. But there is a fine line between suggesting a causation and assuming that it is true just because it makes sense but hasn't been scientifically tested yet. That's more or less the opposite of science, which is (I guess) why there has been a relatively strong response to your statements. That way lies healing crystals.
Could you elaborate on this?
It's still unclear how you think the concentration of these things on the skin will be lower with sweat dripping down (and evaporating) than when surrounded by a hundred liters of bathwater though.
This seems nonsensical. During the activity, bathing has your sweat diluted by a factor of at least 100, whereas your skin remains covered in sweat in a sauna. Afterwards, you remove the sweat (rinsing and/or towel) in both cases.
Your sweat in a dry sauna is a way for your body to cool itself, while you always “feel wet” you’re actually constantly evaporating sweat off you.
In fact, if you ever stop sweating in a dry sauna, leave. You are de-hydrated and it’s no longer safe for you in a sauna.
And even in the context of dry sauna, are you saying the mentioned toxins will all evaporate? Because if not, they will actually accumulate on your skin (whereas in a bath they will be diluted by the bathwater).
Health benefits from dry sauna start at a minimum of around 170ºF, but more typically at 180ºF, and often up to 195ºF. A "slightly too hot bath" would be around maybe 110ºF. Water at 170ºF would scald you within seconds.
Infrared sauna typically heats up to 150ºF, but this heats you from the inside, and so has a similar efficacy to 180ºF dry sauna.
Remember your core body temperature need only change a degree or two to trigger strong responses from the body. After about 5 degrees you're into hyperpyrexia which is life threating.
Bought a 3 person infrared sauna (through Costco) for about 1600$ 12 years ago.
There were periods we didn't use it but generally at least a couple times a week.
Gets you hot, helps you sweat, can be relaxing in itself.
But it's not same 'experience' as a traditional sauna.
I would probably say it was one of the best purchases I have made based on how much we used it, still running strong, has definately helped us over the years.
Sometime in the 90ties, saunas became quite common in Germany for some reason. Initially it was only some single saunas in addition to some fun pool. Later that expanded to more and more saunas, and then we got whole sauna areas with 10-20 different saunas, and they became very common. We have many of such places now in every bigger city. Those sauna areas have lots of events like putting water with different herbs on the hot stones every 30 minutes in different saunas, where you also get fresh fruits, drinks or other things. These 10-20 saunas cover all common styles like Finish, Russian, Turkish, and many others.
We also have a sauna at our university in Germany (probably also not really uncommon).
It's not just very relaxing. Which by itself is already very nice. Esp also after some extensive sport session.
But it's also a very nice social event. At the university, it's always nice to chat with lots of different people. When I lived in Finland (Erasmus), we also had a sauna at our student hostel, and basically every other place as well. It was always a regular event.
It's also interesting to see the cultural differences.
In Germany, everyone is naked, and the atmosphere varies a lot, depending where you go. Often it's quiet (more expensive public places), sometimes it's chatty (e.g. university), sometimes it can be annoying (cheap public places).
In Finland, you also have public saunas, but nothing like these big sauna areas like in Germany. It's usually 1-3 saunas, and you wear swimming trunks. The student hostel sauna was probably a bit special due to the Erasmus students. Sometimes we went with other Finish students to their private saunas. They usually put lots of water on the hot stones.
I also visited a friend once in Russia in Yekaterinburg. We also went to sauna a lot with other local friends of him, and also in our hotel. Russians put even much more water on the hot stones, and usually stay shorter in it (10 minutes or so), but make it hotter, and go more often.
That was just my experience.
I just checked the English Wikipedia on sauna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna) and it seems that the English language does not have a word for this?
You can also find portable indoor saunas:
https://www.amazon.com/portable-saunas-home/s?k=portable+sau...
Here's some article in Finnish about the current trend that new apartments don't necessarily have a sauna: https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9393813
It could be that most households have but also I've seen an article that people use them plainly as storage rooms.
https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_asuminen_en.h...
They surely aren't supportive of the current situation during these "Covid times." It only takes our collective will and resolve to allow our businesses to reopen, without restrictions and without guilt, shame, and fear of reprisal.
It's great for sweating out, not sure about how vetted the build material is given that silver colored coating insides of fabric seems to rub off.
also, can't remember the source but I believe excessive use (everyday, 30m+) contributes poorly to testicle health, to the point of making you infertile for a while. I imagine optimal sauna usage would involve using an icepack or alike if you did it everyday.