Sauna use as a lifestyle practice to extend healthspan | Hacker News Reader

Sauna use as a lifestyle practice to extend healthspan

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298 pointsCharlesW209 comments

I have been going to the sauna of the nearby gym everyday for about 2 years now, rarely skipping it.

It is honestly hard to express how much I love the effects of it and how much I attribute to it. I can not live without it anymore.

If I wake up after a bad nights sleep and feel extremely groggy, sauna fixes it.

If I am overworked to the point where my head is pulsating, sauna fixes it, and I get another 2 hours of extremely focussed work done afterwards.

Bad mood, a cold, sore muscles, even certain types of headache, a sauna can fix.

I should mention that a sauna for me includes a cold shower immediately after leaving it, as cold as the shower will go. This is the key, the shock will make all the difference. Then you lay down, at least 10 minutes.

I do 2 rounds most days, it’s about 80C, I manage between 12-15 minutes in the first sitting, then 8-10 in the second.

I can not recommend it enough, it has changed my life.

how much do you pay?

It’s a regular gym that also has a sauna. Around 40€ per month will get you a gym with sauna in most cities in Germany I would say.

I just moved to London from Sweden, and I miss these european gym prices :(

In London, I can't find a gym/pool combo that is under 120gbp a month, and even at this minimum price; they're 1.2 meters deep and filled with sand, band-aids...and I am not kidding I saw a menstrual cup in one of them once.

I haven't been swimming since then.

I don't get London.

London being one of the most expensive cities in the world maybe has something to do with it…

Living in NYC I pay $225 a month for my gym that has non-crowded swimlanes + sauna, but ultimately I'd rather live in a shitbox apartment that costs 200/mo less and have the gym membership than live in a nicer place, cause swimming and sauna brings me enough physical and mental health benefits to be worth it. People talk about how good lifting is for mental health but I get way more from swim + sauna.

100% agree. I also do a swim 2-3 days a week and then sauna. It multiplies the mentioned effects greatly. I don’t think I could feel any better than I do after swim + sauna.

2 star surroundings at 5 star prices. Most unreasonably and incongruously poor ratio of living costs to service quality of any major megacity I've spent time in. Love it, but wouldn't live in London again in its current state unless offered an absurdly good reason for doing so. Rip-off Britain's shop window to the world.

A trashbag sauna is a few cents but it is possible the effect is placebo from going to a fancy place or sunk cost of owning a fancy one.

I do this too but with a steam room.

There also is a steam room adjacent to the sauna and from time to time I use it as well, but I feel like the heat does not penetrate as “deep”. What’s nicer is how the steam soothes the airways in comparison to a Finnish sauna.

So 12-15 mins + 10 laying down. Twice. ~ 40 mins or so per day you’re taking to sit/lay and do nothing (I assume you aren’t on the phone or reading/listening).

I wonder how much of this is simply the meditation effect / you’re just taking true mental breaks.

Yes that’s about right, no phone or anything, I just close my eyes. Sometimes I fall asleep.

It is very possible, that this is simply what it takes to sent my mind into a mental break.

I have tried Headspace and all that stuff and I see the benefits, it is just much easier to send your mind into relax mode after above mentioned schedule.

I've meditated a fair bit and done sauna a fair bit. The heat is definitely adding something different and a bit euphoric.

Sauna seems like a good remedy for sinus issues, and a lot of the problems you mention sound to me like symptoms of sinus congestion

Similar to Japan's snow monkeys, it was originally thought they go to hot springs to warm up. When observed, one of the primary benefits that was found is stress reduction. The monkeys have enough fur to stay warm in the cold and don't often need to go to the springs for food from tourists either. Not only does it reduce their stress, it helps with reproduction rates and extends their survival rates at the same time that was found.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_macaque

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/japanese-...

> Whereas the risk for sudden cardiac death was 22% lower for men using the sauna 2–3 times per week, the risk was 63% lower for men who used the sauna 4–7 times per week (…)

Aren’t patients with cardiac problems generally discouraged from using sauna? Wouldn’t that be a significant factor in this correlation?

It’s from a prospective study [1] so the hope is No, as long as the study follows people and their habits for long enough.

Edit: the first men in this study were enrolled in the mid 80s. I always have lots of respect for scientists starting such very long run initiatives. I would imagine it to be boring at times, but hard work begets hard data.

[1] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03221127#:~:text=STUD....

Ideally they would exclude from the study's analysis data any time in which a person was under such advisement to avoid the sauna for cardio reasons.

ideally they would include them and account for them in the analysis, as exclusion presents a confounding variable.

"Accounting for" using e.g. regression techniques is complex guesswork and leaves room for residual confounding. (Just try to imagine how exactly you'd do it in this case!)

There is no perfect solution, but simply excluding problematic data is often the least confounding option.

in this case, the data are not merely problematic, but actually relevant to the study's conclusion. excluding those data is certainly more confounding than including them, because those data are relevant to the conclusion of the study.

Imagine if you did a study on whether air bags in automobiles reduced fatalities, and excluded 'problematic' data involving cases where the occupants were injured by the air bag.

I'm not saying to exclude the event where the person got heart disease. I'm saying to exclude the data after the diagnosis, where the person is avoiding the sauna under doctor's advice.

This isn't difficult to do in a longitudinal study and would indeed be standard in many such studies. You wouldn't want to include data where the arrow of causation is known to run opposite to what you are trying to test for.

In theory these studies keep fixed populations, this is at times surreal as in long term pharmaceutical studies with smaller sample sizes it can happen that the control group ends up taking more of the studied drug than the non-control group.

The participants that suddenly dropped dead during the study were omitted from the results to avoid bias.

> 22% lower for men using the sauna 2–3 times per week, the risk was 63% lower for men who used the sauna 4–7 times per week

Extrapolating further, going to the sauna 10-14 times a week would make you immortal.

Checking with my slide ruler, can confirm your calculations are correct.

Extrapolating further, staying in the sauna indefinitely will age you down.

::accidentally falls asleep in the sauna::

::comes out 12 years old::

“Ahh crap!”

Only against sudden cardiac death. You could still get hit by a car.

> Aren’t patients with cardiac problems generally discouraged from using sauna?

If so, I've never heard about it. In Finland, sauna is usually promoted as something that improves cardiovascular health. Associated activities like rolling in the snow or winter bathing is a completely different matter, but it's perfectly possible to enjoy sauna without those.

I'm not a health professional, though, so check with your doctor first if you have heart problems.

This was also my experience in Finland. There were warning signs in some rented sauna’s for jumping into the snow or water after a sauna for people suffering from cardiac problems.

No note about sauna use in general.

In US they basically discourage or warn people not to use sauna if they have any kind of condition, including being pregnant or have been consuming alcohol.

In Finland most pregnant women have always gone to sauna and they haven’t observed any kind of birth defects any more than elsewhere.

Common sense applies and usually expected from adults in Finland. If you start to feel light headed or otherwise bad, you should leave the sauna and drink water or cool off.

ok please describe in detail or advise where I can get the full ritual of sauna in Finland, that sounds like blast.

Not generally, as far as I know. But of course, you have to be way more careful and conscious if you have a condition.

So maybe not use the hottest sauna and push your limits and maybe no more sauna competitions. (Who can stay the longest, there used to be a world championship in this, but not anymore after one of the finalists - died).

This is a good point, and was brought up in a response to a study from Laukkanen: https://sci-hub.se/10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.3432

> heart rate increases up to 100 beats/min during sauna sessions at moderate temperatures and up to 150 beats/min during hotter saunas. Although not an issue for healthy individuals, such a cardiac challenge may feel uncomfortable for participants with poor cardiorespiratory fitness and pre-existing disease. Simple adjustment for disease vs no disease may not entirely solve this problem since reverse causation bias (ie, health status affects the likelihood of a sauna session) operates within disease groups; the more severe the disease, the greater the fear of cardiac challenge... A more robust finding at reduced risk of reverse causation bias would be a graded association between number of sauna sessions and mortality in an initially healthy, cardiorespiratory fit population, but this was not observed.

Laukkanen responded with

> ...we did observe graded inverse associations with sudden cardiac death (SCD), fatal coronary heart disease (CHD), and cardiovascular disease (CVD) events, which are the characteristics of a true inverse association between sauna bathing and outcomes. Furthermore, results were carefully adjusted for socioeconomic status (SES), physical activity, and cardiorespiratory fitness...

Notably Laukkanen didn't say that the graded association was in an "initially healthy" population, as the first reply specified.

Lari and Tanjaniina Laukkanen do interesting research on this, notably the 2015 paper that shows up to 40% reduction in all cause mortality with 4-7 sauna sessions per week vs 1 (in 2315 middle-aged men over about 20 years):

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...

If somebody can afford 7 sauna sessions per week, money aspect of their life is likely sorted out which surely impacts all cause mortality.

If you have a sauna in your home (which most Finns do), then you can afford to use it 4-7 times a week even if you're not rich. Though maybe not with the current electricity prices, but earlier it was no problem. I'd say 7 times is a bit excessive though, but I know people for whom 4 times a week would be normal.

That’s a moot point. If you have a sauna in your home and the time to use it, you’re rich enough that the above holds true.

If only the authors had considered this...

> Noncausal mechanisms, including socioeconomic status and reverse causation bias, have been proposed as contributors to the KIHD findings (Kivimaki et al., 2015). Although differences in socioeconomic status may influence sauna access and opportunities for use, the robust dose-dependent associations observed between sauna bathing and sudden cardiac death, coronary artery disease, and cardiovascular events in the KIHD studies are indicative of genuine inverse associations (Laukkanen et al., 2015a). Furthermore, the KIHD studies were conducted in Finland, where sauna use is deeply rooted in the culture, and saunas are readily accessible (Laukkanen et al., 2015a). Similarly, whereas reverse causation bias figures prominently in observational studies and is a valid concern when investigating links between cardiovascular disease and lifestyle, the KIHD findings were adjusted for potential biases, including lifestyle factors such as socioeconomic status, physical activity, and cardiorespiratory fitness (Laukkanen et al., 2015a).

In Finland there is like 2M saunas for 5.5M people. Most houses have one, larger apartments have one, and apartment buildings have a shared one. It usually built inside the bathroom and can very small one just to fit 2 people. You can probably build one with $1-2k (if you do most of the work yourself). The most expensive part is the heater. It’s no way only for the rich.

Finland might be rich in global standard in like other western country but most people are middle class and generally lower wealth than some other European countries. they still use saunas.

Time-wise, it takes 1-2h to heat up a sauna. You can have one that the heater is insulated and has a top so it can be always on. Then you just remove the top and sauna is ready in 15mins. If you are working class, you still have time to a sauna in evening.

Now the main problem is the electricity cost. Many have wood heated saunas in the contryside or at their family’s summer cottage where you get the wood for free from your own forest.

Like I said, if you have a sauna in your home and the time to use it, you’re rich enough that the above holds true. Whether that’s most people or a only few.

Did you even read the comment above? Sauna usage in Finland has basically no correlation with socioeconomic status. Pretty much everyone has access to a sauna and the time to use one. Not only is it a tradition, but Finland goes to great lengths to prioritize the health and welfare of all its citizens, regardless of ones wealth.

This is a ridiculous position.

It was carefully explained how in the country where experiments were held, this technology is accessible to all but the most poor.

This hardly qualifies as rich by any measure.

To be clear, sauna in Finland is so universal part of the culture that it's hard to come up with a scenario where a person wouldn't have access. Every home has its own sauna or a shared apartment building sauna; office buildings often have saunas; prisons and military barracks have saunas; elderly homes, ice breakers and even remote archipelago lighthouses have saunas. Every public swimming pool has a sauna, and there are arranged sauna events for homeless people.

During hospital stays you probably do not have the chance due to health and hygiene reasons.

Like the parent posts already said, if you live in Finland you definitely have the means and time to use a sauna.

I propose that many people could easily afford a sauna in their home and would have plenty of time to use it if they got rid of their big screen TV and all form of paid tv.

Saunas are pretty common in places like Finland. It's pretty much part of a regular house, especially in the countryside. You'll find homes without running water will even have saunas. In the past homes without electricity would've had saunas too.

A sauna is just a room/building with a heater that (usually) has a load of stones in it and some (high up) benches. That's it, that's a sauna.

I once had a gym membership which included a sauna, and would often take some time in the sauna after a workout. It really just depends how you want to spend your time

Lots of gyms/clubs have sauna, and through group/family plans and such, they can be reasonably priced ( less than 100 a month)

I think this might be dependent on location in the world and the local culture. Where I am in Europe, sauna is commonly available and reasonably low-cost as a public space. But I can imagine many places in the US still only having sauna in country clubs or at high-end sports facilities. The POV that sauna is for the privileged few is perfectly understandable and yet hilariously alien to those of us from places where sauna is common.

The idea of having a completely private sauna- now that sounds like a luxury I can only hope to afford one day!

I think a good comparison is that in some parts of North America it's a given that you 'need' a truck to be able to do anything related to DIY or maintaining your home, or even to be able to live in more remote locations. Where as in Europe people just make do with whatever compact car they have, and if they need to carry more stuff rent a trailer or pay for delivery.

All gyms and pools in Europe have saunas, is that not the case in the US?

> All gyms and pools

I've seen one or two pools without, so it's not quite that widespread.

I've been doing 5 sauna sessions a week for about 25 minutes at 200F for about a year now. Once I've been sufficiently dehydrated from the sauna I take a multivitamin and chug some water. My thought is that your cells are more receptive to water soluble vitamins after being dehydrated and you won't just pee out the vitamins. I've seen a lot of health benefits such as clearer skin, good sleep, and no illnesses for the past year. That's my N or 1 study.

I mean, not to disagree with you, but I have seen those exact same benefits just staying locked up for a year at home because of the pandemic. Turns out not having a bullshit commute, eating more healthy and not interacting with other people does miracles for skin, sleep quality and the number of illnesses you catch :-)

But what would happen if you combined both? Best skin in the game.

You are not wrong I think, I can never go back to commuting every day, and I love cooking my own healthy food... but after 2+ years of lockdown my entire household seems to have lost all immunity to everything pathological. The amount of shit the kids seem to catch at school is staggering.

N=1 and highly subjective of course, but I don't remember A) our kids falling ill with random fevers so often, pre-pandemic and B) my wife and me being infected by them in turn so easily

As I recall, kids and teachers would regularly be low level sick during school, which seems to be supported here:

“It varies a lot among kids. But most babies, toddlers and preschoolers can have as many as 12 colds a year and still be normal. On average, you’ll probably see between seven and eight infections a year. This number may be higher for children who are in child care or when they start school. It’s also typical for kids to have symptoms lasting up to 14 days. And sometimes a cough can last up to six weeks. That means kids can be sick for a majority of the year and still have a pretty typical immune system.” https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/parenting/the-constant-cold-w...

Kids are basically building up their immune systems. With poor hygiene practices and a tendency to touch everything (and then their face or mouth) it's unavoidable.

That being said, I do remember that the first cold season after people started going out again being nastier than normal.

Holy hell okay that's... terrifying and comforting. Definitely feeling some confirmation bias on my part.

Is this now a N=2 study with grandparent as the test group and parent as the control group?

I take immunosuppressants and have a kid in pre-school, so maybe I should get a sauna...

I’m not sure that “not interacting with other people” is likely to be conductive to long-term health? The other things all sound pretty positive, however.

So perhaps they both reduce stress?

Wouldn’t taking a nice hot bath have similar effects? I also tend to feel a bit dehydrated afterwards, if the water is particularly hot!

Try to restrict the stay in the hot to around 10 minutes followed by 2 minutes immersed in cold water, repeating that 4-5x in a row with multivitamin/multimineral water in-between. That resets my brain and I feel like a newborn.

Yep I do this too. I have an outdoor shower that cools me off pretty fast. I gotta wait another couple months before there is snow on the ground to roll around in.

Cold shower is great, immersing yourself fully in cold water is like one notch more intense as body has no parts that are still hot anywhere. I basically see all my veins when I get out of the cold water, like after an intense 2h bike ride.

1 hour of sauna is quite the commitment.

Try it once, then evaluate ;-)

There's no commitment: you get cold enough that you are freezing, then hot enough you are... well, boiling. The cycle is what makes it fun and I guess, if it does, then this is where the health benefits come from.

I would skip the artificial vitamins and see if it makes any difference (I doubt it).

I rather would go with cold water shower/bath after the sauna and healthy food for vitamins in general.

Yes, there was a large study here in Sweden a few years back that indicated vitamin supplements tend to do more harm than good.

Seems like it’s been more or less confirmed by other studies as well.

Eat some fruit and a carrot!

Out of interest, would you happen to have a link or reference to those studies?

It might have been this[0] Swedish article that got me looking in to this some years back.

Here’s some more data[1].

You can quite easily find more research.

It’s clear to me that the science is inconclusive regarding benefits, at best.

We’ve evolved by eating and having complex processes take place inside our bodies to break down the food.

My personal take is that these processes in them selves can be important, and bypassing them doesn’t necessarily have positive outcomes.

[0] https://ki.se/forskning/vallagad-mat-battre-an-vitaminpiller

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22534785/

If you just pop vitamins in water without any fat ingested, the most critical ones solluble in fat will swipe through your body regardless. Its hard to give any conclusion just some limited experience, although I have no doubt that the procedure you describe benefits you overall.

I was doing before sauna quite often after workouts in the gym (well after weight lifting and not cardio, and not during summer) and it felt great. But it could have been 90% or even 100% the workouts. Its true that I often feel very tired after sauna, like a baby that just wants to sleep. Which may be great sometimes, but otherwise it isn't (ie coming back to work, or driving back for 1h from mountains).

Now during/after covid and after having 2 kids its a distant dream and I feel like shit.

> Research into the effects of saunas on people largely comes from Finland. It is generally of low quality and insufficient to make health recommendations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauna#Health_effects

TFA cites a number of RCTs that seem reasonably high quality to me:

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/circj/68/12/68_12_1146/...

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/circj/80/4/80_CJ-16-005...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01675...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41371-017-0008-z (this one isn't an RCT, it's just a pre/post design, but is still experimental)

Note: this list is not exhaustive, I just plucked a few out. I'd like to see slightly larger sample sizes in a few of them, but otherwise they seem structurally reasonable, and many are in Japan, not Finland.

These are all looking at various surrogate endpoints, and seem to be short term interventions. At best you could say they show saunas are safe for populations with heart disease. Cardiac and overall mortality would be the key endpoint to test in a large RCT. Even so, there won’t be a placebo. The control group would have to do something for it to be a fair comparison… perhaps something sauna-like but with less physiological impact (Massage? A cooler sauna?).

Looks like you can take this new study, and use it to expand that section (and remove the unsourced generalization about research being low quality)

(edit: did so myself)

https://opencorporates.com/companies/us_fl/L20000049338

second author’s affiliation is … a ghost company?

Big sauna pushing propaganda?

Most likely. He has his own podcast as well. In regions of Japan and Korea and Nordic countries where Sauna and Spas are a normal part of life are. Japan and Korea both have similar diets to America in recent years and similar health issues because of their dining out cultures yet both have high life expectancies. As do normal wealthy nations without them. It's safe to say life expectancy has more to do with advancements in technology rather than a fun and relaxing experience. One of the things I dislike the most about it all is that saunas are just meant to be relaxing but the involvement of psuedo science in it has been concerning but is also due to it's association with chiropracty and the Chinese Alternative Medicine movement that has been adapted over into Korea and Japan. Unironically through religion and shamanism. Chiropracty is a dangerous pseudoscience though massages at certain levels may be harmless and fun but have no real medicinal value.

>Japan and Korea both have similar diets to America

I do not think this is true. I don't love the world in data guy, but according to his work, Americans consume way more calories than Japan/Korea [0]

[0]https://ourworldindata.org/food-supply

This is in reference to the types of foods most commonly consumed by the average adult dailt in Japan and Korea. Dealing heavily in fried foods and high sodium content due to the regionality. It is similar to the Southern portion of the North American Diet the most but with less caloric content. Yet the same heart problems afflicting African Americans effect Koreans and Japanese the difference in survival rates is early detection and preventative measure. Which result in significantly higher life expectancies.

I am pretty sure obesity is a huge difference, unless you are including reducing it as a preventative measure. The diet may be the same but you are going to have way more heart problems at a BMI of 35 than 25. Anybody who has been to both Japan/SK and the South could tell you that there is a massive difference in BMI between the two areas.

> Chiropracty is a dangerous pseudoscience

Maybe true on some level, and there are certainly a lot of scam artists or misguided ones, but I've seen too many anecdotal cases of people with major issues that couldn't be solved by physical therapists somehow resolved or greatly alleviated by a chiropractor to write them off.

Placebo effect is very real. Just as many people who believe in alternative medicines. An essential oil can not cure you of anything.

Not nearly the same thing. You can't fix these kind of things with a placebo.

For one definite example I know someone who even took a dog after it got a vertebrae out of alignment and wasn't walking right and it fixed the issue.

sure you can.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34051018/

many chronic pain conditions respond well to placebo therapies. Because pain is more centrally mediated than you’d think.

The author of this paper has an excellent podcast about all-around fitness, including but not limited to sauna use. Lots of talk about sleep, nutrition, lifestyle, etc.

https://open.spotify.com/show/5QjpaU0o1Q2MkVZwwG3y7d?si=2845...

Has anyone tried one of these 1000-2000$ Sauna's one can buy on Amazon and similar? Are they good enough for average people? I'm living in a rented flat and think I could fit one on part of my balcony.

Surely you can "try before you buy" by visiting a local gym or sauna? And thus avoid buying, storing and setting up, all of which would be lost time and effort were it to prove unsuitable for you.

I read faebi's comment as wanting to have a sauna (perhaps from experience at a gym, etc. and liking it) and wondering if it those saunas were actually practical.

Thought that come to my mind are: How much power does it draw? How long does it take to warm up? How hot do they go? How easy are they to install? - and to take down when moving out? And to clean/maintain?

https://www.centurysaunas.co.uk/how-much-does-a-sauna-cost-t...

Says an electric heater (not infrared) sauna is about 4.5kW (about half my shower), takes about 40 minutes to heat up, then 20 minutes in it, so say 5kWh if you time it right, maybe 8kWh if you have a longer time in it or aren't perfectly tires. Even at current uncapped UK prices of 60p/kWh that's about the cost of a takeaway coffee.

I'd use a sauna a lot more if the UK were like Germany (I was in Munich recently for work and used it every day), however there are rarely saunas in UK hotels, and those that are require you to wear clothes! Sadly haven't got enough space at home for one.

If I understand things right, the tricky part for someone "living in a rented flat" like faebi would be the wiring, that is:

> For a small sauna, basic wiring may cost around £100 to £200

4.5kW @ 230V is 19.6 amp, while it seems the British outlet maxes out at 13 amp, like the following quote from https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/British1.html :

> BS 1363 plugs are required to carry a BS 1362 cartridge fuse. Existing BS 1362 fuse ratings are: 13, 10, 7, 5, 3, 2 and 1A ampere.

The same site says British ring circuits can typically handle 32 amp (see https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/RadialRingCircuit.html ), or 7 kW, so I assume the "basic wiring" cost is to wire into one of those existing circuits.

Which isn't something a renter can likely get away with.

In the US, 4.5kW @ 110 V is 40 amp, which is more than even a 20A circuit found in modern kitchens.

It'll require something like a dedicated 220V/30A line used for a water heater (again, in the US), which will handle 6kW. Again, not something I think feasible for most people renting an apartment.

Yes you couldn't plug in a 13A fuse. Wiring a single circuit back to your MCU and putting a 30A breaker on it isn't expensive though, assuming you have spare space on the unit. You didn't mention renting

I didn't, but my response was in the context of faebi's earlier comment in this thread, which clarified "I'm living in a rented flat and think I could fit one on part of my balcony."

I’m trying to figure this out too.

This would fit for me, and reviews seem good, but hard to really know - https://a.co/d/2wU3ycJ

Reddit seems to like this one https://www.cedarbrooksauna.com/36x42-near-infrared-cedar-sa...

Those are generally near IR saunas, right? I haven’t seen one that gets hot enough (although I don’t remember the exact details).

You feel like you've been duped by Skymall, but these $170 personal suana tents actually work https://www.amazon.com/SereneLife-AZSLISAU10BK-Portable-Infr...

If you can endure the mockery of your room mates, you will indeed get a good sweat going.

I bought one of these sauna tents and it was pretty underwhelming. I can barely stand 30 minutes in a real sauna - in this home sauna tent, I watched an entire movie (two hours) and had to get out more from boredom than the heat.

Clearly I'm trading low quality/cheaper for more time in sauna, since it does take more time to heat you up. I put a towel around the neck hole to accumulate heat, but I'm dripping with sweat in 25 minutes. I may not be Finnish, but the model I'm using really does get me going.

I bought one of the ~$400 tent saunas on Amazon and it was the best health related purchase in recent years. It only gets to 135 degrees, whereas the one at gym reached nearly 200, but it feels hotter and I can only last about half the time.

I sit in it at least once a day followed by a 10-15 minute cold shower where I drink a 32oz of water and another 32oz of water mixed with popular powdered green vitamin.

For these familiar with Whoop, I consistently have 5-10% better recoveries and sleep performance on the days I use the sauna. I also feel better which is what really matters.

Can you link to the one you bought and liked?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WC64NPQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

Worth noting, the first one lasted 13 months before the frame became fairly rusty/moldy from sweat. I would put most the blame here on me though as I was only one using it so I didn't always wipe up the pool of sweat after use. I would also say I'm on the extreme end of customers using it once or twice daily.

The second one, which I bought last month, now has a plastic frame instead of metal so should be non-issue. It also now has a washable foam floor panel I take out after each use to dry and can be machine washed.

Nerdy addition, I got paranoid about some Amazon reviews/comments mentioning EMF exposure so I bought an EMF meter to test the sauna. I don't remember exact reading but it rated lower than sitting in my car while idling. While it may still have been high for some, I justified it by the fact I'm driving far less since I WFH so in the end about the same.

I built a super cheap "traditional" dry sauna. It's basically an electric burner, a pot to increase surface area and humidity, a 25 foot roll of thermal foil, and a sleeping bag as the ceiling. I disassembled the burner, removed all the plastic pieces, and short circuited the safety cutoff. It's jank AF, but in the end less than 100$. AFAIK there aren't any dry saunas under $1000 - the heater alone is ~$200. Mine is also portable, so it's in the garage in summer and in the laundry room in winter. There are portable infrared saunas for ~$100, but most studies are on the "dry" type. I rubber band a block of ice to my phone and do my reading/social media in there, so the time cost is reduced. It's pitch black in there, so I have a very bright night light. No problems with air circulation - it doesn't get stuffy, even when I throw a dash of water in the pot.

https://i.imgur.com/Lml7Vms.jpg

2 years in and I haven't burned down the house... yet. I've since added more ceramic around the pot so burning myself would be very difficult.

(Reference to my post from the last time this article was posted on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28495062 )

Where do you sit?

On that very, very short wooden rectangle in the center of the platform in the photo. It's less a thing I sit on and more something I "asian squat" on. So I end up facing the burner (though it's now shielded with ceramic).

I got a sauna blanket about a year ago and enjoy it enough (considering the price and space it takes up)

https://higherdose.com/products/infrared-sauna-blanket

This was an interesting study:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

I've always wondered if you can get the same benefits from hot tubs, and maybe even hot showers.

Additionally, things happen in cold too - wonder if cold showers can release these, and at what temperatures /durations. (people have easy access to cold showers)

"Additionally, there are cold shock proteins - wonder if cold showers can release these, and at what temperatures /durations."

I am not sure about these, but if I do a very hot shower followed by very cold long enough I do get roughly the same sauna effect. Skin is tingling and on fire. Even more so, when ice bathing.

Hot tubs are only relaxing for me. I would not want to combine them with cold water and I doubt the effect would be positive.

Visiting Serbia, the hotel's sauna was broken, but they did have a working 'frigudarium', essentially a sit-in freezer. I did not last long though.

Does the sauna provide a significantly different outcome to a hot shower?

A sauna is hotter than a hot shower, unless you're showering regularly at 150-195 F.

A better question would be the effect on body temperature. Obviously, water transmits heat better than air

The shower is higher humidity though, and the hot water makes direct contact, so the heat is more conductive. Similar for a steam sauna, they are more potent at the same temperature. Also infrared saunas, but for a different reason (the light is absorbed directly into the tissue, without needing to heat the air). So it's definitely not just about temperature.

I can definitely turn my shower up for a hotter body experience than any sauna I've ever been in, and obviously it's nowhere near 150-195 which would be lethal.

Because the water is making direct contact with my body for much more heat transfer. The dry air of a sauna is vastly slower, plus you're sweating which provides evaporative cooling which isn't happening in the shower.

So I too really don't see how saunas are appreciably different from hot showers here.

You're sweating long after a sauna way more than any hot shower i've taken... so there is def something different going on

You said one difference yourself already: sweating.

Also in sauna you breathe the hot air in.

You simply have not had a proper sauna before. It can get your body way hotter inside and out than a shower ever could

i imagine hot shower also worse for your skin

Absolutely - it is nothing like a shower. Your skin releases sweat and your airways clear up because you breathe the hot air in and out. As you sit there and wait, your mind calms down too, much like it would during a proper work out. A sauna visit warms you up down to the core especially in a cold winter climate. For several hours afterwards you feel warm, even when out about in the cold. It’s like that nice hot feeling after a shower sticks around for several hours instead of half an hour.

Healthful hormesis (in nontoxic doses): saunas, cold exposure, fasting, breath holding, exercise could be included here too, I guess... Any others?

https://www.bluezones.com/2016/11/power-9/

Interesting link thanks! Of that list of 9 I guess you could label alcohol as hormesis. Not without controversy of course. And some argue plant intake is a form of hormesis.

I was raised on a place that reaches 49 degrees Celsius in summer. At night it would go down to a “pleasant” 37.

I have had enough sauna for the rest of my life, thank you very much.

I envoy an infrared sauna but they usually top out at around 140F. The studies they're referring to are Finnish studies that use dry heat (heated rocks) that go a bit higher than that to 175F+ which I'm pretty sure I'd enjoy less. So before you buy an IR sauna (which I've thought about), the published data for their health benefits is limited. Which makes sense, if it's easy it isn't as an effective stressor.

The usual and the right way to enjoy finnish sauna is by throwing water on the hot rocks every 30-60 seconds or so. That way the heat is very endurable, feels very nice and the sauna is actually very humid. Trust me, I am a finn.

Most of the studies I see listed refer to "Waon therapy" which use IR saunas. At least, the RCTs they cite seem to mostly do that.

This guy has great notes on building a sauna [1], if you decide to go the route of build vs. buy. Very opinionated, and has very low opinions of american prebuilt sauna kits.

1 - http://localmile.org/trumpkins-notes-on-building-a-sauna/

Another example of something that feels pretty awesome that is also good for you. I strongly believe that, in the US in particular, we somehow developed this warped Puritanical idea that things that are "good for you" need to be painful or taste bad. We've also managed to often replace things that are both exquisitely wonderful for the senses and good for you with "cheap knock off" versions that are worse for you in all areas, both health-wise and experience-wise. Think a delicious dark chocolate (consensus seems to be lots of antioxidant benefits) vs a Hershey bar that is loaded with more sugar and tastes slightly of vomit.

Some more things that feel wonderful and are good for you that many Americans seem to have trouble appreciating for some reason:

1. sleep

2. a delicious meal with lots of fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc.

3. a massage

4. exercise with friends (e.g. a jog or walk through the park, or a game of tennis).

5. a bike ride

> fruits

One that only belongs in careful moderation.

Edit: I'm getting downvoted, so I'll elaborate. The sugar content of fruit is not great for you. The beneficial effects of the fiber and vitamin content do not offset the detrimental effects of the sugar.

Treat fruit as you would a dessert. In moderation.

Fruits are fine occasionally, but they aren't a health food. Fructose is totally contraindicated. People need to keep this in mind when suggesting to eat plenty of fruits. There is no need to do so even from a Vitamin C standpoint.

Fruits have other vitamins. And aren’t they also a good source of antioxidants?

Vegetables are too, and they're overwhelmingly better for you.

You can get those vitamins from other vegetables that are less deleterious. Even beef contains pretty much everything you need but without the liver toxicity of fructose.

As far as antioxidants go, yeah... those are totally overrated. The human body, with the exception of Vitamin C, creates its own antioxidants. Adding exogenous antioxidants isn't particularly beneficial and can also come with some drawbacks. Any benefit you get from fruit antioxidants is outweighed by fructose. Sure, feel good about getting some anthocyanins and whatever from the occasional blueberries, but by no means do you need those, and don't pound blueberries every single day.

Generally, I agree, but "feels good" doesn't translate well between individuals. To many, eating a jelly donut "feels good", at least in the short term. Most people don't excel at long term thinking, and so whether one feels good probably isn't a great metric for whether one is doing something beneficial.

Another thing is that I personally wouldn't consider 4 out of the 5 things you listed to feel good, and in a few cases I don't even find them to be linearly beneficial. The kind of cardio exercise you mentioned (all exercise is cardio BTW) is something I don't enjoy before or after. Things like bike riding have both positives and negatives, and I am not a fan of the high cortisol state that results. I'm not saying riding bikes is bad, but if I was totally oblivious to the health benefits, I would find it to be a slog once I got over the novelty

Biking results in high cortisol? Doesn’t exercise reduce stress hormones? I’m assuming you’re saying exercise causes short-term spikes in cortisol?

I would add (controversially) "the sun" to that list.

The sun is delicious. The sun is also good for you. The sun makes you look good.

And yet Americans have an almost belligerent attitude towards the sun. Hats, sunscreen, long sleeved shirts, umbrellas. Adults, children, everyone is perpetually hiding from the sun, and they look kinda sickly.

Can the sun give you skin cancer? Yes, of course. (In the same way a sauna can give you a heart attack i suppose). But the benefits to overall wellness are incredible.

I guess it doesn’t help that many Americans are white European descendants that live in subtropical/tropical/mediterrannean climates.

Can’t you still benefit from sunlight with sunscreen on? I wonder what the risk curve for skin cancer from sun exposure looks like.

I believe this. I used to hate going in saunas because it was a bunch of old naked men. I get it, it's part of life, but if I wanted to see that I'd go to the maternity ward.

Recently found some saunas that are just a bunch of old men in trunks and towels. These guys are healthy as Odysseus.

Your local maternity ward is full of old naked men?

Both of my daughters looked like naked old men when they were born. Then again they do have a very ugly dad (AFAIK — havent done 23andme yet).

To save you all the scroll down,

7. Conclusions Sauna bathing is associated with many health benefits, from cardiovascular and cognitive health to physical fitness and muscle maintenance. It is generally considered safe for healthy adults and may be safe for special populations with appropriate medical supervision. Heat stress via sauna use elicits hormetic responses driven by molecular mechanisms that protect the body from damage, similar to those elicited by moderate- to vigorous-intensity exercise, and may offer a means to forestall the effects of aging and extend healthspan.

What is “healthspan”?

This word is used as an alternative to "lifespan," and means the period of your life in which you are relatively healthy. Just because you're living well into old age doesn't mean you're doing it with your health intact.

"just because you're living well into old age doesn't mean you're living well until your old age"

The problem with the sauna is that I have to sit with other men in various states of nakedness who are coughing, sneezing, listening to music on their phone speaker, or trying to talk to me.

Is installing a sauna in your home an option?

This has never been my experience with saunas. It's always like 2 other guys who just sit there staring at the floor

There's a place near my house where they let you rent an ir sauna room for 40 minutes at a time. It includes a TV so you can watch something or listen to music if you like. It's very nice. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something like this near you.

Oh, and applying various strongly scented lotions and oils that somehow become 100x stronger smelling in the closed hot sauna. You can't even breathe, but they're not going to listen to anyone telling them not to because they've been doing it for 30 years there, and who do you think you are, you newcomer?

Any decent shared sauna I've ever been to (many!) will oblige you to shower before and any devices are prohibited.. sorry to hear about your experience but don't give up on the general idea!

and unfortunately because of the high energy costs in Germany, the sauna that I used to visit weekly, will mostly be closed over winter, actually they closed it already.

yes the energy austerity will have so many sad downstream effects, including death of sauna culture :(

nuclear vandalists have a lot to answer for.

Yes, well, first Putin, then our government in the last 16 years for becoming so dependent from Russia and then ideology..

It is not the few people that oppose a single (bad) source of energy, it is the fine folks that have been making decisions about the power network for many years that have had you end up with no/very little power storage and a huge dependence on gas from a country that doesn't like you.

Love my sauna but never know if I'm staying too short or too long to achieve the positive effects.

I stay in maybe 5-10 minutes and have it reach 200F

I've been listening to Rhonda Patrick's podcast, FoundMyFitness. She's a Sauna buff and cites studies saying 175 degrees for 20 minutes 4-7 times a week is the sweet spot in a "Finnish Sauna" (ie not infrared)

Did you notice she is the first author of this review?

You might find this episode of Huberman Lab[1] helpful. He goes in depth on current research about why deliberate heat exposure benefits our bodies and how you can use things like saunas to trigger the benefits. I listened but didn’t pay too close attention to practices because I don’t own a sauna, but I’m fairly sure a lot of the content would be helpful.

[1] https://hubermanlab.com/the-science-and-health-benefits-of-d...

Have you tried alternating with refreshing cool showers or baths? That’s what I really like about sauna.

Real benefits start after the body starts feeling uncomfortable. Don't push it too much after that. Cool down, repeat 2-3 times.

Go for break once you feel you're done, go take a dip in a lake or roll in the snow (or a cold shower). After that, another 10-15 minutes in the sauna should feel nice. Repeat if you feel like it.

Here in Finland, it's customary to enjoy a cold beer in the sauna as well (or more, but that kinda nullifies any health benefits). Cooling your mouth down makes the sauna experience better -- if you don't want a beer then sparkling water will also do the trick.

Used to love this at London's Gyms - but after lockdown, they all seemed to take the opportunity to close down the expensive, prone to breaking saunas. And yes they were elitist and expensive. And I loved taking five minutes to relax before cubicle life.

In order to indulge in a sauna session you need free time. Also, saunas don't grow on trees. Access takes resources. I didn't see anything about how they controlled for this.

It's an interesting finding but it feels closer to coorelation at this point.

Unless they've calibrated on the social-economical level of the control group, it could be just a proxy for wealth. People who can pay for better medical access can have better health.

Most of these studies were carried out in Finland, where saunas might as well grow on trees. They have more saunas than households, and there are public saunas accessible to anyone for free. Financial resources aren't an issue there with regards to saunas - everyone has access.

I don't know about adjusting for free time, but the key studies in this review accounted for socio-economic status.

Good info. Thx.

But it would help to know exactly what this study did. None the less, even if saunas are ubiquitous and free, you still need free time. Being poor is more than a financial condition.

> you need free time

If you don't have 20 minutes a day to sit in a sauna that sucks for you, but it is not exactly a usual state of being.

One wonders if this is just a really complicated pathway for 'sweating is a useful tool in maintaining electrolyte balance within the blood, particularly with high sodium diets'

As the article describes, it's more concrete than that. Heat shock proteins such as FOXO3 are associated with longevity and regulate DNA repair and tumor suppression.

https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/sauna#molecular-mechan...

Where can one actually buy a decent quality Finnish sauna? There are a lot of crap products out there but what’s a good basic well designed 2-3 person sauna?

If you can find one through one of their partners https://eurodita.com/category/timber-sauna-pods-barrels/ are pretty decent.

There are some really odd design choices here. Barrel shape with large doors. That does not appear to be well thought out design. I’m really looking for either plans or prefabs that are well thought out and designed.

https://www.finlandiasauna.com/ has served me and my friends well.

Is it well designed? It seems ok but not clear how well thought out it is.

What exactly does well thought out mean? You mean an American one?

These are pretty much standard

https://finnishsaunabuilders.com/collections/outdoor-saunas

and just Google "Finnish Sauna" and you'll see it's mostly shed forms and barrels. A few Kota shapes are thrown in.

This guy has some good basic discussion on why the barrel shape is a poor design choice and not used in Finland .

http://localmile.org/blog/2020/11/05/notes-on-building-a-sau...

Basically there is not enough room in the bottom for cold air and the cold air Gradient is higher than it should be.

There are all sorts of other design considerations, that impact the convection and air flow that i dont think these ever even thought about

Can one use an iPad in an infrared sauna (say in a home situation). Is there any effect on the device? (Don't want to ruin a 12.9" iPad pro)

I would think it would probably overheat and shut itself down.

Not to be skeptical of this article...but I can easily make similar claims:

Just get a kayak and it will do all these things too if you use it. Exercise, vitamin d, nature, fresh air, healthier lifestyle.

You can jump in cold water after to stress you body in similar way to Sauna, and or take a hot bath with Epsom salts after you get home.

Bring a fishing pole and you can fish from the kayak too, so it can help feed you some delicious healthy source of protein. Heck buy two Kayaks and bring a friend. Now you have a social life.

related: The Science & Health Benefits of Deliberate Heat Exposure | Huberman Lab Podcast #69 (April 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ3GjpGq5Y8

I used to use the sauna at the gym I went to back when I lived in Montreal, well during the winter at least. I really enjoyed it. But I don't really know where there is one in San Francisco. Maybe when I am very old and somehow buy a house (?) I will get a personal one. But the idea of a public sauna is nice but I guess antiquated.

There are a bunch of places. Mostly spas and gyms

I haven't been here, but you could do it up _Rounders_ style...

https://banyasf.com/

This is a good one. Just be aware that it is clothing-optional.

SF has one of the best saunas I’ve ever been to: Archimedes Banya in Dogpatch. Tons of pools and sauna rooms at different temperatures, private rooms, food, outdoor balcony, and so on.

Gyms usually have it. Most 24h Fitness Super gyms have it. Check out the gyms' websites.

Archimedes Banya in South SF is a wonderful Russian bath house. There are 4 or 5 saunas of varying types, two hot tubs, a warm pool, and a cold plunge. I've been going there for at least 6 years now and it's always been fantastic. https://banyasf.com/

There are these sauna blankets[0] you might want to consider. It's basically a bag you lay in that uses infrared to mimic a sauna. I'm not affiliated in any way and have never used one so can't attest to its efficacy.

[0]https://stylebyemilyhenderson.com/blog/infrared-sauna-blanke...

Would doing hot yoga at 105F also have some of these benefits to a certain degree?

How much of the health benefit here can you get from a good hot bath?

Yeah, people talk about sauna in a health context (vaguely) but I almost never hear from them what the health benefits are supposed to be. I might be motivated to do it if there are benefits to it, but right now it feels like a bit of a chore.

What about lung (alveoli) damage due to extremely hot air?

Saunas or ice baths? Inquiring scrotums wanna know.

What if I just take a super hot shower every day?

What about hot yoga?

Doesn’t a hot shower function almost identically?

Clearly not. But it’s enjoyable.

How is this not just healthy (and rich) user bais?

In Finland, nearly everyone has access to a sauna, it's not a rich person's thing. According to some sources [0] there are 3.3 million saunas in Finland, per a population of 5.5 million. By some estimates [1], there are more saunas than there are homes in Finland.

[0] https://finland.fi/life-society/bare-facts-of-the-sauna

[1] https://www.finnwards.com/living-in-finland/how-much-do-home...

I used to love using the sauna but I don't have faith that I can avoid catching Covid in one.

The virus dies within a couple of minutes due to the heat.

If the person sitting next to you in a sauna has it, that's plenty of time to catch it? Also, there isn't enough heat to kill it in the locker rooms or rest of the gym (where I have access to one.)

It would likely depend lots of factors. A big factor should be how long you sit there, since it's a sauna you don't usually sit there for that long.

The gyms never closed here and they looked at the data. They found that gymgoers didn't catch covid in a higher degree than regular people during the pandemic, you should see if there exists a similar analysis for where you live.

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