Hacker News Reader

Comment by ffritz | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com