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Comment by gchamonlive | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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