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Comment by storus | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone suggest why after covid I can't do Finnish sauna anymore? Prior to that I used to do 1-2x a week a sequence of 5x(10 minutes in sauna + 5 minutes cold water immersion + 10 minutes rest) which was absolutely great for both stress reduction and blood flow. Now if I do 5 minutes in sauna I feel like my skin was burning and I am about to die, and I need to recover for 1 hour from that to be able to just walk away from sauna.

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No idea. How hot is and was your sauna? Is it possible that it's hotter than it used to be? Maybe try one that's slightly less hot?

I've got the opposite problem: saunas don't seem to be able to make me sweat anymore, so I'm looking for the hottest saunas I can find.

The usual 95"C, nothing extraordinary. Sweating after covid got impaired, I might have some thermoregulation issue.

95 is pretty hot. At commercial spas I see them start at 70, and rarely above 90.

95 is normal where I live for Finnish saunas. Then there are other types of saunas that start lower, but Finnish are always around 95.

95 is high for Finnish saunas in Finland at least. Public saunas are very rarely so hot here, and few like it that hot.

Edit: to put it into some numbers, per one study[1] Finnish sauna sessions were on average at 75.9°C with SD 9.9°C. If we assume normal distribution, that means that more than 97 % of sauna sessions are at < 95°C.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6262976/

I actually like them that hot. I look for 90+ saunas, and once was in one that claimed to be over 100. Although I have no idea how accurate that is. They're very bearable to me. But if they're not bearable, of course you should look for a sauna that's not quite as hot. Or at least stay low; the higher you sit, the hotter it is.

You can have over 100°C. The amount of steam is a crucial factor. Even over 100°C doesn't feel that hot if it's dry, but at higher temperatures the "löyly profile" often becomes quite harsh.

In my case 95°C was without any steam; it caused me burning skin sensation and I almost collapsed after just 5 minutes, whereas pre-covid I could do 3-4 rounds of steam with towels pushing steam at me at the topmost place and last up to 20 minutes before I needed to leave.

I'm a big fan of soaking in hot water and have noticed that cardiac function seems to have a massive effect on heat tolerance as measured vs body temperature.

For example, if I've been totally sedentary for the whole day (and my feet are chilly+blue), a body temperature as low as 101F is unbearable. But if I've been actively moving around all day (and my feet are warm and pink), I only start getting uncomfortable at a body temperature around 103.5F-104F.

This also seems to correlate over a longer timespan re: exercise habits, consumption habits, sickness, etc.

Shot in the dark, but has your actual stove changed? When have you last changed the stones? Is the circulation of air worse?

If your skin feels hot my guess would be that the steaming effect might be disrupted by the water getting evaporated faster than before, and the circulation of air also affects the skin feel (that’s why a certain seating position can make sauna unbearable). You could also try to just turn it on at the lowest setting and see if it changes anything. Maybe the stones have gotten so old that old heat settings have sneakily turned unbearable.

Is the stove radiating too much heat? You want it to heat the air, not fry your skin! I once got a stove glowing hot because I had failed to get a high enough temperature going on the day before. It was the first time I tried a wood fired sauna myself. As long as the stove was glowing hot, I just couldn't enjoy the sauna.

Once in a while as I get sick I have to retrain myself to going to sauna (e.g. taking lowest level, even skipping the Aufguss, German infusion where temperature is raised gradually etc.)

Also IMO your body fat/water/lean muscle ratio may play a role. I once lost 5 kg due to Influenza A and all my sport achievements as well as sauna endurance were gone

Did it happen suddenly? Or did you go for a long time without using a sauna, and noticed the change only when you resumed? Did anything else about your body change, such as weight loss (perhaps from a GLP-1)?

It's possible that Covid had nothing to do with it, and your body is simply changing with age. It's depressing, but it happens!

anecdotal -but- it took me 6 months after covid for my breathing rate to go back to normal, and to be able to do consistent max our efforts of >190BPM for >5 seconds like previously

After covid I've found i cannot stand the cold. A friend of mine can't stand alcohol since.

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