Sauna
Created | Updated Apr 29, 2003
Definition:
Finnish-style steam bath
In other words sauna is a room heated to a temperature higher than normal. People go into saunas to sweat. Normal sauna temperatures are in the range of 60-100 degrees Celsius, some like it hot and some slightly hotter, but it is just a question of personal preferences. Moisture of the air inside saunas varies, depending on how much water has been thrown on the rocks and how hot the stove is. If the air is very dry, it is unconfortable to breath.
Heating methods
Sauna stove can be heated with wood or electricity1. Those stoves that use wood normally have a chimney, but the most traditional version doesn't and therefore it is called smoke sauna.
All smoke sauna stoves and some of the stoves with chimneys are so called "once-heated" stoves. In this system stove has a very large rock mass (400-500 kg) that preserves enough heat for several hours of serious bathing. Heating takes from three to six hours depending on the size of the stove and the sauna.
"Continuously-heated" stoves are far more common nowadays, since they are much easier and faster to heat. Fire is kept burning or electrons running during the bathing and stove has only 20-40 kilos of stones.
Seating arrangements
Benches2 are made of untreated wood, metal would feel too hot under the naked skin and plastic seats would melt. Normally benches are on one or two walls and rise stepwise from the door. Normally there are three steps and you sit on the third and keep your feet on the second one3
What to do in sauna
Sit down or better yet, lay down if there is enough room. Let your mind wonder and relax. Throw water on the rocks and enjoy the feeling of steam hitting you. If you are curious enough, try beating yourself with sauna whisk.
In sauna there are really no "have-tos", you don't have to stay in this long, sauna doesn't have to be this hot and so on. Just listen to your own body and do what feels good. If you start feeling uncomfortable, get out, cool down4 and go in again or quit altogether.
Swimming as part of having a sauna
Swimming, Finns prefer their saunas by the lake, sea, pond or river. Nothing refreshes quite like a plunge in to cool water and for climate reasons water in Finland is quite often cool. During winter months swimming means a little bit more effort since you might need to make a hole in the ice. Of course not all saunas are next to water5, but plunge pools with cold water or even normal pools are good substitutes. Some people like sitting in a hot tub as part of their sauna rituals.
Hints that you are not in a real sauna
Any of the hints listed below is alone enough to prove that the sauna you have entered is not a true Finnish one.
- Floor is covered with wall to wall carpet
- There is no floor drain
- There are no stones in the electric stove
- There is a clear minute by minute timetable about proper usage of sauna6
- Benches are made from metal, plastic or painted wood
- Thermostat won't go over 40 or 50 degrees Celsius
- There is a American style warning label nailed to the door
Steam Rooms
There is also the slight deviation on saunas of steam rooms, often scented with menthol, which when entered cause white blindness and a tendency to bump into things which cannot be seen since the manufactures thought white was the obvious colour choice for them. Also for some the problems with seeing, manage to extend so far as to not notice who is actually in the room and where they may be, causing such people to fumble madly bumping into everything and everyone, regardless of its colour or size.
