Beyond the Heat

Discovering the Rich Social, Cultural & Immediate Benefits of Sauna with Alan  Jalasjaa

These days, everywhere you turn, you hear celebrities touting the health benefits of saunas.

Medical professionals are as well—including Peter Attia, a physician and author of The New York Times bestselling book Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. When it comes to sauna and increased longevity, says Dr. Attia, “The burden of evidence is so strong, it’s becoming hard to ignore … When you look at the largest published series on this, you see a benefit in all-cause mortality—a relative risk reduction of 40 percent and an absolute risk reduction of 18 percent. Those are ridiculous numbers.”

It makes sense that those numbers are turning heads. As a Canadian of Finnish descent, I grew up with sauna (a term we use less as a noun and more as a reference to the activity or experience). My summers were spent at my grandparent’s cottage in the Kawarthas, a two-hour drive north of Toronto, and where sauna was a family affair. Now, as a self-described “sauna evangelist,” a sauna builder and the host of a podcast dedicated exclusively to sauna, I’m thrilled to see so many people discovering the wonders of sauna for the first time.

But, I am concerned that some of the new converts are getting into it for the wrong reasons, i.e., focusing too much on the long-term health benefits and missing the bigger picture.

I’ll tell you why.

First, there is so much more to sauna than just the health benefits.

In Finland and other Nordic countries, people have been using saunas for thousands of years—long before the advent of modern medicine. It’s likely that the Finns always understood the health benefits of saunas without requiring medical studies to confirm it.

But would Finns still sauna if there weren’t any health benefits? Absolutely. The reality is that Finns were, and still are, far more focused on the social, cultural, spiritual and meditative benefits of sauna. Finns understand that sauna provides a special kind of solace from the demands of daily life and a particular type of shared space—a place where barriers are broken down and new and old relationships are nurtured. 

It’s also important not to focus solely on the stats indicating the long-term health benefits of saunas. After all, research tells us that abstract, future-looking prognoses are a terrible motivator for self-care activities like diet, exercise and sleeping. Why would the sauna be any different?

When it comes to sauna, there are so many tangible benefits that give you an immediate payoff in the here and now. Sauna use gives you a significant release of dopamine (a neurotransmitter) and beta-endorphin (a neuropeptide hormone), both of which instantly make you feel good and improve your energy, mood and pain tolerance. After a sauna session, most people report sleeping like a baby, having less anxiety and stress and having a greater sense of wellbeing than they did before. There’s also the communing with nature that happens when using an outdoor sauna, especially if there’s a nearby body of water to plunge into between sessions— and the sense of community around enjoying some post-sauna beverages and snacks.

Then, there’s the theory that the sauna just makes people happier overall. Case in point: Finland has been named the happiest country in the world for seven straight years by the World Happiness Report. There are also three million saunas in Finland for 5.5 million people.  Coincidence? I think not. (OK, maybe having a really good social safety net helps, too, but still.)

The point is: there are so many short-term benefits to sauna use and studies show that those short-term perks are what keep us coming back for more, thus enabling us to enjoy all those long-term health benefits that sauna provides in the end.

For these reasons and others, the demand for home-based saunas has seen a dramatic increase in the past five-plus years and will continue, thus creating a unique opportunity for the landscaping community. 

In the wake of this emerging global trend, landscape designers and contractors need to understand and accept that more and more people are viewing their private yards as a sanctuary, not just a place for flipping burgers on the weekend. They want to feel invited into this special space, whether it’s for serenity and calm or social connection with family and friends. A well-designed space with a quality sauna installation can accomplish both and much more.  Homeowners will cherish what they have created and those same friends and family will want to visit time and time again. What could be better for growing a business than to have customers that are the envy of the neighborhood?

By having the ability to incorporate unique features, like a sauna, the value-added proposition goes way up, resulting in more compelling projects that become part of your brag book.

Need convincing on how including saunas in your offerings can translate into a healthier bottom line and better clients? Go ahead and send me an email at alan@kivia.ca and let’s chat.

Portions of this article first appeared in The Globe and Mail.

About the Author

Alan Jalasjaa is the Canadian representative of Sauna From Finland and the host of the podcast Kivia: The Spirit of Sauna.
Email: alan@kivia.ca
kivia.ca