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Health Matters

Guide

Sauna in Finland

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Some History

Sweat baths have existed througout much of the worlds cultures, and can be dated back more than 2000 years. Where "the" Sauna, as a particular form, came from originally, is not exactly known. There are theories according to which it originated in the Byzantine or Scythian world and then migrated via slavic people into the finnish groups. However, the basic idea of heating a small room or tent for sweating seems to have been invented more than once on the earth: The native american sweat lodge is a similar facility, the mexican Temescal is, and also there are hot rooms in Japan.
But at least the fixed stove can be traced back to slavic heating facilities of the 5th to 9th century.
Originally, the sauna was a dugout in the earth. Reports dating of the middle of the 9th century give evidence of the use of sauna-like earth holes: Ibn Dasta reports:

"The winter is so cold in the land of the Slavs that every one of them digs a pit, resembling a cellar, which he covers with a roof ... and covers the roof with earth. ... They take some stones and pieces of wood. They heat the stones until they are red, and when the stones have reached the highest temperature they pour water upon them, producing the steam which heats the room so much that they take off their clothes" [3].

From that hole, saunas developed into rectangular log cabins. Ibrahim Ibn Jakub, a jewish-arabian doctor, who was probably on a legation from the caliph of Cordoba to the german emperor King Otto I, reports from the slavic border regions in Mecklenburg and Bohemia about the year 972:

"The Slavs build baths as a room of wood, the chinks they block with moss. In a corner of this room they build a fireplace of stones and leave an opening above it for the smoke to escape. When this fireplace has been heated, they seal the opening and close the door. There are vessels filled with water in that room, and now they pour water on the stones, so that steam arises." [3].

Another account of saunas can be found in the chronicle of Nestor, which is believed to be a compiliation of the works of many people. This report dates back to about 1056:

"Strange things I saw in the slavic country on my journey. I saw bath houses made of wood, one heats them. Then one undresses, is naked, and pours some fermented liquid on oneself. Young twigs are used to beat oneself, and this heavy that they can only crawl down: Half dead. After that one pours ice cold water on oneself and only this way gets alive again." [5].

From that culture and from the roman tradition of thermal baths a Bathhouse culture developed. Those bathhouses can be found in middle Europe during the 15th and 16th century, but this tradion dissapeared again. For a long time only in Finland a living sauna culture existed. The sauna was originally - and in Finland still is - a place for washing and personal hygiene. Therefore, it was most commonly placed near some water, river or lake.

As finnish cities grew in the beginning of the 18th century, the sauna use decreased there. Only on the countryside it remained stable. The "national awakening" in Finland, a national/romantical movement at the beginning of this century, brought the sauna back to the finnish common mind ([WWW1], [2]). The sauna became popular again, first as holiday saunas, later as a natural part of finnish homes.

From Finland the sauna spread out to other parts of the world: The first Finnish saunas in America were erected in the Delaware River valley in Pennsylvania in 1638. It is reported that Finnish Settlers build the sauna first, then the house. The first public sauna in America was opened in the city of Calumet, Michigan in the 1870's ([4.]). The Finnish athletes built their own sauna at the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936. This was the starting point for the sauna to spread in central Europe. First, of course, this happened only reluctantly due to World War II. After the war, the sauna found increasingly more supporters. In Germany this was enforced by soldiers returning from Finland, who had become acquainted with the sauna during the war. The sixties saw the sauna ascent in the United States. ? reason can be thought of:  there was the journey of the American Vice President Johnson to Finland in 1962. The journey went through the papers and Finland and the sauna started to be a topic of conversation. A sauna boom in America began, home saunas became a status symbol.

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Health Matters

• Physiological effects:
  
  Circulation:
  The heat is stimulating the blood circulation in the skin, rising the pump volume of the heart from the normal 4-6 liters per minute to 9-10 liters per minute. The blood pressure seems sometimes to increase, sometimes to decrease according to the studies; probably the frequency of sauna-visits plays an important role here; blood vessels expand in the heat, decreasing the blood pressure. The pulse rate increases from normal 75 beats per minute to 100-150 beats per minute.
  
  Respiration:
  The respiration frequency increases. On the long term, regular sauna visits seem to decrease the normal respiration frequency.
  
  Body Temperature:
  Because the skin temperature increases due to the heat of the steam room, sweat is produced. But the sweat cannot fulfill its normal function of evaporating and cooling down the skin, instead it absorbs even more of the external heat. Nonetheless, the inner body temperature does not increase much (about 0.6°C during a 5 minute stay).
  
  
• Psychic effects:
  
  Both sauna bathers and scientist agree, that people are relaxing during a sauna bath and still feel relaxed afterwards.

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The Beginner Sauna Bather's guide

How To Bathe in a Sauna

You should first take a shower and enter the sauna still wet. Sit back for a while and let the heat permeate your body and open the pores of the skin. After a short while take another shower - cooler this time - to get thoroughly clean before re-entering the sauna and then take your time to relax and enjoy the warmth.

The temperatures in a sauna are of the order of 60 to 100 degrees Celsius. The air can be relatively dry so water can be sprinkled over the stones to increase humidity.

A cool, refreshing bath or shower after the sauna completes your relaxation.

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Sauna in Finland

Sauna is an important part of the culture in Finland, more than anywhere else on the world. Therefore, it is worth to spend some words on the use of sauna in this particular country.
Finland has about 5 million inhabitants and about 1 to 1.5 million saunas. In former times, the sauna was most of the time the only available clean place with abundant water, it was used whenever water, warmth and shelter was needed: For healing ill people, for giving birth to children, the usual place was the sauna. The Kalevala, Finland's national epic (which contains much religious and traditional material) includes several sequences describing the importance of sauna for everyday life, and as a social activity. The sauna means a lot to the Finns. In many modern finnish homes electrically heated saunas are part of - or replace - the bathroom. But there is also a enormous number of public saunas. They are not just a place to get clean, but also to relax and socialize. Business people and politicians meet in saunas. Sauna evenings are organized by all communities, who want to come together for an evening: Students, employees of one department, sporting clubs - if they meet for informal reasons, this will most of the time take place in a sauna.
Sexes are normally separated during sauna bathing. Men and women either use different saunas, or they are bathing in shifts. But Finns do not see anything sex-related their sauna tradition, so if for some reasons the above rule is suspended, this is not seen as something extraordinary strange.
The sauna meeting is commonly followed by a supper, beer is the beverage that comes along with it.

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