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Is it true that new houses are constructed/architectured as "sauna first" and then everything else is planned around the sauna?

or is that just an urban legend claim?

I would say booze rather than liquor. Liquor sounds too fancy.

Are there any scientific results showing that this helps?

Tar?

I doubt they would replicate it or any of the magical effects of saunas. Lots of the sauna studies suffer from the same issue where people self-report sauna usage rather than being assigned randomly to a treatment group. In countries where saunas are readily accessible and most people are under the impression that the more you use sauna the healthier you are, the ones that use the sauna less are probably because they tolerate it far worse. And that's probably related with age, comorbidities, physical condition, etc.

Basically, the sauna studies are probably mostly discovering that "healthier people can stand sauna longer". In countries where most people don't stand sauna for more than a few minutes, that self-selection bias won't exist.

There’s a saying in Finland that foreign "saunas" are not true saunas at all, but rather just "untypically warm rooms".

The experiments where at 73°C which is a lot hotter than most gym/hotel/spa saunas I’ve been in outside Finland

And also replicated with participants not used to high temperatures inside a typical Finnish sauna. As the study said such people are very difficult to find in Finland. But I wonder if a person who has never been to a real sauna would tolerate this study protocol (2*15 min at 73° Celsius) without any training.

Sauna and hot climates may sound counterintuitive, but it has been tested by most Finns that when you come out of a hot sauna any outside temperature feels cool.

Ever heard of hamam?

It is hard to study this in a place with less access to saunas.

I just cannot fathom comments like this. I’m preeetty sure that the vast majority of people spend half an hour a day doing nothing, in front of a screen of some type. How many people do you think there are there who don’t have thirty minutes of leisure time once per week?!

Less doomscrolling, less bing watching of dumb Netflix series. Sensible working hours. And a society that doesn’t demand constant reachability when being off work.

It is not a luxury. It is living with common sense.

That might have an effect, but these studies are probably mostly selecting for people who can tolerate a hostile environment for longer, which are usually healthier. I find it unlikely that sauna alone explains the fantastic, almost miraculous hazard ratios that these studies report.

As an American: I soak in a hot tub for 30 minutes or more, at fairly high heat. At least a few times a week.

Sometimes posting on Hackernews.

It’s one of the high points of my day (the soak, not the posting).

This “I wonder” just screams lazy thinking.

Doing nothing for 30 minutes does not release cytokines.

I nearly made a screen time comment but you are right, its facility availability and travel time issue more than anything

People with high socioeconomic status work much more and have less free time. It’s absurd to claim otherwise.

EDIT: please before being outraged at my comment have a look at actual evidence, e.g. Time and income poverty by Tania Burchardt; bottom decile compared with top decile has 12 hours more free time a week!

It’s also great for certain mental health issues: spending time naked with a mixed crowd (yes mixed female and male) can be eye opening.

Saunas are a great leveller between humans all living the same experience yet feeling alone in doing so.

I heard that we often get cold/flu/sore throat when we get too cold outside, because the inside of our orifices is kept at a certain temperature to kill those bacteria/viruses. When we get too cold, we are unable to kill them fast enough, and get overrun. Staying in 70-100°C air for prolonged time must also heatshock those parts of our bodies, so I guess we kinda sterilize it that way.

At least my 2c why I think its helping

+1

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

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.

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.

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.

The sauna at my gym is regularly over 180F and I do 30 minute sessions. It is a dry sauna however, no steam.

I wager you are not Finnish.

IIUC the operating theory is that a short burst of acute inflammatory stimulus clears out the system to below the prior baseline.

Its not a storm though.

It does indeed increase internal temperature. Perhaps an artificial fever is part of it but I believe the science currently around heat shock proteins.

Yes, if by hot bath you mean submerging yourself to neck level in 40ºC or above water for 20-30 minutes. There's no reason to believe any "heat therapy" modality is superior to another as long as you suffer equal heat stress.

For the record, if you're not acclimated, intense heat exposure is a lot more agonising than 30 minutes of exercise for less benefit. If you haven't experienced a properly tuned sauna in your life you are in for a ride. What's being studied in the literature is nothing like your standard hotel experience.

It might not do the exact same, but it will have some effect. A lot of the benefit comes from the raised heart rate and opening of the blood vessels that the sauna produces, and I can expect that a warm bath would also have a similar effect. I think both are also known to reduce stress, which can help to lower blood pressure.

If you are a man, the hot water has a deleterious effect on your testicles' ability to make sperm. But so do saunas apparently.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23411620/

That one was 80-90C, which is a really hot sauna.

Almost certainly but most people don’t find it as enjoyable. Also the problem of keeping the bath hot enough for 20-30 mins.