How To Sauna Like a Finn

[@seanhenriques808]

thank you for the simple and easy to follow introduction to the sauna practice. The video was very helpful. Best of luck!

[@coachpyry]

Glad it was helpful! Enjoy the löyly my friend 😊

[@ProjectExMachina]

I was in a sauna in a hotel for the first time yesterday. Alternating between sauna and a cold shower just felt right. An hour flew away and I still feel so good. Though, I'm low-key sad that I've waited till 44. I have a feeling that my last 10 years of hardship would be much easier to handle with the regular use if sauna

[@coachpyry]

Thanks for sharing, and sorry to hear about your hardship. Better late than ever. However, perhaps you wouldn't have known how to appreciate the simple joy of sauna use without your hardships.

[@Beno-pi1up]

Not drinking alcohol doesn't make you a pussy, it makes you healthy and responsible. Thanks for the sauna tips. Could I get your opinion on which sauna to buy?

[@coachpyry]

I know, it was a joke :) My pleasure! Do you mean which heater or a complete sauna build?

[@Beno-pi1up]

@coachpyry Complete Sauna build, the choices are Revel Tampere 1 person Traditional Finnish Sauna, Nordhaus 2 Person Traditional Sauna, and Rejuvenex - Traditional 2 Person Sauna. All Saunas use Harvia. Thanks 😃

[@coachpyry]

@@Beno-pi1up Interesting, I've never tried any of those, so I'm hesitant to recommend them. I'd look for independent reviews and pay attention to things like heater, airflow, seat height, and wood type. (If they all use Harvia, then that box is ticked :))

[@MzAlexZ]

Great video bro, thank you for passing your Finnish wisdom on to us. What’s your opinion on sauna tents? I’m not in a position to build a proper sauna yet as I constantly move so the tents are more practical. Got one recently, with a wood stove and heats up to 100 degrees. Think it’s BS or more or less will do the job?

[@coachpyry]

Pleasure mate. No, sauna’s don’t have to be complicated. A sauna tent will absolutely do a great job with a wood stove. Enjoy the löyly my man!

[@doyouuptown]

Thanks for this tutorial. I’m a woman in NY running my sauna in a sweat tent w/Wood burning stove and managing my löyly.

[@coachpyry]

My pleasure! That's great, sauna builds can be super simple!

[@Xydroos]

One of best saunas i have ever been was tent sauna, here at Finland on scouts camp. 3m by 3m by 2m light wooden frame upholstered with fabric and bottom left open. then you have two 200l metal barrels, with half way upwards rocks and camp fire below, fire goes through rocks without chimney. Once rocks are hot enough, you take shovel and remove campfire and stack it to below other barrel. then throw some water over rocks to get rid of sooth and smoke. Lift that wooden frame over barrel and you have really good and hot sauna! I think there were wooden platform already on ground around both of barrels.. i can't remember were sitting platforms attached to wooden frame or were they free standing around barrels. While other barrel is used as sauna, other one is warming up over campfire. then you simply switch between them and continue.. If there are several users sauna might cool down over time, with this setup there is not fear of that.. With scout camps around 4k to 17k scouts, there is always queue to saunas (there are several).

[@coachpyry]

@@Xydroos Thanks for sharing! I've never tried a tent sauna myself. It's a great example of saunas do not have to be complicated to function incredibly well.

[@vs4147]

Should head go beneath water after sauna? One guy on YT says never sauna over 10 minutes and always immerse whole body underwater afterwards. Then I heard a Finnish women say NEVER take head under water. I think you're correct. Sauna is about relaxing and we shouldn’t be timing ourselves!

[@coachpyry]

It is very common practice in Finland to alternate between swimming in a lake and bathing in the sauna. I think that's total BS, you can absolutely immerse yourself in water after sauna 👍You should try it if you ever get a chance, it's the best thing in the world. Book a week at a lakeside cabin in Finland with a wood heater sauna. The best week of your life.

[@Xydroos]

About "head under water" part is mostly if it's "avanto". Avanto for us Finns is hole in lake or sea ice, where you go swim between sauna visits. If you stay too long or dip your head below water surface, you may start to feel dizzy. Walking while dizzy might lead to accidents. If it's summer and water is warm (15C or more), we simply jump to lake without care directly after sauna (be sure it's actually safe to jump to lake, taking into account the depth etc.). With proper pumps circulating lake/sea water it won't freeze, even if it's below -20C outside and water might go below -1C etc. When water is zero degree you don't want to dip you head there..

[@coachpyry]

@@Xydroos Nothing makes you feel alive like alternating between a lake and a wood-fired sauna :)

[@JoeBloggs-ws8hm]

Currently designing my own sauna, unfortunately it must be electric. Do you know some of the electric saunas that are close to the wood burning sauna löyly as you mentioned in your video? Before watching this I was thinking a Harvia KIP 6KW heater for a 6m3 sauna but would be open to suggestions if you had any. Excellent video btw, thanks!

[@coachpyry]

Glad to hear you enjoyed the video! I'm sure any Harvia heater will do a good job. Do you have much experience from using saunas? I like the löyly pretty strong, so I would probably get a heater with a little more horsepower, such as the smallest Cilindro model (6m3-10m3). Those models with more rocks will produce a very nice and humid löyly.

[@JoeBloggs-ws8hm]

@@coachpyry I've been using the saunas in public gyms regularly for 15 years or more but here in Ireland the heater tends to have few rocks as löyly isn't really a thing. Our sauna culture isn't as developed as it is in Finland unfortunately, for example if you went into the sauna without swimwear here you would be banned for life 😆 (hence the need for my own sauna). Thanks for the suggestion, my local Harvia dealer recommended the Harvia Glow Corner 6.8KW heater with 50kg of stones. I will also enquire about the Cilindro model, thanks a million!

[@coachpyry]

@@JoeBloggs-ws8hm Hahaha, yeah, you know what's funny: If you went to a public sauna while wearing swimwear in Finland, people would be suspicious! I'm glad to hear that, mate. Good luck on your journey! Did you check out the video about how my sauna was built? kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJqXhIKjadqra6M

[@Xydroos]

Finnish sauna manufacturers have guides to decide which size of heater you need by m3 of your sauna size.

[@coachpyry]

@@Xydroos Yep. Personally, I recommend erring on the side of more horsepower. That way, if it gets too hot, you can always reduce the heat as needed, but you can't make a room hotter if the heater isn't strong enough for the size of the room.

[@solidmaluko]

Hi, I have been doing sauna for maybe 22 years but only now I have mastered the way, I love your explanation, I have a question, why don't you have like a cold tub or something to dip after or a cold shower after? I regurlaly do it at the gym ist's about 100º C most of the time so its pretty hot, I use a product my father brought from Germany that's China Oel (Peppermint Oil) and use it on the rocks for opening up the sinus. But don't you feel the cold water is a faster way to get your heart rate down and your bloodpressure down so you can go again?

[@coachpyry]

Hi, glad to hear you enjoyed the video! In fact, I’m the process of building a cold plunge. In Finland, it’s very common to dip in a lake in the summer or snow during the winter. It feels amazing, and you’re on the money - it allows you to go back to the sauna again to enjoy more löyly 😌 Do you throw löyly?

[@solidmaluko]

@@coachpyry Yes, our sauna works really well but the floor sometimes retains a bit water because its opening the door a lot of times a day, sometimes I open the door and ventilate a bit of air just to drop more water to bring the loyly up, and on the higher bench because it has 2, it's really hot and after the initial hotness when it stabilizes it's imensly pleaserful. I want to open a chain of Sauna Clubs here, I'm really curious about Vihta since I never felt it, it's on my to do list pretty soon :D

[@coachpyry]

@@solidmaluko Fantastic! Where are you based? Vihta feels amazing :)

[@solidmaluko]

@@coachpyry I'm based in Portugal! :D

[@coachpyry]

@@solidmaluko Fantastic, I'm so happy to hear that there is a sauna fan in Portugal :) I assume it's not very common?

[@vjekan]

Subscribed! Great video, I'm very interested in building my own sauna and will go over all the videos on the topic you have. keep making sauna content in my opinion, there isn't much of quality content on youtube. One question: Do you use essential oils added to the water for throwing? if not, would you recommend against it?

[@coachpyry]

Thanks for sharing man! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the video and subscribed. More sauna videos coming! I don't use essential oils because I find them overpowering. Another reason is that natural oils such as lavender and tea tree oil are mildly estrogenic. I like testosterone :)

[@kke]

A word about the benefits: cardiovascular diseases are a huge public health problem in Finland. Maybe sauna is actually causing it? Well maybe not, but it is entirely possible that the people who used the sauna more and had less cardiovascular issues were actually using the sauna more because they didn't have cardiovascular diseases in the first place and were feeling well enough to go to sauna more often. It is entirely possible that going to sauna didn't help them avoid CVD, not having CVD allowed them to go to sauna. The study doesn't take into consideration if heating up the sauna, making firewood, filling the buckets, etc was actually enough exercise to keep CVD at bay. Maybe using an hour a day to relax is what lowered stress and CVD? Of course there may be some benefit in the sauna itself but it shouldn't be the main purpose.

[@coachpyry]

That's an interesting point; I've considered it, too. Could it be just that you're sitting in a quiet room? Maybe. However, the research on the health benefits of heat shock protein activation through heat stress is starting to be pretty robust at this point. I'd recommend reading the paper I cited there. The fact that the results were linear (the more you sauna, the healthier you are) would indicate that the sauna is producing the result. jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2130724

[@kke]

​@@coachpyry "The fact that the results were linear (the more you sauna, the healthier you are) would indicate that the sauna is producing the result." - or the healthier the people are, the more they go to sauna, since going to sauna is the modus operandi for Finns. It's hard to keep a Finn away from the sauna so they didn't have any control group that would stop going to sauna altogether. The heat shock thing may have something to it, but I think it's more about post workout muscle recovery for athletes than health. Sauna may be beneficial but I don't think it's just the act of sitting in a hot box that does it.

[@coachpyry]

@@kke@kke They had a group that went to the sauna 1 x per week, a group that went 2 to 3 times per week and a group that went 4 to 7 times per week. The men were 42-60 years old at the time of recruitment from Eastern Finland. The group that went 2-3 times per week had 23% or something lower risk of cardiovascular problems and the group who went 4-7 times per week had double the benefits. The same thing for all cause mortality and the risk of neurological diseases like dementia and Alzheimers.

[@solidmaluko]

There are a lot of studies proving this is the contrary, in fact Sauna were invented to avoid the need of a doctor, furthermore sauna was used for the finnish women to give birth and to die with a lot more confort, and you think that's not enough evidence to tell you that Saunas have been here for milenia and are extremely good for your health!