The semiotics of a sauna seem to lend themselves to the winter hygge for many people. However in most sauna-loving countries the sauna is a year round place and is as popular in the summer as in the winter. This might seem counter-intuitive for many people wondering why you would want to go into a sauna and sweat when it is already really hot outside.
People with ailments such as aches and pains as well as Lyme disease will still find relief from a sauna visit year round. The health conscious who are using the sauna for reasons such as heat shock proteins and workout recovery will likely also not want to take the summer off. But will the sauna compound the heat that we feel outside?
Saunas make our bodies respond better to overheating
As the weather heats up saunas help our bodies learn to regulate our internal heat better. Studies on athletes have proven that sauna sessions cause our bodies to become more efficient at regulating our internal temperature. This means your body will strain less when it comes to cooling you off. According to researcher Rhonda Patrick regular sauna use makes our body stain less to cool down. When you think about it this makes sense considering people adapt to hotter climates. If you visit your Australian cousin in their summer from your winter you might find the heat almost unbearable while they have been acclimated to find it comfortable.
There are several changes that your body makes as it get acclimated to higher temperatures. The first is an increase in perspiration. No this does not mean sweaty armpits, actually this is our body’s primary way to cool us down and the vast majority of our sweat simple evaporates. By allowing more efficient sweating earlier we can avoid our bodies compensating and causing the more embarrassing sweating we do when we are not heat acclimated. Sports teams in cool locations use saunas to get their players used to working hard in hotter locations. Research has shown that sauna use also lowered the bodily temperature of runners during races.
My first experience with summer sauna relief happened when I was living abroad in South Korea working as an English teacher. I was living in what is considered the hottest city in the country, Daegu (aka. D’Africa due to the high temperatures). This is a city surrounded like a bowl with mountains, leaving the heat to get trapped and build up. Therefore when some friends suggested we visit a local sauna house we were passing I thought they were crazy. One hour later I was a full convert of the summer sauna. Before the summer heat felt sweltering, after repeated sauna sessions separated by dips in the cold pool the weather outside suddenly seemed much more pleasant.
When the outside temperature is higher your body’s core temperature will also be higher
Since your body will likely need less time to warm up limit your sauna time to maybe around 15 minutes.
Saunas are normally built near water in Scandinavia, and Jimjilbangs in Korea almost always have cold water baths next to their extra-hot saunas.
This is important any time of the year, but extra important in the hotter months.