Sauna

Technologies

Today there are a wide variety of sauna options. Heat sources include wood, electricity, gas and other more unconventional methods such as solar power. There are wet saunas, dry saunas, smoke saunas, steam saunas, and those that work with infrared waves. There are two main types of stoves: continuous heating and heat storage-type. Continuously heating stoves have a small heat capacity and can be heated up on a fast on-demand basis, whereas a heat storage stove has a large heat (stone) capacity and can take much longer to heat.

Heat storage-type

Smoke sauna
Smoke sauna (Finnish savusauna) is one of the earliest forms of the sauna. It is simply a room containing a pile of rocks, but without a chimney. A fire is lit directly under the rocks and after a while the fire is extinguished. The heat retained in the rocks, and the earlier fire, becomes the main source for heating the sauna. Following this process, the ashes and embers are removed from the hearth, the benches and floor are cleaned, and the room is allowed to air out and freshen for a period of time. The temperature is low, about 60 °C, while the humidity is relatively high. The tradition almost died out, but was revived by enthusiasts in the 1980s.

Heat storage-sauna
The smoke-sauna stove is also used with a sealed stone compartment and chimney (a heat storage-stove) which eliminates the smoke odour and eye irritation of the smoke sauna. A heat storage stove does not give up much heat in the sauna before bathing since the stone compartment has an insulated lid. When the sauna bath is started and the löyly shutter opened a soft warmth flow into the otherwise relatively cold (60 °C) sauna. This heat is soft and clean because, thanks to combustion, the stove stones glow red, even white-hot, and are freed of dust at the same time. When bathing the heat-storage sauna will become as hot as a continuous fire type-sauna (80–110 °C) but more humid. The stones are usually durable heat proof and heat-retaining peridotite. The upper part of the stove is often insulated with rock wool and firebricks. Heat-storing kiuases are also found with electric heating, with similar service but no need to maintain a fire.

Continuous heat-type

Continuous fire sauna
A continuous fire stove, instead of stored heat, is a recent invention. There is a firebox and a smokestack, and stones are placed in a compartment directly above the firebox. It takes shorter time to heat than the heat storage-sauna, about 1 hour. A fire-heated sauna requires manual labor in the form of maintaining the fire during bathing; the fire is also a hazard. Similar, but electrically heated saunas are often used in homes.
Fire-heated saunas are common in cottages, where the extra work of maintaining the fire is not a problem. Many[who?] think of them as giving a superior experience compared to electric saunas.

Infrared sauna
Infrared saunas use a special heater (such as ceramic, charcoal, and active carbon fibers) that generates infrared radiation rays similar to that produced by the sun. Infrared is said to be beneficial to overall health.[3] Infrared radiation has been shown to kill the bacteria responsible for acne.[citation needed] In an infrared sauna, the electric quartzite heaters do not warm the air, or interior, but penetrate the skin to warm the body and encourage perspiration, producing many of the same health benefits of traditional steam saunas.

Similar sweat bathing facilities
The Finnish-style sauna (generally 70–80 °C (158–176 °F)), but can vary from 60 to 120 °C (140–248 °F) and the wet steam bath are the most widely known forms of sweat bathing.
Many cultures have close equivalents, such as the North American First Nations (in Canada) or Native American (in the United States) sweat lodge, the Turkish or Arab hammam, Roman thermae, Nahuatl (Aztec) temescalli, Maya temazcal, Russian banya, Estonian saun, the Jewish Shvitz, African Sifutu, Swedish bastu, Japanese Mushi-Buro, and the Korean jjimjilbang. Public bathhouses that often contained a steam room were common in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s and were inexpensive places to go to wash when private facilities were not generally available.



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FINNISH SAUNA (Suomalainen sauna)

The Finns go back thousands of years to central Asia when nomadic tribes began their migration eastward and northward, to populate southwestern Russia, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, and finally Suomi, as they call their land.

ORIGIN OF THE SAUNA

When BC met AD the itinerant Finns were establishing fur trade with Central Europe and gave up their wandering ways. As their numbers increased, they moved inland, turning to the soil for sustenance. Anthropologists know little about the Finns before the Middle Ages; therefore, the origin of the sauna is in question. Have they always had some form of sweat bath? Were they the progenitors of sweat bathing across Europe and Asia? Did they share the idea with American Indians before they crossed the Bering Straits? Most researchers agree that Finns always had some form of sweat bath, as did most peoples around the world. It was the simplest and most efficient way to satisfy people's innate need to keep clean. When the Finns were nomadic, they probably used a portable sweat lodge similar to those carried by the American Indian and still seen among nomadic tribes in central Asia. Once the Finns settled, they may have erected underground sweat houses, forerunners of the savusauna.

FOREIGN INTEREST

Until the 16th century, Finnish bathing habits went virtually unrecorded. During the Middle Ages sweat bathing was popular throughout Europe. Finland was merely a quiet buffer between the Swedish and Russian empires and had little cultural influence in Europe. The sauna was, therefore, inconspicuous. The Finnish sauna's profile began to grow when the Reformation made the European bath house almost extinct. Only did Finnish, Russian and Scandinavian peoples continue their traditions of sweat bathing. In the 1500s Klaus Magnus wrote: Nowhere on earth is the use of the bath so necessary, as it is in the Northern lands. There you find both private and public baths extremely well equipped. Private baths belong to highly placed persons and are built in the vicinity of fresh running water and beautiful gardens and herbs. Public baths are built in towns and villages and in such a large quantity as the number of people living there make necessary. It is not as Poggio claims in a letter to Leonardo Aretino: that naked people of both sexes meet with inappropriate notions. He probably means the people in northern Germany, especially near the Baden area, who are rather loose with their morals. Among these people there are some who are so loose and degenerate in the hot baths that they even drink and sleep and allow themselves all kinds of evil and other foolishness in the baths. If such immodest creatures were found with their customs in Nordic bathing places, they would immediately be carried out and thrown into the deep winter snow drifts with the risk of being smothered. In the summer they would be thrown in ice cold water and left some time without food.

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Health Benefits Of Sauna

Sauna bath causes sweating & helps in opening skin pores. As we sweat more during sauna bath, it helps in excretion of body toxins and other impurities from the blood. People experience freshness in mood and health for longer time once they take sauna bath, as the body gets cleansed through sweating and muscles are relieved leading to the feeling of well-being. Sauna bath is also useful in joint pains as the warm steam helps blood flow resume effectively in all parts of the body and the contracted muscles are relieved.

It’s effectiveness in weight loss has been main reason people choose sauna bath over any other type of exercise. Sauna works positively on our metabolism and increases its speed and intensity, which in turn results in weight loss.

Regular sauna bath can also help mental and physical relaxation and release tension. People with sleep disorders such as insomnia and improper sleep condition can be benefited through sauna as it is very effective in inducing a good long relaxing sleep.

The heat generated during sauna bath helps our body in improving our immune system by increasing our body heat which simulates the fever condition. We also know about the medical properties of steam, which proves to be of great help in treating problems like cold (sinusitis), bronchitis, laryngitis etc.

15-20 minutes of sauna is almost equivalent to 1-2 hours of brisk walk or 1 hour of exercise. However, this effect can vary from person to person based on their physical condition.

For many people, sauna does not offer significant health benefits; in that case sauna can serve a purpose of leisure for them and not more than just a daily relaxation process and a way to preserve the glow on their face.