Sanctity of the sauna?

[Oho]

I have no idea until studies actually begin, but I will be working a part-time job to pay for my living expenses so I'm just thinking of time savers ahead of time. Is it really only five minutes? I thought it was an hour plus.

With breaks the ritual in its entirety may take all day and half a case of beer, but I would think people normally only spend five minutes or so in the sauna proper at a time.

[Pursuivant]

Yeah, "reading in the sauna" if you think of books or even a newspaper is not a really good idea. Firstly the light is dim, secondly the steam and heat warp and unravel your pages and you end up with inky hands. Nevermind the sweat flowing in your eyes and dropping onto the papers... The only time I have read anything in the sauna is when I was lighting up the stove with old newspapers...

And as for a tablet... mmm... perhaps some mil-spec meant to survive a napalm bombing might do. Then though as metal & plastic conduct heat, you'll be burning your hands and other parts... never mind then where you stick it when you go have a shower...

[Jukka Aho]

Being a native Finn — and not really having sampled foreign versions of the sauna too much — the only time I’ve seen someone reading in a sauna (save for the situation Pursuivant describes) is when watching American TV shows.

In the TV shows, the sauna usually seems to be a public facility connected to a gym, or some such, and frequented by busy, trendy city people. The sauna-goers in those shows are typically wrapped in towels. The heat and moisture appears not to be enough to make you sweat as the newspapers the people are reading while sitting on the benches stay totally dry and manageable all the time. Moreover, there is ample lighting, and there is often no stove visible. Or if there is, people neither have a bucket of water and a ladle at their disposal to throw some water on the hot stones nor does it seem to be the expected practice.

I cannot tell how much that version of sauna is just a Hollywood TV trope. But a Finnish sauna always has the bucket of water and a ladle and the sauna-goers are expected to use them during their stay. Also, the room is typically heated to a degree you will start sweating only after a couple of minutes. The humidity is not as high as in a Turkish hammam, but it occasionally rises to a high level, as you throw water on the hot stones, and it vaporizes in the air and then condensates on your skin, forming droplets and constantly dripping off, along with sweat.

This makes a typical Finnish sauna, heated and used the typical Finnish way, a rather hostile environment for reading on paper, let alone using electronics. Hence, reading is not typically viewed as being a sensible activity during a sauna bath. Also, Finnish saunas are often dimly lit on purpose — to maintain a certain kind of mood and atmosphere.

On the philosophical and social side, sauna is often associated with either you being alone with your thoughts, in an almost meditative state, or at least relaxing and easing out any cognitive pressure after having endured a hard week at work etc. — especially if you’re alone in there. Or it might be a place for some confessional discussions between men, interrupted by long stretches of silence spent just enjoying the relaxing effects of the heat. The discussions could be about work stress, ailments, marital/family problems, or just some more light-hearted anecdotes of what has been going on at work or in family life. Or some relaxed commentary about current affairs, politics and such (I have no idea how much of this holds true for women as well.) Or, if it is a more social company set in party mode and there’s alcohol and after-sauna snacks involved, there might be some lively discussion going on. But none of these typical Finnish sauna-bathing situations involve reading. Trying that in a company might earn you some funny looks, especially as it might not even be technically feasible given the heat and humidity.

Then again, if it is a private sauna (maybe one located in your apartment and used by no-one else), and you’re there alone, and you can control the settings of the stove yourself, you could of course just refrain from using the bucket and the ladle and only heat it up to a relatively mild temperature, allowing you to read in there. It’s just not what your typical Finn would normally expect from a sauna.

[AldenG]

Water is strictly forbidden in 99%+ of American saunas, Jukka, because "it wil break the heater" or "because the heater is electric." The rocks have often been removed one by one as souvenirs, but then they're only decorative anyway. The actual heat comes from the coils, in case you didn't know.

But the saunas you've seen on TV were probably being powered by body heat because nobody could decipher the instructions, which are invariably written in Swedish with all those unintelligible double k's, double ä's, etc.

American hotels and health clubs pride themselves on offering the best of authentic Swedish sauna culture and equipment, most often by Helo. You do have occasional problems with rowdy Finns who generally have a poor mastery of English, worse understanding of sauna etiquette, and intransigent resistance to instruction in the latter. But ignorance will always find outlets.

[ProspectiveFinn]

Being a native Finn — and not really having sampled foreign versions of the sauna too much — the only time I’ve seen someone reading in a sauna (save for the situation Pursuivant describes) is when watching American TV shows.

In the TV shows, the sauna usually seems to be a public facility connected to a gym, or some such, and frequented by busy, trendy city people. The sauna-goers in those shows are typically wrapped in towels. The heat and moisture appears not to be enough to make you sweat as the newspapers the people are reading while sitting on the benches stay totally dry and manageable all the time. Moreover, there is ample lighting, and there is often no stove visible. Or if there is, people neither have a bucket of water and a ladle at their disposal to throw some water on the hot stones nor does it seem to be the expected practice.

I cannot tell how much that version of sauna is just a Hollywood TV trope. But a Finnish sauna always has the bucket of water and a ladle and the sauna-goers are expected to use them during their stay. Also, the room is typically heated to a degree you will start sweating only after a couple of minutes. The humidity is not as high as in a Turkish hammam, but it occasionally rises to a high level, as you throw water on the hot stones, and it vaporizes in the air and then condensates on your skin, forming droplets and constantly dripping off, along with sweat.

This makes a typical Finnish sauna, heated and used the typical Finnish way, a rather hostile environment for reading on paper, let alone using electronics. Hence, reading is not typically viewed as being a sensible activity during a sauna bath. Also, Finnish saunas are often dimly lit on purpose — to maintain a certain kind of mood and atmosphere.

On the philosophical and social side, sauna is often associated with either you being alone with your thoughts, in an almost meditative state, or at least relaxing and easing out any cognitive pressure after having endured a hard week at work etc. — especially if you’re alone in there. Or it might be a place for some confessional discussions between men, interrupted by long stretches of silence spent just enjoying the relaxing effects of the heat. The discussions could be about work stress, ailments, marital/family problems, or just some more light-hearted anecdotes of what has been going on at work or in family life. Or some relaxed commentary about current affairs, politics and such (I have no idea how much of this holds true for women as well.) Or, if it is a more social company set in party mode and there’s alcohol and after-sauna snacks involved, there might be some lively discussion going on. But none of these typical Finnish sauna-bathing situations involve reading. Trying that in a company might earn you some funny looks, especially as it might not even be technically feasible given the heat and humidity.

Then again, if it is a private sauna (maybe one located in your apartment and used by no-one else), and you’re there alone, and you can control the settings of the stove yourself, you could of course just refrain from using the bucket and the ladle and only heat it up to a relatively mild temperature, allowing you to read in there. It’s just not what your typical Finn would normally expect from a sauna.

That's the perfect response, thank you Jukka Aho. The Hollywood version of a sauna is all I'm familiar with, and the Finnish sauna sounds nothing like it. It also sounds divine. I can't wait to try it, and will be leaving my reading for another time. Thank you very much for the exceptionally communicated information.

[Jukka Aho]

That's the perfect response, thank you Jukka Aho. The Hollywood version of a sauna is all I'm familiar with, and the Finnish sauna sounds nothing like it. It also sounds divine. I can't wait to try it, and will be leaving my reading for another time. Thank you very much for the exceptionally communicated information.

Thank you for the kind remarks. Take my previous comment only as a hasty generalization of how the Finnish sauna is typically seen by the natives or how it might typically work. But there are many types and sizes of saunas and many social settings where they’re used, and even some contradictory views on the “proper” sauna culture and related customs among the natives. If you come to Finland and experience those things, you will probably find some customs that you like more than the others, and not everything will always work just the idealized way some guy on the Internet told you. ;)

But it needs to be emphasized a workplace party night in a rented hotel/conference facility offering a heated-up sauna as one of the attractions is different from a relaxing sauna session spent alone with your thoughts in the small private sauna of your apartment, which is different from a family-with-kids sauna, which again is different from the public sauna in your local swimming hall, which is different from a sauna bath shared with a friend at the summer cottage, which is way different from a 40-man field/tent sauna in the army (yes, they do have those in the Finnish Army.)

Also, the way how the sauna is heated up matters. In an urban environment — apartment blocks and such — you will mostly encounter modern sauna stoves based on electric heating elements, whereas countryside dwellings and summer cottages often have a wood-burning stove, instead. These create an entirely different atmosphere and feel to the experience. Many people prefer the wood-burning stove but it might be impossible to have one built in a city apartment.

In addition to the above-mentioned two alternatives for a sauna stove, there is a third, yet more traditional type — so-called “smoke sauna”. These are based on larger, chimneyless wood-burning stoves. During heating, the smoke will billow directly into the room (typically a free-standing log cabin) which is why these saunas feature a small hatch high up on the wall for exhausting it. Bathers will not go in while the sauna is being heated, though. Instead, the stones of the stove have enough thermal mass in them to retain the heat required for bathing so they can be heated up in advance, and bathing will only commence after the fire under the stove has died out and the room has been ventilated. Many people think this is the best form of sauna and will give the most enjoyable quality of steam and heat, combined with the atmosphere. But smoke saunas are quite rare these days.

If you come to Finland and get invited to saunas in different situations, you will surely find out some saunas are only so-and-so or sub par in the experience they can offer. They might be badly ventilated, or harshly lit, too hot or too mild in their heat, or the type of the stove (typically electric) just not giving a nice quality of steam, or there being only a small time frame after heating them up when the steam is at its most enjoyable. And then there are those which feel “just right” most of the time — even “divine” in some sense, taking the liberty to quote your own words. So be prepared to encounter some mediocrity and bad implementations as well, and try to get access to saunas with wood-burning stoves to appreciate the difference between those and the electrically heated ones.

Many books have been written on the topic of constructing a sauna the proper way. It’s something unto an art in itself. Good results are not always guaranteed.

The website of the Finnish Sauna Society might be of some interest to you:

http://www.sauna.fi/in-english-2/welcome-2/

(Note the top-right drop-down menu with the title “In English”.)

[Pursuivant]

Back in the day I had sauna(s) I was in vain wanting someone to send me such a warning placque not to throw water on the stove, so I could screw it there and we could have a laugh...