Regular Sauna Users May Have Fewer Chronic Diseases (reuters.com) 189
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: People who visit the sauna frequently may be less likely to develop heart and lung diseases or to get the flu than those who rarely go, a research review suggests. One study in the current analysis, for example, found that going to the sauna at least four times a week was associated with a roughly 50 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease. This study included 2,315 people and also linked regular sauna use to a 40 percent lower risk of premature death from all causes. Another study in the analysis compared the effects of using the sauna for 19 minutes versus 11 minutes. In this study, longer sauna sessions were linked to a 17 percent lower risk of premature death from all causes, as well as a 36 percent lower chance of death from heart disease.
In a third study in the analysis, with 1,621 participants, using the sauna at least four times weekly was tied to a 47 percent lower risk of developing high blood pressure than going once weekly. Yet another study linked at least four weekly sauna visits with about 66 percent lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease than going just once a week. Two other studies found going to the sauna at least four times a week associated with a 41 percent lower risk of respiratory diseases and a 37 percent lower chance of pneumonia than going once weekly. The authors reported their findings in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
In a third study in the analysis, with 1,621 participants, using the sauna at least four times weekly was tied to a 47 percent lower risk of developing high blood pressure than going once weekly. Yet another study linked at least four weekly sauna visits with about 66 percent lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease than going just once a week. Two other studies found going to the sauna at least four times a week associated with a 41 percent lower risk of respiratory diseases and a 37 percent lower chance of pneumonia than going once weekly. The authors reported their findings in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
Did they control for wealth? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Good call. Indeed, sauna users are likely wealthier than average, and stay in them longer when they have more free time (and therefore less stressed). I wonder what's the effect of including those who use saunas as a cultural tradition, such as Finns? Are they less likely to fall ill overall, contributing to the numbers?
Re:Did they control for wealth? (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder what's the effect of including those who use saunas as a cultural tradition, such as Finns? Are they less likely to fall ill overall, contributing to the numbers?
Sauna fatalities is a real thing in Finland, but it's often related to alcohol, and doing stupid things like falling asleep, or for traditional fire driven saunas, not checking the smokestack for leaks regularly.
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My local gym has a sauna. Does that make me a wealthy white guy?
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Surely you don't become white from driving a BMW, even if you go a bit fast in the corners.
Nor do you have to be rich - some of the older BMWs can be surprisingly good value for the money.
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Where's +5 Funny when you need it? The B-M-Trouble-you is always expensive and always breaking.
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My dad drove same BMW for 20 years without hassles, and has a Volkswagen Kombi for, like 30 years. Ok, the VW had a Ford motor in it, but still.
He does live in South Africa though, and all of the German car companies have factories there, of very high standard, so that might help. All of the BMWs with left hand steering for hare built there. This being Seth Efrika, both were stolen, thanks a yahoo.
That said, he swears by Korean cars nowadays. Only drives Hyundai.
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Nor do you have to be rich - some of the older BMWs can be surprisingly good value for the money.
There's a reason for that: The running costs for some of the older BMWs can be surprisingly high.
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Yep, while the car depreciates the parts don't get any cheaper.
Neither does the insurance premium.
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Surely you don't become white from driving a BMW, even if you go a bit fast in the corners.
Nor do you have to be rich - some of the older BMWs can be surprisingly good value for the money.
Had a £800 BMW need to do see the engine broke and it was a right off.
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Well, when you take it to your Ford mechanic, that's just asking for trouble.
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Re:Did they control for wealth? (Score:5, Funny)
Not me. I have never driven a BMW. As proof, I offer the assurance that I always use the indicators on any car I drive.
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Well, knowing BMWs, driving them usually is a sign that you want to appear rich, but probably never will be due to the cost of running that car...
Re:Did they control for wealth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno about you, but my corporate gym doesn't have a sauna. Nor do the public schools, the storefront gyms or other facilities the proles commonly use. Are you sure these findings aren't just looking at wealthy white guys somewhat interested in health vs. the great unwashed cheetoh-eating masses?
I imagine that people who frequently use a sauna probably also utilise other forms of formal exercise, eat a healthier diet than the working class masses.
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But I have no actual data, so i could be wrong.
Does your local hospital have a Sauna?
Did you ever go there when healthy?
Do health care researchers have a clue about statistics? (you don't need to answer that one).
Re:Did they control for wealth? (Score:5, Interesting)
In Finland, it is very common to have access to a sauna in your home, even some company buildings have them. Now true, the homeless might not have saunas but this is not so big a problem in Nordic countries.
On the other hand, I think the reason for these stats is because saunas kill off anyone with a weak cardiopulmonary system.
Sisu vs sissy (Score:5, Informative)
Finnish (and Scandinavian, Baltic and Russian) saunas are quite different from American saunas. The maximum allowed temperature in American saunas is 194F or 90C, and the common temperature is much lower than that, often in the 120F/50C range. With people wearing bathing suits.
Meanwhile a Finnish sauna is typically kept around the boiling point for water, and unless water is poured on the rocks, it can be in the 230F/110C range. And, of course, people go naked in Finnish saunas. You have to be, and not bring any towels that aren't cotton or linen.
Oh, and Americans don't whip themselves with birch twigs in the sauna, nor roll in the snow afterwards either.
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I went in the Finnish sauna, with an enthusiast who made sure it was hot. Very brutal.
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I went in the Finnish sauna, with an enthusiast who made sure it was hot. Very brutal.
No, that wasn't an enthusiast, it was an idiot.
The etiquette in a sauna is that the temperature and the moisture is calibrated so that everyone enjoys it. Purposefully overheating it is something that idiots do.
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The etiquette in a sauna is that the temperature and the moisture is calibrated so that everyone enjoys it. Purposefully overheating it is something that idiots do.
You obviously have no sauna experience, and should not be speaking of sauna etiquette.
Because it can take hours to bring a sauna up to heat, the etiquette is that you start out hot, and reduce temperature by venting until everybody is comfortable, if achievable. If inviting someone not familiar with Nordic saunas, you (and they) obviously don't know what the comfortable temperature for them is, so there's no way to pre-set this.
And again, showing you have no sauna experience, the comfortable temperature do
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Then you either exaggerated your own sauna experience when he asked you, or you found the one Fin that would rather show off and make you feel miserable than accommodate you and make your sauna experience a pleasurable one.
Sauna should be an enjoyable event. It's supposed to relax you and be comfortable. The very last thing it should is to put undue stress on you, like, say, by being too hot. Yes, it's true that Fins like their sauna hot, for the same reason Thais like their food spicy: They're used to it.
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Or, the person just introduced him to the way us nordics enjoy it, instead of the cater-to-anglo-saxon-swine-ahem-I-mean-anglo-saxon-tourists saunas.
A number of hotels I've been to here in the nordic countries have 4 saunas, 2 for men, 2 for women, one of each set to tourist or children level, one for nordic style(minimum 90C etc), complete with signs identifying them, and yet, wouldn't you know, there's always some subhuman from the UK, the US or Canada that goes into the nordic sauna, then leaves the door
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Hey, what do you know, I found the Fin, too!
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So what are the benefits to the extremely high temperatures? Presumably the steam isn't 110C because then it would be burning the occupants, so what temperature are you referring to?
Japanese baths tend to be around 45-50C which is plenty for me I find. Often they have a cold bath as well, and stuff like an electric bath which I have no idea what it is supposed to do. You go in naked of course.
Re: Sisu vs sissy (Score:2)
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I still don't understand how you can not get burned if the environment is over 100C. Do you mean the temperature of the heating element or something?
Re: Sisu vs sissy (Score:3)
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It's Americans and their funny units at work again. He's talking about 40-80 degrees Celsius.
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The GP said 230F, which is 100C... But even 80C is quite dangerous. If you spilt 80C water on yourself you would get a nasty burn.
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Water is a way better thermal conductor than air (which is one of the worst). That's why you can survive (at least briefly) temperatures way below freezing and temperatures close to boiling, even though touching a, say, metal rod of the respective temperatures (say, -20 or +80) could cause instant damage to your skin.
You wouldn't want metal benches in a sauna either. For pretty much the same reason.
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I still don't understand how you can not get burned if the environment is over 100C. Do you mean the temperature of the heating element or something?
No, the air temperature is often in the 100-110C range. But a Nordic sauna is not a Turkish steam bath - it's much drier. You don't cook because you sweat profusely, and the sweat evaporating expands its volume, causing cooling. So your skin temperature is much lower.
Throwing a bucket of water on the hot stones to increase the humidity from desert levels causes you to feel much hotter even if it decreases the temperature, because your sweat evaporates less in the higher humidity.
Our phys ed teacher demon
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Thanks, great explanation. I really want to try it now.
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I never had the pleasure of a Japanese bath, but I did spend a time in Finland and grew to enjoy the sauna experience. The temperature is very negotiable and you should start with moderate temperatures, then, with time, you might want to increase that gradually. At first it is maybe a bit uncomfortable, but that quickly passes, provided you have someone who can ease you in and aid you with the dos and don'ts, there's more to it than just sweating, jumping into ice cold lakes and hitting yourself with twigs.
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Maybe my next holiday will be in Finland...
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Well worth the trip. Word of warning, though, Fins tend to be VERY blunt and terse. They don't want to offend, they just have no patience for euphemisms, their language is complicated enough as it is. :)
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Saunas are dry heat, not steam baths.
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But it's not right without some steam from time to time :p
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The benefit is of the really hot - > very cold -> very hot -> very cold cycle is that it stimulates the circulation really well, it's very effective at getting your skin really clean. Also, the hot temperatures are too high for many viruses and bacteria to survive. Unlike 40-50C water.
And that's really the secret to the nordic sauna, properly done, you wash yourself really thoroughly, and rinse off with cold water. Then you go into the sauna for a while, use branches of birch or asp or similar to s
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Finnish (and Scandinavian, Baltic and Russian) saunas are quite different from American saunas. The maximum allowed temperature in American saunas is 194F or 90C, and the common temperature is much lower than that, often in the 120F/50C range. With people wearing bathing suits.
Meanwhile a Finnish sauna is typically kept around the boiling point for water, and unless water is poured on the rocks, it can be in the 230F/110C range. And, of course, people go naked in Finnish saunas. You have to be, and not bring any towels that aren't cotton or linen.
Oh, and Americans don't whip themselves with birch twigs in the sauna, nor roll in the snow afterwards either.
As a Finn with quite wide experience of different kind of saunas, I can assure you that there are Finnish saunas that can be around 50C and there is nothing wrong with them, it is actually very common to have lower temperatures for long relaxing sauna sessions. Not all of us like those "birch twigs" ("vasta" or "vihta") either even if used correctly they are really nice. Snow is very rare during other seasons but winter, but even during the winter, snow diving is not for all of us.
Being nude in sauna serves
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As a Finn with quite wide experience of different kind of saunas, I can assure you that there are Finnish saunas that can be around 50C and there is nothing wrong with them, it is actually very common to have lower temperatures for long relaxing sauna sessions. Not all of us like those "birch twigs" ("vasta" or "vihta") either even if used correctly they are really nice. Snow is very rare during other seasons but winter, but even during the winter, snow diving is not for all of us.
Being nude in sauna serves a purpose; you sweat in sauna, and you are there to clean up. You don't shower with your clothes on either.
This. I'd like to add that the ideal temperature usually scales with the size of the sauna; in smaller ones, the steam of löyly is more easily concentrated so you get the same effect at a smaller average temperature. Of course, the steam itself will be around 100 C, but you won't be steaming yourself all the time.
For the proper /. analogy, löyly (throwing water on the stove) is exactly like a heat pipe: water evaporates at the stove and condenses on your skin, thus providing fast heat transfer
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If the saunas are 50C, there's a big problem with them, they've essentially become incubation chambers for bacteria and viruses.
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Meanwhile a Finnish sauna is typically kept around the boiling point for water, and unless water is poured on the rocks, it can be in the 230F/110C range. And, of course, people go naked in Finnish saunas.
This is the way we'd do it. My grandparents' (they were Finns) used to have one at the family cabin by Lake Superior in the U.P. In the summer, you'd run down to the lake naked and dive in. You were hot enough that it didn't matter if the water was below 50 deg. Fahrenheit. In the winter, you'd just jump in the snow bank to cool off. It helps to close the pores on your skin after you've had them opened up by the steam.
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Doesn't water evaporate at 100C?
Yes, and? A sauna is not like a Turkish steam bath (which Americans incorrectly call "sauna"). It's fairly dry. The only water is the sweat on your skin, and that evaporating cools you down enough not to cook.
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the homeless might not have saunas but this is not so big a problem in Nordic countries.
Because very few of them make it past two winters?
Re:Did they control for wealth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dunno about you, but my corporate gym doesn't have a sauna. Nor do the public schools, the storefront gyms or other facilities the proles commonly use. Are you sure these findings aren't just looking at wealthy white guys somewhat interested in health vs. the great unwashed cheetoh-eating masses?
It's a review paper, so in some cases yes, in other cases probably not.
But I think the hypothesis makes sense, a sauna stresses the system and is essentially a kind of exercise, a style of exercise you're going to have trouble finding elsewhere.
In general, exercise is good for your health.
Or the exact reverse.... (Score:3)
a sauna stresses the system and is essentially a kind of exercise, a style of exercise you're going to have trouble finding elsewhere.
Or it might be the exact opposite :
Sauna stresses the system, and thus only people with a functional enough cardio-vascular system go there.
The people with bad hearths don't go there AND die younger.
Re:Or the exact reverse.... (Score:5, Interesting)
a sauna stresses the system and is essentially a kind of exercise, a style of exercise you're going to have trouble finding elsewhere.
Or it might be the exact opposite : Sauna stresses the system, and thus only people with a functional enough cardio-vascular system go there.
The people with bad hearths don't go there AND die younger.
Exactly this.
At first I read the statistics being presented here as potential evidence that saunas have a considerable health benefit, but it's far more likely that those who actually get off their ass and use a sauna are not the kind of lazy obese people that die of heart and lung diseases due to an inactive lifestyle.
And yeah, I hate when statistics often showcase nothing more than water-is-wet common sense. It's like saying that 99% of professional ballerinas are not obese, so ballet is now "statistically proven" to be one of the greatest solutions in the world to combat obesity.
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I read through some of the linked paper because I was wondering the same thing, they mention in Clinical Implications section that they don't think the results are likely to be an exercise correlation because most of the studies they used in their analysis were supposed to have controlled for exercise levels, and they found that the combination of exercise and sauna usage had a larger beneficial health effect that either exercise or sauna use by itself. Furthermore, the pathways section suggests that the e
How is that more likely? (Score:2)
"but it's far more likely that those who actually get off their ass and use a sauna are not the kind of lazy obese people that die of heart and lung diseases due to an inactive lifestyle."
How is using a sauna an active person only thing? Your assumption seems obsurd to me. To use one all you literally have to do is sit down for an extended period.
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"but it's far more likely that those who actually get off their ass and use a sauna are not the kind of lazy obese people that die of heart and lung diseases due to an inactive lifestyle."
How is using a sauna an active person only thing? Your assumption seems obsurd to me. To use one all you literally have to do is sit down for an extended period.
No, in order to actually use a sauna, one has to likely expend some effort to obtain an education or technical skill, and establish a decent paying job to afford a personal sauna or regular sauna service. One also has to get motivated enough to move somewhere other than a couch, a toilet, or a kitchen. You also have to change into bathing suit or undress, and then sit down in a rather extreme environment and try not to fall asleep or pass out for an extended period of time.
Sad to say, but extremely lazy a
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It's estimated that there are two million saunas in Finland, a country of 5 million.
This is hardly a luxury item over there. Apartments even have communal ones pretty much standard.
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Dunno about you, but my corporate gym doesn't have a sauna. Nor do the public schools, the storefront gyms or other facilities the proles commonly use. Are you sure these findings aren't just looking at wealthy white guys somewhat interested in health vs. the great unwashed cheetoh-eating masses?
It's a review paper, so in some cases yes, in other cases probably not.
But I think the hypothesis makes sense, a sauna stresses the system and is essentially a kind of exercise, a style of exercise you're going to have trouble finding elsewhere.
In general, exercise is good for your health.
Correlation makes sense. If regular sauna users exercise more and eat better on average than non-sauna users, they'll be healthier. I would expect the study accounted for such, but the linked summary doesn't mention those possibly factors.
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They didn't check people who don't use a sauna at all.
They're comparing once a week with four times a week.
If you don't have at least weekly access to a sauna, you wouldn't be part of the study.
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They didn't check people who don't use a sauna at all.
They're comparing once a week with four times a week.
If you don't have at least weekly access to a sauna, you wouldn't be part of the study.
Duh! That's because almost everybody uses saunas regularly in the countries under discussion.
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The article states they focused on Finnish saunas. This implies looking at a place where sauna usage is not even slightly niche, but the article also says they didn't particularly try to do anything useful with the data like filter out lifestyle types.
That said...isn't a 50% reduction in multiple chronic health problems so huge a result as to reflect an almost guaranteed causation? Like, you don't even need a well designed study to find out aspirin is almost a panacea.
Re: Did they control for wealth? (Score:2)
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First, the lead author of this study is Dr. Jari Laukkanen of the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. I assure you that it's not only wealthy white people who use saunas in Finland. Although now that I think about it, Finland is a very white, very prosperous society, since they represent the "Nordic model" of hybrid socialism which makes for the happiest, most p
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Fairly reasonable reply TBH.
My closest sauna is in the fancy YMCA city run gymnasium near me, about $80 US per month membership. My other gym is only $35 US per month (no sauna)
The people going were mostly wealthy or older with retiree card discounts.
I love the heck of the sauna, if I were ever rich, I'd get one, wonderful things (I detest the cold) but the cost to run one, I believe is quite astronomical.
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First-world problems.
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Dunno about you, but my corporate gym doesn't have a sauna. Nor do the public schools, the storefront gyms or other facilities the proles commonly use. Are you sure these findings aren't just looking at wealthy white guys somewhat interested in health vs. the great unwashed cheetoh-eating masses?
Looks like the meta-analysis didn't mention any factor analysis, which should have been an obvious thing to do in a correlation-based study. Of course, the reason for that lack of analysis could be that the studied papers themselves avoided factor analysis (which seems to be the case at least for the first five or so paper abstracts that I scanned).
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Dunno about you, but my corporate gym doesn't have a sauna. Nor do the public schools, the storefront gyms or other facilities the proles commonly use. Are you sure these findings aren't just looking at wealthy white guys somewhat interested in health vs. the great unwashed cheetoh-eating masses?
Looks like the meta-analysis didn't mention any factor analysis, which should have been an obvious thing to do in a correlation-based study. Of course, the reason for that lack of analysis could be that the studied papers themselves avoided factor analysis (which seems to be the case at least for the first five or so paper abstracts that I scanned).
It certainly would help if they just included one sentence in the abstract that other health habits were accounted for (or not). Its a big peeve of mine how often those statements are not made clearly in meta studies, and when not I tend to assume they were not accounted for.
Re: Did they control for wealth? (Score:2)
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Dunno where you are, but I have noticed that in the US there's fewer saunas around in hotels etc, and they for some reason are freakin' cold.
Meanwhile, Northern Europe they are everywhere alongside IR saunas and/or roman baths, with a few countries also having them in many homes.
Heck, you can get portable saunas...
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No, this is not just wealthy white guys (or even wealthy people of other skin colors). Some cultures using a sauna is like taking a shower. Would you live in a house without a shower? It's just up to priorities and your way of life.
Personally, I moved into a house that had a small sauna. I like it, but I don't use it often. I will admit, using at your house and heading to bed shortly there after is amazing. Gets me some good sleep.
Also, I'm not a "wealthy white guy", although given the opportunity I w
Photobiomodulation (Score:1)
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Just did. Looks like quackery - usual inflated claims using some minor positive studies.
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Wikipedia
=======
Variations of LLLT have gone by a variety of alternate names including low-power laser therapy (LPLT), soft laser therapy, low-intensity laser therapy, low-energy laser therapy, cold laser therapy, bio-stimulation laser therapy, photobiomodulation, photo-biotherapy, therapeutic laser, and monochromatic infrared light energy (MIRE) therapy.
Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) is a form of alternative medicine that applies low-level (low-power) lasers or light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to the surface o
Four Times a Week? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's some big time causation != causality going on there.
How many people who are already sick/significantly overweight go to a sauna 4 times a week? Even when I had a haelth club membership, I rarely went more than thrice a week.
Sounds like a study whose entire effects were determined by the self-selection of healthy people.
"People who regularly compete in triathlons are 95% less likely to develop diabetes." Yeah, I bet...
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Actually, causation does equal causality so I'm not sure what you're suggesting
Bad example (Score:2)
"People who regularly compete in triathlons are 95% less likely to develop diabetes." Yeah, I bet...
I got your idea, but your example is horribly wrong.
Yes, some type of diabetes (Type 1 - the one which is genetically linked to some HLA immuno types, and tends to develop at a young age and works by killing of insulin cells in the langerhans islets, so the patient still has a functioning body but is simply completely unable to produce insulin on its own and absolutely need that any required amount of insuling gets delivered through a syringe) have nothing to do with sport.
On the other hand, with correct fo
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How many people who are already sick/significantly overweight go to a sauna 4 times a week?
And a better question would be, once they go in, do you lock them inside each time?
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Sounds like a study whose entire effects were determined by the self-selection of healthy people.
And? It's not like that in any way invalidates the results. Healthy people are healthy because they do healthy things, be like healthy people. Start doing healthy things.
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The health benefits of driving a BMW (Score:1)
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On a related note, owners of large motor homes are 75% more likely to die in the next 10-15 years compared to the average person!
Re:The health benefits of driving a BMW (Score:4, Informative)
This helpful study (Score:2)
Was brought to you by your friends at Aqua Quip!
And a much lower sperm count too. (Score:1)
Cardiovascular Conditioning (Score:5, Interesting)
From another article:
"On average, the study found, sauna users' blood pressure dropped by seven points and their arteries became more "elastic" (based on non-invasive tests).
In addition, their heart rate rose from an average of 65 beats per minute before the sauna session to 81 beats afterward."
https://www.webmd.com/heart/ne... [webmd.com]
- A Doctor of Physical Therapy
Swimming ! (Score:5, Informative)
{...} to comfortably exercise in other ways (though if this applies to you, I suggest trying swimming / pool exercises)
This.
Thousand time this.
Due to the weightlessness-like caused by the water, you can actually swim/do pool exercies even if you're completely hopeless for any other type of physical exercises.
Even if you're weak to the point that you can't walk around, you can still swim (Though in that case don't attempt it on your own the first time without specially trained supervision). There's a reason why swimming pool is used in physical rehab: it's really that good/useful.
If you need exercice, go to the pool (and optionally consider registering for gym at the pool).
Then it's followed by biking and then a little bit further down by rowing (Either the actual out-door sport, or on devices), as your weight is distributed over more points (on a bicycle, your weight is distributed over 5 points, you don't put so much stress on single joint like when, e.g., running) and the effort is spread over more muscle groups (in case of rowing you basically extend your whole body), and you can also adapt the level of efforts (light pace on flat, instead of pedaling like a maniac trying to beat the pack uphill).
As some scale, simply walking (instead of taking the car) or climbing the stairs (instead of taking elevators/escalators) is a good light exercise.
Consider eventually introducing bike to work (consider using e-bike to pedal-assist to be less sweaty), well at least when you live on the side of the Atlantic where "going to the groceries" doesn't mean "2 hours car trip".
So what _did_ sauna-users die from? (Score:2)
going to the sauna at least four times a week was associated with a roughly 50 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease.
However, those sauna-goers still must die from some cause or other. It would be helpful to know whether not croaking from a heart attack just laid them open to dying from something worse, more painful or lingering just a little further down the line.
Rich or poor (Score:2)
Newsflash! Health aware people ... (Score:2)
... are more healthy!
News brought to your by CORI - Captain Obvious Research Institute
Some needed information (Score:5, Informative)
So many are wrongly commenting that this only proves that rich persons are healthier than poor. These studies were made in Finland. In Finland we have about 3 million saunas and a population of about 5 million. It means we have pretty much one sauna for each household. We in Finland are crazy about our saunas and both rich and poor go to sauna. You have to search for a very long time to find even one house without sauna or access to a sauna. All new houses do have saunas and the older houses often have a separate sauna building on the back yard.
In Finland we do not have much homeless people at all. Those very, very few we have are it by own choice because our social system makes sure everybody got a place to live. Finland it quite unique in this regard, even among the Nordic countries. If you have problems (drugs, alcohol, unemployment, depression, whatever) and you are not able to pay for own living, you get it for free. It is like the motto would be "first a place to live, then we try to fix your other problems".
In Finland sauna is nothing you happen to visit just after some exercise. Instead it is a way to relax and both fat and thin, young and old are going to sauna just because it feels so good.
Re: (Score:3)
In Finland we do not have much homeless people at all. Those very, very few we have are it by own choice because our social system makes sure everybody got a place to live. Finland it quite unique in this regard, even among the Nordic countries. If you have problems (drugs, alcohol, unemployment, depression, whatever) and you are not able to pay for own living, you get it for free. It is like the motto would be "first a place to live, then we try to fix your other problems".
A Finn here. I don't know about the homeless specifically, but it's possible to fall outside the social care for reasons other than your own choice. The problem is with the bureaucracy, which can be hard to deal with if you're burdened with illness. In many cases, your illness is not considered serious enough to get extra help. This often means mental illness or conditions like the chronic fatigue syndrome, which are hard to diagnose properly. To the outside, it may look like these people are giving up and
Direct benefits (Score:2)
There are tons of correlated factors that could account for this, and probably the authors considered this but since this is slashdot I'm not going to read the paper.
But there is one direct benefit of saunas: humidified air. During colder months, the air is drier and leeches moisture from your lungs. Dry lungs means less mucus to get rid of foreign particulates. Spending time in humidified air helps combat this.
Instead of getting a sauna membership, just get a humidifier.
Wet or dry? (Score:2)
What if you live in, say, Florida where it's hot and humid all the time like a wet sauna?
By the same token, what if you live in the desert where it's hot and dry all the time like a dry sauna?
Saunas? (Score:2)
Causality or not (Score:2)
Maybe if you're prone to cardiovascular problems you don't use a sauna much because it feels bad. ... you use a sauna because it feels good.
Maybe if your very overweight you don't use a sauna because it's uncomfortably hot.
Maybe if your slim, fit, and healthy
Re:Ok what gives? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ok what gives? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, we Minnesotans have four things we can do in the winter: Medieval sword fighting, drunken snowmobile racing over open water, eating dead fish canned in lye, and visiting the sauna. One of those is safer than the others.
Re: (Score:1)
My guess is that the other posters with variations on "correlation is not causation" have it here. I'd really like to believe that boiling my bottom 4 times a week will make me 40% less likely to die from stress-related causes, but it is far more likely that people who have the time and resources to do this simply have a lot fewer persistent sources of extreme stress in their lives to begin with. Stress kills.
To reiterate, though: I would really like to be proven wrong about this.
Re: (Score:2)
You must be a son of a silly person. /knnnnnnniggit
Re: Ok what gives? (Score:2)