Finnish sauna bathing culture -An insider view on the art of an authentic Finnish sauna.
Correct thinking
Health benefits
Layout of the lakeside sauna
Food & Sauna
Preventing 'After Sauna Chills'
Finnish Smoke Sauna
Finnish Home Sauna
Finnish Public Sauna's
A Sauna Vacation in Finland?
The atmosphere around the sauna
Sauna Types in Finland.
Inside a sauna in Finland.
The Sauna bathing practice in Finland is deeply connected to the Finnish culture, it takes a "Way Of Thinking" to help you get your best sauna experience.
Finnish sauna, the Finnish way, is an expression of physical health, getting together with friends, and a place to get clean, rather than just a room to sweat in.
Before entering the sauna...
...Hang your clothes up on the wall.
Finnish sauna -- Take a shower
before going into the hot room.

...there is a separate room to change in. It could be large or small. Hang your clothes up so they don't get wet.
...there is a separate room to for washing up. At a public sauna that may be a shower cubicle, at a home sauna an 'open shower' with a door to the hot room.
The hot-room shown (Center). Showers are on the left of the hot-room.
Think relaxing thoughts to yourself like: "All my cares and worries are left outside that sauna door." Picture all the muscles in your body relaxing and loosening up.
In Finland, being in the sauna room means everyone has equal value. Weather you are a child or adult, highly educated or an ex-convict. Everyone has the same status in the sauna.
Accept an unhurried and sociable attitude. Remember that it takes hours for skilled people to heat up a Finnish smoke sauna. As does, making birch twig whisks along with that special touch.
The key is to keep a slow and relaxed attitude while taking a real Finnish sauna and when the sauna routine is over until the day ends. When you wake up after a good nights sleep, you feel like a new person.
Applying expert Finnish sauna methods reaps rewards:
Brings inflammation down. After surgery, a wound on my body was inflamed. With the combination of ice-swimming and sauna visits, it shrunk back to normal size.
Helps with breathing problems like asthma. The extreme hot and cold, gives lungs a good work out.
!!--Reduces Stress-!! --Yep! A friends blood-pressure lowered temporarily after sauna and ice-swimming.
Relieves muscles tension and soreness due to hard physical work. Try a hot sauna after chopping wood all day.
Cleanses and softens the skin.
The hot room is therapy for depression or anxiety. Quite often I have arrived for sauna and ice-swimming "In- the- pits" After a good 3 hours of doing sauna with ice-swimming...the car drive home...Bliss! And the great sauna after effects last for hours to follow.
Smell Therapy? The scent of wood combined with smoke relax both mind and body. The classic smell of a smoke sauna. Birch branches of the vihta also add additional therapeutic smells. For more smell, try adding scented oils.
Helps Motivate You! After sauna your appendages feel lighter and your entire body becomes relaxed. Your mind can focus better on 'now' and "where you are." helping to motivate you.
Increases the testosterone level in Men. Watch out women! :-)

Go from the sauna room's hot steam and back to the lake, again and again, until you get a head rush.
Dipping in the lake for a swim is part of the Finnish sauna routine.
If the lake is frozen, take along a friend for safety reasons. Always remember to keep your head above the water!


A common scene. Finnish sauna at a hotel near a lake. Hotel Fontana Lepolampi's smaller sauna building with an outdoor lounge area seats up to 10 people.
The lake edge is within meters of this building.
Inexpensive hotels bustle with business during the warmer months as locals try to find good deals.
Tip! We recommend less popular accommodations like this smoke sauna near Vammala, Finland. You get more peace and quiet. Plus...you get to see Finnish nature up close.

Walking closer toward the smoke sauna, up ahead is a lake. A very nice smoke sauna with special fishing trips for your group in Sastamala near Vammala.
Tip(s)! Eat full meals after having sauna, so you don't get a bloated feeling If you are hungry during the sauna routine...Snack!
Replace Lost Salts due to sweating by eating Dill pickles. Whole dill pickles taste good, or try them in a salad.
Cucumber, Tomatoes, Sliced Turkey on top of Rye Crisp bread.-- A Super Simple Cheap and Healthy Recipe!
A complete meal idea.
Veggies from a local market. -The Freshest!
Cooked/steamed Fresh vegetables,
Cooked Salmon using low temperature and no cooking oils.
My first year in Finland, we ate traditional Christmas food with a Christmas sauna. First, everyone in the family did sauna, then we partook of a feast. What a delight!
My favorite foods with a Finnish sauna are: Pizza with bacon, and pineapple toppings. Hotdog (Makkara), Tikku leipää. And I must admit that a very low alcohol beer relieves thirst.
Pancakes with plum jam
French toast with prune jam!
The Finnish smoke sauna is a chimney free sauna room. Smoke escapes the room after the sauna stove has been burning for hours. Then, prior to using the sauna, smoke is released out of the sauna room chamber through ventilation or sauna door.
Some modern smoke saunas in Finland have a dome-shaped rock stove.
The smoke sauna offers you a gentle steam and steady burst of heat compared to wood burning or electric saunas.
Naturally,the inside walls of a smoke sauna are black,however when in a newer smoke sauna,the walls will appear lighter and cleaner.
Remember, there are no chimneys in the smoke sauna, so smoke just hangs around in the chamber soaking into the walls, chairs, and ceiling.
Take a look at yourself in the mirror after you have been in the smoke sauna. You may be left with some black marks.
To get a taste of what a Finnish smoke sauna is like, here is an award winning smoke sauna in Vesilahti Finland
A small wooden-hut style room, wooden benches to sit on and a bucket of water for ladling over the hot rocks to create steam.
The most common Finnish sauna found in a Finnish home. -- Pasi's home built sauna 
A thermometer behind your seat indicates 80 celcius (176 Fahrenheit).
You are sitting on wooden bench in a wood paneled 20 square meter(215 cubit feet) room.
To your left is a 18 x 18 inch window leading to the crisp freezing outside.
You are dying to open that window up and let the air in to cool you off.
Gasp!!
Below, a blazing fire roars inside the sauna stove.
The stove top rocks store loads of heat on top of the stove heater.
You reach for a bucket of pre-heated water, scooping out the water you pour two ladles onto the stones sloooowly. The steam gently hits you over a longer period of time. instead of as a sudden 'heat wave' crash.
Steam rises, filling the air...
the dry hot room fills with moisture...
the air thickens, and it feels much hotter...
and your breath shortens.
After a minute the humidity and intense heat die down.
Beyond this brief feeling of penetrating hot discomfort, around the corner you await...an endorphic induced high.
That is the kind of heat in a real Finnish sauna.
At the turn of the 19th century before electricity and modern sewage existed, the more highly populated areas had public saunas. They are still in operation today and well worth a visit.
Today you can reserve a sauna for your family at an indoor swimming hall, where there are also public saunas. These Finnish public saunas have sections for men and women, and separate sauna structures provided to hold 20-50 people.
Wash up, get a massage, or chiropractic adjustment while doing a Finnish sauna at a Tampere spa. That is the basic Finnish sauna level.
Where will you learn to get a better Finnish sauna experience, than at a Spa, or hotel? To learn the expert habits, go where the experts frequent. In Tampere, you can attend the Rauhaniemen Kylpylä public sauna bath where you find the 'local regulars' go every day/week to do sauna, or ice-swimming avanto in the wintertime.
Stay for a day, a week, or more. It's a travel package with a sauna.
A Finnish sauna vacation packet includes accommodations, sauna, fishing and visiting the local points of interest. Here is an example of a Finnish sauna vacation with a Finnish smoke sauna half an hours drive from Tampere.
Sastamala's 'Mieli Aitta' is about 50 kilometers from Tampere, Mieli Aitta has a smoke sauna with lodging with accommodations up to 6 people at the Farmhouse Bed and Breakfast. The vacation villa holds a group up to 14.
Lots to see in the area.Coming in from the outside, you step back in history as you view an authentic, rural Finnish village. The smoke sauna and villa are surrounded by this 6500 year old village. Talk about old!!!

The mother of all Saunas -The Finnish Sauna Atmosphere around a Smoke Sauna.
The atmosphere created around you makes that smoke sauna extra enjoyable. Insiders suggest going as far into the countryside in Finland for an optimal smoke sauna to really experience the Finnish sauna---at its ultimate!.
The closer you are to nature, and the more time you spend in that surrounding, the more refreshed you feel in mind, body and spirit. Your health improves.

Inside the sauna is black. Stones are piled into an organized mounded heap. An open fire beneath the stones is burning from morning until evening. Then...!! voilà ...The smoke is let out and you are ready to have your first smoke sauna. Be careful not to touch the walls as my younger brother did. It can quickly transform your look into that of a chimney sweeper!
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