The Finnish "Way of Thinking" About Finnish sauna

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.

Helping develop your sauna "Thinking Cap"

Inside a sauna in Finland.
Inside a Finnish sauna

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.
Finnish sauna showers

...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.

Adjust your thinking

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.

Finnish Sauna Health Benefits

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! :-)

The Lakeside Sauna Landscape

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!

Layout of an old farmhouse with a lakeside sauna during the early 20th century. Finnish sauna by the lake layout.

The sauna was built within the premises of farm buildings. The wooden decking and lounge areas with outside furniture are a modern addition.

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.

Try out this smoke sauna in Vammala.
Finnish smoke Sauna in Vammala Finland.

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.

Table with chairs at a smoke sauna in Vammala, Finland

Lounge outside the Vammala smoke sauna building. Finnish sauna essentials include...outdoor weatherproof tables and chairs. Sit in the sun before or after a dip in the lake

Food and Sauna

About 30 meters from our exemplary Sastamala smoke sauna is this...

The second cottage near the Vammala smoke sauna. A seperate building for eating.

Let's go in...

Inside the eating and changing room cottage near the Vammala smoke sauna.

Perfect for roasting up some wild boar, game, pancakes...They will even custom order for your group. Just let them know what you want to eat.

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.

Snack Food Ideas

Cucumber, Tomatoes, Sliced Turkey on top of Rye Crisp bread.-- A Super Simple Cheap and Healthy Recipe!

A complete meal idea.

Hard thin rye bread with a slice of turkey, tomatoes and cucumber on top

Veggies from a local market. -The Freshest! Assortment of cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and lettuce.

Serve them just like this. Get locally produced, fresh Finnish kotimaiset tomatoes. They taste best! Make up a Greek salad with green olives. Another natural way to replenish salt after taking a sauna.

Cooked/steamed Fresh vegetables,
Cooked Salmon using low temperature and no cooking oils. A plate of food containing rice with corn. Salmon, Broccoli, Couliflower, Cabbage and peeled boiled potatoes

New potatoes come into season in late June and go well with French bread with real butter and salami slices on top.

Grilling during, or after your sauna gives you that extra summery feeling/smell of being out in nature.

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.

An evening food snack idea after sauna

Pancakes with plum jam
Pancakes and Plum jam sauna snack idea.

French toast with prune jam!
French toast on a plate -A fast dinner.

Preventing 'After Sauna Chills' in Finland

Avoid after sauna chills. In the Finnish winter time as you get ready to end your ice-swimming/sauna routine. Do a final warm-up in the sauna rather than cooling off in the lake. Since...after sauna chill's leave you with a cold feeling lasting for hours. No Fun!

In the summer...

A swim in a lake is a great way to cool off after your real Finnish sauna routine. Get clean with some environmentally friendly soap and shampoo washing off with lake water. Then dry off. If you sense you are getting cold while swimming, come out and get back into the sauna briefly and wash off there instead. Or, soak up some sun while laying on a rock.

Beware!...You can get an after sauna chills in the summer too. If in doubt, just warm down by washing off inside the sauna!

The Finnish Smoke Sauna

The original Finnish sauna was a hot room inside a wooden hut. That's all.

The modern Finnish sauna is a derivative of the smoke sauna.

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

The Finnish Home Sauna

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 Pasi's Finnish Home Sauna.

Turn the electric stove's knobs(or push button) the electric resistors heat up the stones.

The electric stove requires no smoke flue, hence the Finnish home sauna is found inside other buildings structures.

All you need is a room with a chimney flue for smoke ventilation.

You find these types of saunas in hotels, homes and public swimming halls. They can be electric or woodburning with rocks on top of the stoves surface.

Tip: How to improve the steam of your Finnish home sauna? Try changing the style of the home sauna stones

Feeling the Heat in a Modern Finnish 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.

Finnish Public 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.

Most miss out on this Blissful Sauna Practice

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.

A Finnish Sauna Vacation

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.

Two 'Very old' churches (1)Pyhä Olavi(1515) and (2)Holy Mary's(Pyhä Marian) in Karkku are within walking distance along with two different cafes located a few kilometers from each other. Aitta Kahvila Cafe, is an old granary converted into cafe near the Holy Mary's church in Karkku, while the Mieli Aitta cafe is on the Mieli Aitta property near Sastamala's Pyhä Olavi church.

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!!!

Weather faded grey wood sides of this smoke sauna.

weather-faded gray sides of this 'seasoned' smoke sauna.

A Finnish vacation with a smoke sauna. A look at Mieli Aitta's smoke sauna. This two story sauna gives out a warm gentle soft heat. Go on a picture tour inside of Sastamala's Mieli Aitta smoke sauna

Finnish Sauna Atmosphere

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.

Smoke Sauna in Kuusamo, Finland. When I was in Kuusamo,Finland at my first smoke sauna.Graying outside woodpanels,flush green woods,peaceful and quiet.

When I was in Kuusamo,Finland at my first smoke sauna.Graying outside woodpanels,flush green woods,peaceful and quiet.

Here I am in Kuusamo, Finland at the most remote smoke sauna I've experienced---no plumbing, electricity or paved roads for miles, surrounded by nature, peace and quiet.

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...!! voilÃ ...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!