▶ If you can’t stand the heat…Sauna

Since the age of sixteen, I’ve been an avid sauna user.  It truly heartens me to see some with the inquisitive, experiences, and viewer as Joe Rogan endorse this practice.  

How I discovered Sauna

Today conventional science seems to recognize the irrefutable benefits of using a sauna appropriately.  I stumbled onto the practice very unknowingly. One summer, a family friend, a close friend and team member with my father in Vietnam, invited me to accompany him and his son to the gym on Andrews Air Force.  I’d already been working out with weights intensely for two years, and so I jumped on the opportunity.

After we all did our routine, went to the locker room for the post-workout routine for most, shower, bullshittin’, and getting ready for a fun night. My uncle Rickie as we affectionately called him, took a bottle of a baby oil and alcohol mixture from his bag and asked us to join him in the sauna. 

This was my first time in this wooden hot box. It smelled deeply of aged wood and years of evaporated sweat.  Hesitant, yet inquisitive, I entered and let the heat begin to do its thing.

I Enjoyed the Heat

In recounting this story from over 30 years ago, my memory is vague, yet powerful. The way I remember is I enjoyed the heat, found it relaxing, but did not stay long. 

Uncle Ricky spoke on and on about the endless benefits of sauna and the specific benefits of his sauna elixir. The rush of the cold water against my skin quickly cooled down my body and provided an AWESOME and slightly intoxicating buzz! I did not have the terminology, scientific OR esoteric, to understand or explain the wonders of doing sauna, but I KNEW I LOVED IT. 

I did not have the chance to experience it again until I found a part-time job on the base and was allowed to use the gym…bonus!

Health benefits of Sauna

Over these last thirty years of reading articles from dozens of sources, bodybuilding magazines, Yoga journal, other health and fitness magazines. And articles all expressing their reasons, background, and data for the benefits of the sauna. At some point, the imagery of some Nations of Native Americans using sweat lodges for spiritual, social, and healing reasons immediately correlated to me on the benefits of the sauna.  Over the years, during my journey through college, the military, and foreign cultures. I was always heartened to see how using saunas or similar apparatus has been embraced and how long such practices have existed.

My Hottest Sauna Session

I’ve enjoyed the sauna and steam rooms in a variety of places all over the world. Such as Air Bases in England, gyms in Italy, hotels in Jordan, and the Philippines, Japan. Given my love of the ‘spa’ life, I’ve been lucky enough to be able to enjoy the sauna at resorts, on a cruise and even experienced one of the hottest steam sessions of my life during my introduction to Hamman spa in Morocco….oh how it hurt so damn good.   

Sauna Competition

My weirdest observation related to the sauna was the national sauna competition held in Finland.  I heard about then vaguely remember seeing some footage an event.  Saw this while on travel and in transit and vaguely remember the competition, most likely due to the hustle and the drink.

I believe there was a fatality of a Japanese national competitor, overexposed to heat, and the contest was never held following. 

My only thoughts here are too much of anything, even a good, is not a good thing. 

Still, that said, I can take the heat