EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have any health issues, you should consult your doctor before using a sauna.
For some, the idea of sweating among semi-naked strangers in a small wooden box as hot as 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) might sound more like a sadistic form of torture than rest and relaxation. But others just can’t get enough of the sauna.
“I’m addicted to it,” says Taeko Takahashi-Williams, 22, who works at the Community Sauna Baths in the Hackney Wick neighborhood of East London, as she emerges, beaming, from one of its seven sauna cabins. “I get so high from the sauna.”
Around the world, people are getting the hots for sauna. In the UK, the number of public sauna sites has jumped from 45 in 2023 to 147 so far this year, according to the British Sauna Society; and in New Zealand, the US, and Australia, demand for sauna experiences is reportedly also increasing.
Charlie Duckworth, 36, co-founded the Community Sauna Baths in 2021. The not-for-profit business offers wood-fired and electric saunas, and cold plunges, as well as events like sauna meditation and breathwork sessions, yoga, and queer poetry readings.
The site has proved so popular that, over the past four years, Duckworth and his team have opened five more locations across the city. He thinks the growing popularity of saunas is coupled with other wellness trends, like the decline in alcohol consumption by younger generations.
“Especially in our core demographic of 25 to 40, people are more focused upon health, wellbeing and connection,” he says, adding that in the UK, the sauna is “one of a few places… you can hang out as an alternative to the pub.”
While some research has warned of the potential risk of heatstroke, and that saunas may not be suitable for people with unstable heart disease, other studies have suggested saunas can have physical benefits, including reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia; and those who use saunas regularly are more likely to report improved mood and higher levels of happiness.
London is certainly no stranger to new-age wellness fads: ecstatic dance, sound baths and guided sensory walks have all had their moment. To the capital’s trendy 20 to 40-somethings, a sauna might just seem like the newest bandwagon-worthy health trend.
But in Finland, the practice has roots stretching back 10,000 years. The sauna is so central to the Finnish lifestyle that, in 2020, it was inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity.
Saunas were once the cornerstone of Finnish rural life, as a site for delousing farmworkers, drying grain, and curing meat. But today they have found a place in modern living.
With an estimated 3.3 million saunas for a population of just over 5.6 million, saunas are everywhere: in apartments, workplaces, and even, at one point, a Burger King. “If you have to name one element of Finnish identity, sauna definitely would be the most recognizable,” says Visit Finland representative, Sergei Shkurov.
He describes the sauna as “a sacred place” for Finns, explaining that it was traditionally the site of childbirth and where the dead were washed before burial. “That means, basically, that sauna was in [a] person’s life from its beginning to its end,” he adds.
In Tampere, southern Finland, the so-called sauna capital of the world, there are now over 70 public saunas, and according to the city’s tourism board, visitor numbers are on the rise.
Specialty saunas are also increasingly appearing across the country, catering to the tastes of modern Finns and international tourists who have caught the sauna bug, from a floating sauna restaurant to sauna tents on the frozen Arctic sea.
Serlachius Museums, in Mänttä in southern Finland, opened its Art Sauna in 2022. While artworks are not present in the heat room itself, visitors can combine their trip to the museums with a spell in its strikingly designed sauna complex.
“We don’t consider ourselves only as a cultural institution, but very much as a travel destination,” says museums director Pauli Sivonen. He says the sauna has hosted “sauna freaks,” people who travel to unique saunas around the world, from 23 different countries this year alone — including Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
“The main thing, of course… is the basic feeling of peace of mind that you always look for in sauna,” Sivonen explains. “But what makes it special is this very considered architecture and art and design that we have.”
Unlike a typical square Finnish sauna, the steam room of the Serlachius Art Sauna is round, and the complex uses hard materials like stone and concrete, in addition to wood.
Designed by Mexican and Slovenian architects, Sivonen says the project has met with resistance from some Finns who see its modern twists as a break with Finnish sauna tradition. “But I think that’s kind of the beauty of it,” he says, “that it’s… a mix of cultures.”
Sivonen nevertheless recognizes the importance of protecting Finnish sauna culture. “It’s actually quite beautiful that we have a sauna in [a] museum,” he says. “Museums, after all, are about preservation of traditions.”
It is also a hub for those in the surrounding areas, and Sivonen says he enjoys seeing “what kind of interaction happens between these very local people and… sauna tourists.”
Community is also at the heart of the sauna experience for Duckworth. He says he often sees older people socializing with younger people in his London saunas, adding that saunas can “break down barriers in terms of age, gender, class.”
Anthropologist and psychologist Martha Newson, of the University of Oxford and University of Greenwich, who is studying the mental health impact of saunas, thinks that these wellbeing improvements are due to the social connections formed by having a sauna with other people.
“It’s all about how sharing an experience together… helps us feel like we’re one with others,” she says. “Just being in your swimwear and sweating with other people is very intimate. And I think it can do a lot for self-esteem to see other real human bodies and being (in) a pretty un-judgmental space to do that,” she adds.
At the Community Sauna Baths in Hackney Wick, friends Millie Monks and Raychel Myara are taking a break from the heat and sipping orange and cinnamon tea by the outside fire. Myara has visited only a few times, but “really like[s] the energy” of the place.
“It’s… really body-affirming to see all these women just relaxing, chatting and laughing with each other,” she says.
Monks started using the sauna regularly two and a half years ago, finding it a “nice way to warm-up” after cold-water swimming in London’s outdoor pools, and “quite a nice way of finding community.”
Duckworth hopes the growth of saunas in the UK is more than just a passing trend. “I think it should be a completely normal thing to do,” he says. “Fundamentally, it feels really good… if you come twice a week, you’re going to feel happier.”