, dropped in to chat. She packed a typical post-sauna picnic: black bread, salted butter, smoked meat and a bottle of birch cordial, made from the tree’s sap.“There are lots of vitamins in the juice, it’s an immunity booster,” said Priks as she began to explain theEstonia is celebrating the Year of the Sauna in 2023, and among its aims is encouraging Estonians and foreign visitors to try out its different types, from traditional smoke saunas to novelties such as ice-cellar and floating saunas.
There are more than 100,100 saunas in the country, according to the European Commission’s Estonian Building Register. That’s about one per 13.3 residents. But Priks estimates that there are actually at least double that number. Taking saunas is habitual here – and most of those thousands are found in private homes. As you might expect, Estonia’s ambassador to the UK had one fitted in his London residence.One might wonder why more Britons haven’t invested in this simple relaxation tool. And that’s before investigating the long-term physical benefits. Aconcluded that “having frequent sauna baths is strongly associated with a reduced risk of fatal cardiovascular outcomes”.
I spoke to Jari Laukkanen, one of the study’s co-authors, a medical doctor and a professor at the University of Eastern Finland, about the findings. He explained that participants, both male and female, were classified by how often they used a sauna per week: once, two to three times or four or more.
“Those who were in a sauna more than four times a week had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. It was one of the first studies where this result was consistent among male and females,” he said. He also pointed to more general benefits: “There’s some evidence that stress hormone levels may be lowered, and that endorphins may increase, from time in a sauna.”The average British cul-de-sacs may be lacking in saunas, but there are signs that bathing culture is catching on.