The Finnish Sauna

When people ask me what do I love the most in Finland, I have three words to say: “Revontulet” (or Northern lights), “Pulla” (typical Finnish pastries) and “Sauna”. Of course I definitely love the stunning beauty of Lapland´s different seasons, mostly winter, plenty, plenty of snow, and many other things, but those 3 small details always make my day.

People, especially Finnish, are very shocked when I say I love sauna, because I come from a very warm place (Barcelona!) where the last thing you would think about is to get into a closed hot room. If you want to sweat, you just have to wait for summer and you will sweat every minute of the day and night. But sauna is different. Sauna is not about sweating, is a place to rest your body and your spirit. It is a tradition in Finland, every home has a sauna and from children to grandparents, everybody uses it.

It is important, nonetheless, always to take some precautions: you need fresh water close to don’t dehydrate yourself; if you feel it’s starting to become hard for you to stay on the sauna, go out and refresh a bit if you will stay longer; and don’t do any efforts inside, just relax.

To be honest, the first sauna is often overwhelming. It is hard to stay in such a hot and small place, especially for not very open minded people. But you should not give up, no way! Because when you get used to it, it becomes the best part of the day, you feel how your muscles relax and your skin is cleaned and you just let your mind fly away somewhere. Be careful, because sometimes it flies so away you can fall sleep! But, afterwards, you really feel like heaven.

Traditionally Finns have some branches of young birch tied together in a whisk they call “vasta” that use to hit gently on the skin. It helps the skin to “open” and be better cleaned. Personally I have never used one of those, but what I love to do while saunabathing is something most people think is crazy: I just LOVE to run to the snow and jump on it and then return fast to the sauna. Believe me when I say it feels great!


There is something more which is traditional for Finns and that most of the foreigners can’t really do. Finnish people go to the sauna naked, because it is place to clean your body and spirit, where nothing else matters. I’ve been living quite a long time on a dormitory where there was only international students, and most of them could not “deal with it”, and keep going with swimsuit and feel embarrassed to look at the rest of the people. In that cases I use a Spanish idiom that says “Allá dónde fueres, haz lo que vieres”, what means you have to embrace the culture of the places you visit, so in that case, don’t feel any shame!

Ester

Pictures are from Isokenkäisten Klubi, a place with five saunas, one of them a smoke sauna and one a lake side sauna, the rest electric saunas.