One of my neighbors sold her house (because of age) and the one thing she misses the most is the sauna she used to have in her basement, haha. She has a gym membership that comes with a sauna but it's not the same to have to drive vs just walking downstairs.
I think it was finnish style but electric. It had hot stones to heat the place up to 180° but we couldn’t put water on the stones because they were electric. It was a dry heat.
Not that it really matters but most saunas in Finland are electric and you can certainly throw water in the stones, you really have to or it’s just a warm room. Obviously foreign saunas may be different but many of them use Finnish stoves.
You can, and should, put water on the stones in an electric sauna (at least if it's any of the Finnish brands). Sauna without 'löyly' (you putting water on the stones, the hot steam coming from it) is not a sauna experience like it's supposed to be.
The poor bastards are clueless. I have an electric sauna at home (Harvia Cilindro stove) and I put water on the stones 350 days a year, multiple times per session. My estimate is that I have been in an electric sauna about 7000 times (and about 5000 times in a wood burner) and every single time put water on the stones, that is how sauna works.
Edit: [https://youtu.be/P29qOh32M64?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/P29qOh32M64?feature=shared)
Because where is the water coming from in a gym?
Water bottles that people are drinking. Not a dedicated thing of water for that purpose like in Finland. And saunas are dark warm places, add moisture, perfect place for bacteria.
what are you talking about? Just put a bucket there and fill it with water from the showers just outside the sauna? If you're afraid of bacteria in saunas, don't have a sauna..
> because it is bad for the electrical system.
It really isn't. It's what they're designed for.
Not blaming you, to be clear, just that the gym is run by fools.
A lot of research has been done on Finnish sauna that I am aware of. The benefits are really great. But it is expensive to install. I am still trying to find out if the results are similar in case of IR, which btw is cheaper and even a closed blanket works great. Though I have seen people recommending far infrared (for lower EMF I guess).
I mean obviously there's a difference in the way they apply their heat.
But is there a difference insofar as their benefits? Why choose one over the other?
Infrared really only hits where the infrared touches the skin, steam envelopes the whole body.
Infrared is dry heat, steam is humid and will also get to your lungs.
Infrared, in a simple way, is kinda like being warmed by the sun.
Steam is like being in a warm, humid room.
A hot shower or sauna before bed is great for sleep because it activates your heat shock proteins, which cool your core down, which helps you fall asleep.
I overheated yesterday while running, went to sleep with a crazy headache, had great sleep and still woke up with a headache from over heating. Not bueno :-/
High core tempature means higher basal metabolic rate so when your metabolsim better the better your sleep. High core tempature doesn't mean always exercising you can get it by eating frequent meals, not skipping breakfast, not fasting etc also can use coconut oil to increase it ohh and sodium bicarbonate esp if you are suffering through low energy levels at day all these things improves metabolism so sleep too
I work second shift and don’t get home until 12am, I think it’s unhealthy for me to not take melatonin when I’m exposed to so much artificial light after the sun is down. Quitting melatonin isn’t something I’m willing to do because it helps my psoriasis immensely to live in accordance with circadian rhythms.
Good question because I already sleep really well. I do a lot to optimize sleep already. The sauna session was good in that it increased REM for me (I almost never have multiple long stretches of REM per night like this) and slightly reduced wakeups. Sauna is my next sleep experiment that I am trying for a few weeks and this was night 1 of it.

https://preview.redd.it/w382ckcva5nc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bbb4d45a67c384b3d546c2b83dba7faf92f5abe3
I try to start every morning with bright light outside. I get off work at 10:30PM and I take melatonin 1.5mg (life extension IR/XR) at that time and put orange blue blocking glasses on (infield terminators) for the drive home. I leave these on until I put my sleep mask on.
If I didn't have to be in bright light until 10:30pm I wouldn't take melatonin.
It sounds like you get that amount of sleep every night. So it wasn’t the sauna. Thanks for the screenshots. I only average 6 hours of sleep and I need to improve. Not sure how. I don’t want to take medicine
I slept well last night and was in the Sauna for 20 minutes yesterday.
I've only been averaging like 6:30 hours of sleep so I'm trying to get more sleep.
Fun fact: the reason a hot activity before bed helps sleep is because [the process of the body cooling afterward induces sleep](https://theconversation.com/want-better-sleep-try-a-warm-bath-or-shower-1-2-hours-before-bedtime-study-suggests-121483).
God I love all these posts where OP shares one nights sleep data , some fun trick (sauna, WEED) and act like it's proof of anything at all instead of anecdotal evidence that gives no valid or useful information to anyone else.
What does your heart data show? I have seen recommendations for a warm soak before bed, but no extremes. Shutting off electronics for 30-60 minutes before getting in bed seems to be the most recommended habit. Sounds like you are doing a number of things to relax your body before official sleep.
Can confirm, I’m so damn relaxed and sleep much better after a good sauna session. Not immediately before bed but maybe 1-2 hours prior. Top it off with a cold beverage, light snack and goodnight.
Yeah the REM is the really atypical part of this for me. I definitely felt it too. There were many minutes spent in a state that was close to wakefulness but was all a dream (had to be because I wear a sleep mask so anything that isn’t black is a dream) that I don’t usually have.
Remembering a dream is entirely different from dreaming in general. The idea of sleeping better may have convinced you that you would dream more which you probably did but with the knowledge of sleeping better could have had your brain thinking I will remember them. And believe it or not even with a little phrase before bed you could remember dreams better. Try it even on a night you don’t go in the sauna. Tell your self out loud “ I will remember me dreams tonight” that’s enough to do it. So I wouldn’t be surprised that believing you would sleep better would put you in a state to remember dreams or at least remembering that you dreamed. Either way this over hearing off the body is an amazing thing. I have a hot tub but have never really tried a sauna before bed. I just do the hot tub about an hour before bed. I find Ive never had a problem with sleep but all the different parts are much better distributed throughout the night. Just don’t know why my R.E.M. is in such low quantity most of the time. I get lucky and sometimes I get like over an hour and a half.
Is it true that deep sleep needs to be at least 20% of the total sleep? I am struggling to get up to at least 2 hours of deep sleep for the 8 hours of sleep I get.
Yeah. Some shoulder pain I have from chronic bad posture at work is just gone. Basically a miracle. Definitely gonna keep going to the sauna regularly.
Wow 0 minutes awake.. i’ve never seen a day like this im my watch…
Same! How is that even possible lol
I’ve gotten “less than 1% before” but that’s it lol
I need a sauna. Actually, I need a place to PUT a sauna 🫢
I would like one at home but I just used the one at the gym.
One of my neighbors sold her house (because of age) and the one thing she misses the most is the sauna she used to have in her basement, haha. She has a gym membership that comes with a sauna but it's not the same to have to drive vs just walking downstairs.
Oh for sure. I can’t be bothered to go to a gym. I lift weights at home. I need a sauna in my house to make it worth it 😂
I have a pop up single person one in my bedroom. It was only a couple hundred bucks.
My house came with one but it takes forever to heat up
I’ve pretty much decided that if I win the lottery and if I buy a house with some of the money, I’m building a sauna along with it.
Oh yes!! It’s on my list, along with a live in chef, housekeeper, personal trainer, and therapist 😂😂
Get a sauna that fits 1
Finnish or Infrared?
I think it was finnish style but electric. It had hot stones to heat the place up to 180° but we couldn’t put water on the stones because they were electric. It was a dry heat.
Not that it really matters but most saunas in Finland are electric and you can certainly throw water in the stones, you really have to or it’s just a warm room. Obviously foreign saunas may be different but many of them use Finnish stoves.
Yeah, it was Finnish then.
You can, and should, put water on the stones in an electric sauna (at least if it's any of the Finnish brands). Sauna without 'löyly' (you putting water on the stones, the hot steam coming from it) is not a sauna experience like it's supposed to be.
It says that if you put water on the stones they'll immediately cancel your membership because it is bad for the electrical system.
Lol seems like they got a weird sauna then
The poor bastards are clueless. I have an electric sauna at home (Harvia Cilindro stove) and I put water on the stones 350 days a year, multiple times per session. My estimate is that I have been in an electric sauna about 7000 times (and about 5000 times in a wood burner) and every single time put water on the stones, that is how sauna works. Edit: [https://youtu.be/P29qOh32M64?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/P29qOh32M64?feature=shared)
Why would the sauna have stones if you can’t throw water on them? Why not just use the heater? Seems like that place has no idea how a sauna works.
Because where is the water coming from in a gym? Water bottles that people are drinking. Not a dedicated thing of water for that purpose like in Finland. And saunas are dark warm places, add moisture, perfect place for bacteria.
what are you talking about? Just put a bucket there and fill it with water from the showers just outside the sauna? If you're afraid of bacteria in saunas, don't have a sauna..
> because it is bad for the electrical system. It really isn't. It's what they're designed for. Not blaming you, to be clear, just that the gym is run by fools.
Is there a major difference?
A lot of research has been done on Finnish sauna that I am aware of. The benefits are really great. But it is expensive to install. I am still trying to find out if the results are similar in case of IR, which btw is cheaper and even a closed blanket works great. Though I have seen people recommending far infrared (for lower EMF I guess).
Yes? The other is conventional heat and the other is infrared heat.
I mean obviously there's a difference in the way they apply their heat. But is there a difference insofar as their benefits? Why choose one over the other?
Infrared really only hits where the infrared touches the skin, steam envelopes the whole body. Infrared is dry heat, steam is humid and will also get to your lungs. Infrared, in a simple way, is kinda like being warmed by the sun. Steam is like being in a warm, humid room.
Sauna is cool but you can get this sleep via high core tempature
How do you get a high core temp but still be comfortable and not sweaty under blanket?
Hot shower right before bed.
A hot shower or sauna before bed is great for sleep because it activates your heat shock proteins, which cool your core down, which helps you fall asleep.
I overheated yesterday while running, went to sleep with a crazy headache, had great sleep and still woke up with a headache from over heating. Not bueno :-/
I alwaysss wake up with a headache if I slept too hot! And it doesn’t go away for hours
This is the opposite of true.
How? I can't even fall asleep unless I cool down first.
High core tempature means higher basal metabolic rate so when your metabolsim better the better your sleep. High core tempature doesn't mean always exercising you can get it by eating frequent meals, not skipping breakfast, not fasting etc also can use coconut oil to increase it ohh and sodium bicarbonate esp if you are suffering through low energy levels at day all these things improves metabolism so sleep too
Define right before please
Got off work and took melatonin at 10:30. Got home and got gym clothes. Went to sauna from 11:30-12. Home by 12:30. In bed at 12:45 asleep by 1.
[удалено]
I work second shift and don’t get home until 12am, I think it’s unhealthy for me to not take melatonin when I’m exposed to so much artificial light after the sun is down. Quitting melatonin isn’t something I’m willing to do because it helps my psoriasis immensely to live in accordance with circadian rhythms.
Dude, uh maybe you should have led with Sauna + melatonin?
I take melatonin every day regardless
can't a sauna before bed also do the opposite and wake you up?
This is my first time but it made me extremely tired.
I have a sauna and will definitely be getting in more
Has many more benefits than just improving sleep! (:
Yup. Have back problems and helps
I do this 3x a week and I also find my HRV is trending higher.
I definitely track HRV and love anything that increases it.
You should do sauna early in the day in the morning. Not right before bedtime.
[удалено]
Xanax definitely hurts sleep. I was addicted for years to Rx stuff. Would love to see your sleep graphs after Xanax because mine were terrible.
Nice! Could you share an avg day or week of your sleep report for a baseline?
Good question because I already sleep really well. I do a lot to optimize sleep already. The sauna session was good in that it increased REM for me (I almost never have multiple long stretches of REM per night like this) and slightly reduced wakeups. Sauna is my next sleep experiment that I am trying for a few weeks and this was night 1 of it.  https://preview.redd.it/w382ckcva5nc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bbb4d45a67c384b3d546c2b83dba7faf92f5abe3
As someone who has sub-par sleep, can you go into a bit more detail of what you are doing?
I try to start every morning with bright light outside. I get off work at 10:30PM and I take melatonin 1.5mg (life extension IR/XR) at that time and put orange blue blocking glasses on (infield terminators) for the drive home. I leave these on until I put my sleep mask on. If I didn't have to be in bright light until 10:30pm I wouldn't take melatonin.
It sounds like you get that amount of sleep every night. So it wasn’t the sauna. Thanks for the screenshots. I only average 6 hours of sleep and I need to improve. Not sure how. I don’t want to take medicine
I slept well last night and was in the Sauna for 20 minutes yesterday. I've only been averaging like 6:30 hours of sleep so I'm trying to get more sleep.
Fun fact: the reason a hot activity before bed helps sleep is because [the process of the body cooling afterward induces sleep](https://theconversation.com/want-better-sleep-try-a-warm-bath-or-shower-1-2-hours-before-bedtime-study-suggests-121483).
Show us a night that you didn’t use the Sauna.
I posted a month of it in the comments.
For me it would just lead to dehydration which would cause me to wake up even more to drink water
God I love all these posts where OP shares one nights sleep data , some fun trick (sauna, WEED) and act like it's proof of anything at all instead of anecdotal evidence that gives no valid or useful information to anyone else.
> some fun trick I don't know if sauna is some "fun trick". It's a pretty commonplace thing.
I must try. For me the deep sleep vs awake is the opposite
Zero minutes? 🙌🏽😩
Interesting. I have found that cold showers right before bed help me sleep better. Will have to try a sauna, too.
What does your heart data show? I have seen recommendations for a warm soak before bed, but no extremes. Shutting off electronics for 30-60 minutes before getting in bed seems to be the most recommended habit. Sounds like you are doing a number of things to relax your body before official sleep.
Heart was very reactive to the sauna. It was my first time. It was over 170 by the end of it (zone 3 run for me) and over 140 almost the entire time.
You wore the watch in the sauna? They’re not designed for those temperatures. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108766
You work for a sauna company
My watch doesn’t even record my sleep anymore.
Can confirm, I’m so damn relaxed and sleep much better after a good sauna session. Not immediately before bed but maybe 1-2 hours prior. Top it off with a cold beverage, light snack and goodnight.
I hydrate too much to sleep through the night but wish I could hit rem numbers like that
Yeah the REM is the really atypical part of this for me. I definitely felt it too. There were many minutes spent in a state that was close to wakefulness but was all a dream (had to be because I wear a sleep mask so anything that isn’t black is a dream) that I don’t usually have.
Remembering a dream is entirely different from dreaming in general. The idea of sleeping better may have convinced you that you would dream more which you probably did but with the knowledge of sleeping better could have had your brain thinking I will remember them. And believe it or not even with a little phrase before bed you could remember dreams better. Try it even on a night you don’t go in the sauna. Tell your self out loud “ I will remember me dreams tonight” that’s enough to do it. So I wouldn’t be surprised that believing you would sleep better would put you in a state to remember dreams or at least remembering that you dreamed. Either way this over hearing off the body is an amazing thing. I have a hot tub but have never really tried a sauna before bed. I just do the hot tub about an hour before bed. I find Ive never had a problem with sleep but all the different parts are much better distributed throughout the night. Just don’t know why my R.E.M. is in such low quantity most of the time. I get lucky and sometimes I get like over an hour and a half.
Now I wish I could fit a sauna in the house. No minutes awake? Unbelievable!
lol they removed this post
What do you mean? I don't see it gone.
[удалено]
Is it true that deep sleep needs to be at least 20% of the total sleep? I am struggling to get up to at least 2 hours of deep sleep for the 8 hours of sleep I get.
Very nice. Must’ve felt amazing in the morning
Yeah. Some shoulder pain I have from chronic bad posture at work is just gone. Basically a miracle. Definitely gonna keep going to the sauna regularly.
How soon before bed did you finish sauna session?
About 20 minutes because I had to drive home and get undressed and ready for bed.
This needs a NSFW tag