I love a sauna. Always have. Always will. They are my church and my temple. I sauna every day when I’m home and for the past month I’ve been visiting as many public saunas as I can while touring the country with my one-man stage show, Wild.
Life on the road can be tiring and lonely, but my sauna pilgrimage has brought so much company and happiness. I’ve already notched up about twenty, which is a fifth of the estimated hundred public ones in the UK.
Saunas are becoming increasingly popular, but we have a long way to go to beat the 3.1 million in Finland, where the government even has a weekly cabinet meeting in one.
The first sauna I had was in Sweden. I was in the most northerly region, near Kiruna in the Arctic Circle. A small wooden sauna had been dragged on skis to the middle of a frozen river. I cooked myself next to a birchwood-burning stove and then plunged into a hole cut into the ice.
Apart from being terrified that I’d be swept under by the current, it was exhilarating and almost spiritual. Everything felt calm. With just candles for light, it was churchlike. I have since saunaed (yes, it is an actual verb) worldwide.
In Antarctica I saunaed at the Norwegian base in a solar sauna (of course). I sweated in a homemade sauna in Russian Siberia in the Pleistocene Park aboard a barge surrounded by the thawing remains of a woolly mammoth. And on a floating one in the Pacific Ocean off Canada while orcas swam past. I have saunaed with a witch in Wales and in a sweat lodge with a First Nationer in Oregon.
The strangest and most dangerous sauna was in the Chernobyl exclusion zone of Ukraine. I visited during the war and ended up in a homemade sauna built by the occupying Russians in the Red Forest. After several bottles of homemade vodka some Ukrainian soldiers and I joined forces in it before we cooled off in the toxic Pripyat River. Nothing will stand between me and a sauna experience, not even a war.
About five years ago we bought a sauna for home. It sits in a little wood next to our house. It was made by a small company in Wales called Heartwood and is the best investment I have made. From the heat of the sauna I watch as deer graze while the sun sets.
When I had a mental health wobble 18 months ago, the sauna switched from meditative to therapeutic. It really was my medicine and I credit my recovery in part to hot and cold therapy (don’t take my advice on this, always ask a professional).
To sweat feels like releasing all the anxiety, irritation, worry and fear. I feel lighter, happier and calmer after one. I sleep better and think clearer. I am a sauna purist. I like to sit in silence. It is a meditation for me. My brain zones out and I think of nothing.
My wife, Marina, likes to talk, so we split our sessions in two. I begin early, in silent meditation, then Marina joins and we chat. Ours is off-grid with only candles and the flame of the stove for light. For me it is the alternative to a church service, a profoundly spiritual and revitalising experience. I realise how privileged we are to have our sauna, but you don’t have to own one to enjoy the benefits. The number of saunas across the UK is increasing, and they cost from £10 per session.
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In a Brighton sauna we listened to rave music while we had the ritual known as either aufguss (German for “infusion’’) or saunagus (the Danish word), whereby an expert spins a towel wildly to spread the heat. Our aufgussmeister was off to the world championships in Dublin, where he would dress up as Boris Johnson for his session.
Although saunas date back 10,000 years, there has been a recent surge in popularity here in the UK. The former Radio 1 DJ Rob da Bank opened the UK’s first floating sauna on a lake on the Isle of Wight and another floating one has just opened in Liverpool.
I have been touring for the past month and I decided it would be fun to visit as many public saunas as I could to help to decompress and relax. The first was in Aberdeen — Barbos Sauna, run by a charming Brazilian couple and their black labrador, Rocky, who is the “CEO’’.
His image, wearing a pair of sunglasses, adorned the converted horsebox. My little window looked out on to the offshore wind farms and the support vessels weaving in between. I cooled off in the 7C North Sea.
Saltwater Sauna in Poole, Dorset, is one of the chicest. It’s on Sandbanks, the area with the most expensive property in the UK outside London, so perhaps it isn’t surprising that it’s so smart.
A huge picture window looks out on to the white sandy beach with dog walkers going past.
In Whitstable the Sea Scrub Sauna is in the heart of the old harbour. I watched as the tide retreated to such a distance that I used its barrel plunge instead of making the quarter-mile “pebble hobble” to the ocean. Ice was added to make it a chilly 5C and the manager, Torsie, poured a bucket of ice water over my head for an extra dopamine hit. In Worthing a converted horsebox on the beach was my therapist for the day.
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Sometimes I’m alone, but it’s been fun to share a communal one. Conversation in a sauna is not as awkward as it may sound. There is a commonality in the experience and talk usually starts with the temperature, the sea or the weather and expands from there. Sometimes I sit in silence, listening. Sometimes I join the chat. It’s always light, never heavy.
In Wales I shared one with ten people in Ty Sawna on the Gower. They were all part of a membership group enjoying unlimited saunas for a yearly subscription. The community is growing fast. There are sauna festivals, gatherings, competitions, social media accounts and even a television station dedicated to them, appropriately called Sauna TV.
There is well-documented evidence that they are good for us and it has always surprised me that as a northern European nation we don’t share the sauna DNA with our Scandinavian neighbours, whereas the Germans and Austrians embrace the heat. Perhaps one of the reasons is our modesty. We are the only nation that mandates clothed saunas. Big signs remind customers to remain clothed.
In northern Europe the signs require the opposite, reminding saunees that it is a “textile-free zone”. I was once kicked out of a sauna in Austria because I was wearing swimming shorts. At home, of course, we sauna naked. After all it’s just Marina and me. The nakedness is part of the “ritual” and the cleanse.
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And as for the health benefits, according to one recent scientific study, men who reported taking a sauna four to seven times a week were 66 per cent less likely to receive a diagnosis of dementia than those who only sauna once a week.
Evidence backs my experience that a sauna helps relaxation, sleep, improves cardiovascular health, muscle relaxation. In many countries traditional sweat lodges, which are dome-shaped or oblong structures made from natural materials such as animal skins, have long been used for spiritual ceremonies, purification and healing, primarily by indigenous communities. (The only time I have had minor hallucinations was during a sweat lodge ceremony.) Almost every culture through the ages has enjoyed some sort of sweat bathing.
A sauna is less intense than a sweat lodge (in 2011 three people died and 25 were injured by the heat in a sweat lodge cult) but can be equally magical. Every sauna experience is just a little bit different.
For me, the whole process is part of the ceremony. Ours is wood-burning. I collect the fuel from our woods, I chop it up and prepare it and then I nurse the fire until it is just the right temperature.
The whole process can take a few hours. I find 80-90C is the perfect temperature. Any hotter and you ruin the experience; any colder and you won’t really feel the rewards.
In Russia they beat you with birch. Marina once treated me to a hammam sauna at a Russian spa in London. It didn’t really do it for me. Too many people and I didn’t really like being beaten with a cane.
One of my favourite sauna experiences was at Studland Sauna Hut in Dorset with Marina. We went with our son, Ludo, and the dogs. While Marina and I sweated, Ludo and the dogs played on the beach, and then they all joined us in the water (well, the dogs anyway).
The cool-down chill dip in a barrel or in the sea, river or lake is half the experience and I always recommend to end cold. It is the most invigorating, long-lasting way to enjoy a sauna.
The Nordic countries have long believed that saunas are essential to physical and mental wellbeing.
In Britain the sauna experience is still niche, but it should be for anyone and everyone.
I have found tremendous healing, comfort and happiness in a sauna. In Nordic nations they say it is the poor man’s pharmacy. They really are nature’s medicine. As they say, “Good things come to those who sweat.”
