February 2, 2019 • 38 mins
Although they seem pretty mundane, saunas are surprisingly fascinating inventions. Josh and Chuck break out all sorts of sweaty, sauna-related trivia, from the Finnish affinity for saunas to sauna etiquette, in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. Chuck Here with the Stuff you
should know. Select pick for the week from July twenty two,
Sundas coland more interesting than you think. I think this
was titled by Josh. If I remember correctly, that's a
Josh Clark title all the way. Uh And if I
am not mistaken, I did not know how to pronounce
it back then. I think I pronounced that sauna all
(00:22):
through the episode, and uh, I got a lot of
email that it's actually Suna. So I wanted to write
that ship here eight years later, going on nine years later,
and do it the right way. So here we go
with sound as more interesting than you think because they
are Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff
(00:43):
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuckers
Chuck Chucky Bride of Chucky. He paused, as if you
forgot who I was, I had a thing I have
(01:04):
marble mouth unusual. Today, here we go, this podcast brought
to you by a jolly rancher. Have you ever mixes
with Ziema? No? But you know that Oakland Raiders former
Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell just got busted with. They
call it purple drank, and it's it's like it's codeine
(01:26):
syrup and I think some sort of carbonet soda and
jolly rancher. Wow, that's robot tripping, is what he's doing. Well,
it came out of the Houston, Texas scene like ten
years ago. Were drink. I never heard of it. That's
how square I am. I haven't heard of it either,
So don't feel bad. Okay. Plus, it's like that's what
they do in Houston. Seriously, that what you want your
(01:47):
town associated with. Yeah, we use codeine water. Yeah, we
came up with purple drink. Wasn't he the QB for
l s U? Yeah? Hey that guy, Well he's a bust.
He's nothing. Now, well he's a big wash really. Yeah.
He went to the NFL and got all fat and
through interceptions and he was great for he was so Anyway,
(02:08):
I guess what all that leads us to, Chuck is saunas. Yes,
football players, Well, they probably your steam room guys. Yeah,
let's talk about that's a great place to start, Chuck.
There's a difference between a sauna and a steam room.
There's a number of differences, but the mode of heat
is what's really different, right. Yeah, And I should point
(02:29):
out we called this Saunas colon more interesting than you
think for a reason because Robert lamb Our, a steam
uh writer and uh stuff from the science Lab. He
wrote this and he told us like months ago, He's like, dude,
you should do Saunas Saunas. It's way cooler than you think,
and it's dirty and filthy and like, and he was
(02:49):
right steeped in history. Yeah, this is uh for my money.
Robert Williams the best writer on how stuff works out
com e um. But he wrote an altogether pleasant article
that I've read like many, many time times and every
time you just love the way you wrote it. It's
a great article. We should read the first line, please do.
The first line of his article says you're going to
want to read this article naked, so please before you
go any further, disrobed completely. So if you're in the
(03:12):
confines of your own home, yeah, if the shades are
drawn and you're an adult, there's no one else around
that you're uncomfortable with. Very specifically, Chuck is only talking
to people who are we'll just go with twenty one
years of age and older and you're alone in your house,
and if you're listening to your podcast and you feel
like doing so naked right now, please do right now.
(03:33):
Saunas more interesting than you think. Thank you. Brought to
you by Jolly Rancher, Um Chuck. We were talking about
the difference between a steam room and a sauna. Steam
room is heated by moisture vapor, water vapor, uh and
for that reason, the average steam room is going to
be about a hundred and four degrees fahenth height, which
is forty degrees celsius. Right, pretty hot it is, but
(03:57):
you can't check it up much hotter than that. And
the reason why is because it feels so much hotter
than it is because it's a moisture rich environment and
our body cools by sweating and then the sweat evaporating
off of the skin that creates our cooling sensation. Well,
in a steam room, you sweat, you sweat buckets, but
(04:18):
it never evaporates because for evaporation to occur, the environment,
the ambient air has to be drier than your skin,
and if it's equally dry or it's wetter, then your
sweat is not going to evaporate, no cooling effect, right,
which is why sweating while you're swimming is is and
it's a problem. It's disturbing, yeah, which is what I do. Yeah,
(04:38):
and then an a sauna. Conversely, this is dry heat,
so it's gonna be a lot hotter temperature wise in there. Right. Yeah,
I mean if steam room is a hundred and four
degrees fahrenheit average, you're talking a hundred and seventy six
degrees fahrenheit. It's hot eighty degrees celsius in in your
average sauna. And I do you like saunas and steam rooms?
(04:58):
You do? I never really sat in the steam room,
but I love saunas. Actually, growing up, there's a holiday
in in Toledo that um my family had a pool
membership too, and they had a sauna. Whoa, whoa. You
could get a pool membership to a hotel in Toledo
in the seventies, seventies and eighties. Yeah, yeah, I never
heard of that. But I mean now that I look back,
(05:20):
I'm like, yeah, that's really really weird. Probably a membership,
your dad was probably yeah, we got a membership kids, right,
I wonder actually had a room key as we had.
I'm pretty sure we had a membership, but I don't remember.
But they had a sauna for sure. Uh. And so
I was introduced to the sauna like really early on.
It was like just a normal thing. So when you
were a little kid, you enjoyed it because it seems
(05:41):
like such an old person thing or an adult thing
to do here in the West. If you go to Finland, baby,
they are all about the saunas. I mean, it's like
their national pastime, right actually, um in their national epic, chuck,
it's called the love Valla. This a little side side note.
(06:03):
It's their national epic, very very old. Uh. It mentioned
saunas frequently. Well, of course, okay um, there's about one
point six million saunas in Finland and uh. The first
description of a Finnish sauna dates back to eleven thirteen.
The Ukrainian historian Nestor wrote about him. That was my
goats name, Nestor, Really did you name it after the
(06:28):
Ukrainian history house? I was eleven and named him after
the Ukrainian storian. It was either that or Plato. Did
your goat love a good sch fitz? Uh? No? But
he drank coke from a bottle which was kind of cute.
That is so cute. It's cute with goats. It's not
very cute when you see a human baby drinking coke
from a bottle, which I've seen and it's disturbingly Yeah,
(06:50):
if you're seeing like a one year old drinking a
bottle of Coca cola, No, it ain't right, man, Yeah,
that's not right at all. It's better than an espresso shot,
I guess, but not much. It's in and by coke.
Of course, I'm using the Southern colloquialism for coke, which
means any kind of soda popu c as always, man,
we got really far off of saunas, didn't we. Let's
(07:12):
go back. So Finland saunas are associated with it, and
for good reason, right did you read the article about
the Finnish navy fighting pirates. Yeah, they have saunas on
the pirate fighting boats. Yeah. And not only that, the
Finnish army and Kosovo built twenty saunas for their for
their fighters over there, like troops, eight hundred troops. And
(07:35):
they have them in prison yeah, finished prisons. Yeah, it's
it's literally a part of daily life. If you go
camping and you're finish you take along a portable sauna
while you're camping, like people take saunas every day. It's
like showering to us, and this is an addition to showering.
They shower a lot too. Yeah. Before we breathe past
the Finnish prison saunas though, we should uh that this
(08:00):
sort of remarkable to me because we'll find out, as
we said, that a lot of about being in sauna
is being completely naked, especially if you're finished. Americans a
little more shy, but we'll get to that in a minute.
But I imagine a finished prison sna is a pretty
happening place to be on a Friday night, wouldn't you think. Yeah,
because the saunas have something of a reputation, especially in
(08:21):
the seventies. Um they developed the reputation for being a
swinging gay hangout, right, and that is nothing new actually,
um saunas, which we'll talk about later, the history of them.
But they were um kind of eradicated thanks to the
Protestant Reformation because they had started they had started to
(08:42):
get pretty frisky. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big party in there. Uh.
And not just gay either, well, no, all sorts of stuff, prostitution, Yeah,
it's on as we're all they were missing was a
disco ball in uh Andy Warhol and it could have
been a studio. Uh So let's get but let's crawl
back inside the sauna for a minute. Okay, you know
(09:03):
all the spruce cedar. Would that looks so nice and
feel so good on your bottom? Yes? I always thought
that was just like I mean, I knew obviously they
weren't gonna put stainless steel in there, but I never
really figured out it's would. But I never gave it
two thoughts. Right, you would think that it was just
a traditional and it is traditional. But at the same time, yeah,
it's never been updated in that respect because if you
(09:25):
did put in stainless steel, you would leave many, many
layers of skin in the sauna from your bottom every
time you sat down with plastic um, you'd just be
in big trouble. So would absorbs heat, and it remains
relatively cool at high temperatures, which is why I mean
it's still warm. Your tookis is hot, but it's not
(09:46):
like you're not hurting yourself. Yeah, And Robert also pointed
out that it's absorbs steam and stores heat and releases
like that. Fine, seed or smell, right, which is why
the youth seedar and spruce because they have natural a
a matic's trapped within more than others. Right. I love
cedar except pine. But I don't know if you'd want
to just sit there and smell pine the whole time,
(10:07):
would you? Maybe you get a little crazy? I think yeah,
I think so, Chuck. Let's talk about the original finished sauna,
the savusana. Yeah. Nice, it looks sort of like the
unibomber cabin. It's literally a cabin like structure, no windows,
no chimney, no chimney, which is important because it is
(10:29):
a wood fire sauna. Yeah, and it's a little disconcerting. Apparently,
if you have an original savosana, it takes like all
day to get it hot enough. You're burning wood, they're
smoking there. Yeah, it's black soot on the walls and
this is where you're supposed to go in and sit. Yeah,
it sounds very dangerous to me. It does. It doesn't
sound healthy, um, which is why the savo sauna um
(10:52):
because of the eye irritants, the fact that you're inhaling
carbon monoxide and all sorts of other stuff. Um, is
gen really relegated to sauna purists. According to Mr R
L A M. Yeah, but I get the idea that
you're supposed to let the smoke clear out as much
as possible, is that right? Yeah? Like, but how how
do you do that well? Because you're just letting all
the heat out you know, yeah that he said it
(11:12):
seeps through uh the cs in the roof. Yeah yeah,
stick to me. And I mean, if you're setting hot
enough as a c o A, I would say, please
do not try to build your own savo sana because
you will likely die of That's what I'm saying. Like,
I don't understand how people survive the saunas, right, so, um,
they're generally left to sauna purists and the rest of
(11:34):
us just use regular saunas. It's just called the sauna.
And this is the very recognizable sauna with spruce or
cedar would um and a stove. Most of the time,
these stove called kiowas, are electric these days, although you
can have a wood burning kiowa kiowas ki u a
(11:55):
s um that has a chimney, right, so you have
gas to the main feature isn't that it's wood heated
for a sava sauna. It's that there's no chimney and
you're inhaling. Yeah, and well we should point out to
like whether it's wood or gas or electric or whatever,
it's not that's not providing the heat. You're heating rocks, right,
and then the rocks transfer the heat to the surrounding environment.
(12:18):
And if you want to jack the temperature a little bit.
Remember we talked about a steam room, uh huh, that
it's heated by water vapor. You can actually use the
same thing for a sauna. You take a little water
too later from a bucket, splash it on the rocks,
and all of a sudden you have. With the Finns
call loyally, there's an m lout in there. I know,
and I don't. I'm not big on Finnish pronunciation. I
(12:39):
know how to say semohaya, and I'm not even sure
I'm saying that right. I'm gonna go with literally literally
literally convening, but Swedish. I'm sorry, I just said something
in Swedish. So since we were talking about the rocks,
so we should say that the rocks, it's very important.
You can't just throw granite in there, because grantit will
probably explode in your face. I think it's that hot.
(13:01):
But water on real danger rocks are not good. No,
you need unweathered quarry rock, and he listed a few.
Hornblender is my favorite. The one they like the most is, uh,
what is it? Podote? Peridotite, peridotite, because there's an there's
a there's a semi precious mineral called parado So I
(13:21):
imagine this is where it comes from. Paradotite or old
friend basalt. Yeah, why why can't we get that one?
It won't stick in our head, like there's no um
neural pathway forming when we hear that word. So anyway, paradotite.
(14:03):
So those those are the rocks, the unweathered corey rock
that that you can use to get really really hot.
You can pour water on them, it'll steam, it'll hiss,
but it won't blow up in your face right again,
which is very important. I was surprised to find that
the Swedes don't have a name for the pile of
rocks that heat the the sauna. They have a name
for the stove kiowas. They have a name for the steam,
(14:25):
which is yeah, they don't have a name for the rock.
It's called the pile of rocks. Yet the water on
the pil rocks and make us some really uh josh.
You can also have what's called an infrared sauna, and
that's the latest and greatest. And people say, people that
believe in the infrared sauna say that it actually penetrates
like into your bones, which it's good and bad. If
(14:47):
you listen to the Butterfly Wings podcast, you know, infrared
means redder than red on the on the spectrum of light, right, Yeah,
and it's radiation, sure exists radiation. That's basically what's going on,
is you're being bathed in infrared radiation. Yeah, so it
heats you up. I'm a semi purist, I think, yeah,
(15:08):
I think I would just like a regular sauna, not
a savasana stove a key us exactly, kind of like
they have at the gym, yeah, or at the holiday
and without the old naked men. Well that is the
thing about um Sawna's that you're going to run into,
Chuck is naked men and naked women even depending on
where why not, Yeah, that's um. Robert made sure to
(15:30):
point out that depending on where you are in the world,
different cultures have different traditions. Finland, a lot of Eastern Europe, Russia.
You can pretty much drop everything. You gotta have your
towel though, because you gotta sit on it. Right You
you may be completely naked, but you still have to
have a towel for hygienic reasons. You don't want to
just sit your butt on the cedar plank where somebody
(15:51):
else just said there but because there's a transfer of
butt punk. Yeah. But you know what also I thought
was funny he said that they don't like Americans who
want to wear like their bathing suit in there. They're
really frowned upon because of hygienic reasons. Right, you just
cover up with a towel. Yeah, but why is that
not hygienic to wear like your speedo in there? Does
a butt funk get trapped in the I think the
(16:11):
butt funk can make it through the licra to the
outside of it? Is that it? Maybe? I don't know.
I just thought that was odd because here in the
U S we're like, now, you wear a bathing suit
for hygienic reasons. That's my point. That's some my point.
Maybe maybe it's because we don't wash our bathing suits
quite as often as we wash ourselves are naked bodies.
(16:35):
This is a steamy episode. You should know, well, we
are talking about nakedness, and we also should mention that, um,
same sex saunas are found all over the place in Europe. Yeah,
where saunas have traditionally been around for a very long time. Yeah,
they tend to have same sex, although they'll also have
mixed sex um as well. Yeah there's both. Wait, um,
(16:59):
so the places where the songs have been around the
most are more likely to have mixed sex. Places where
it went away for a while and came back would
have more like same sex saunas. Right right, I was confused. Germany, Austria, Scandinavia,
Eastern Europe, he says, generally offer nude mixed company bathing.
I yeah, mixed company like men and women. You got it. Yeah.
(17:22):
In Russian Banya's did you ever see Eastern Promises? Yes,
such a good movie. Has there ever been a more
uncomfortable fight scene in your life? Naked? A couple of guys?
It was, Yeah, if you have a Yeah, it's awesome movie. Um,
it's for adults. It's rated R or maybe n C
seventeen even possibly triple X, triple X, triple X. But yeah,
(17:45):
there's a fight scene where Vigo is completely naked in
a bathhouse and fights these guys. I can't imagine anything
worse than being in a fight when I'm completely naked.
I would just that gives me the hives. It does
me as well. Yeah, let's talk about sweat. Yeah, let's
talk about the science of it. Huh. Okay, that's what
it's all about. Yeah. But a lot of people who um,
(18:08):
who use saunas say that they're very healthy, and as
Lamb gets into that goes back to the idea that
sweat is excretion and excreting anything is healthy. But he
also points out that it's very easy to make this mistake. This,
this idea of any excretion is good has been around
for a very long time. And don't forget what we
used to use leeches to suck our blood. Um. We
(18:31):
used to believe that um pooping as much as we
could was a good idea, UM, which I kind of
still clean to that one. I do too good. I'm
a big believer in it. Uh. If you're talking sweat, josh, Um,
what happens is nerve endings are triggered by heat, and
it releases a neurotransmitter called acetal colie exactly, and he
(18:54):
says there are two point three million sweat glands that
all a sudden kick into action, which are also called
ekring glands, are differ from aple kringle. I feel like
I have more, but it's probably not the case. Mine
are just overactive. That's possible. Hard working you do. I've
seen I've seen you sweat in a seventy degree fahrenheight tank,
which is chili. You have to have a wet suit
(19:15):
for that. And Chuck is still sweating again with the
swimming and sweating. Uh so, he claims that in a
fifteen minutes sauna, the average person sweats about four cups
about a leader of sweat, which is way more for
me in fifteen minutes. Right, Yeah, I sweat about a
gallon in fifteen minutes. I guarantee that's a lot. Man.
A leader of sweat is a lot of water to lose.
It is, you know. But you should see me in
(19:37):
a sauna. It's awesome. It's one of the best feelings.
But I'm not exactly Uh, sweating out toxins, am I No,
you're sweating out salt uric acid. Not to be confused
with Robert uruk um and that's pretty much it. You
can you can you do excrete toxins, right yeah, but
(19:58):
not much. No. For the most part, toxins are excreted
through your kidneys. This is your go to um excretion, right, um.
And the researchers have found that in heavy sweat, about
one percent of mercury found in the bloodstream is released,
(20:19):
where the other that's released goes through the kidneys. It
either comes out in the stool or the urine, right
or pooh right uh. And this is it has no
The concentration of a toxin in the blood stream appears
to have no bearing on how much is released through
the sweat. It's almost like our sweat glands are set
up to just do one percent. But people who use
(20:40):
saunas say, man, one percent of a concentration of mercury,
that's definitely worth fifteen minutes in the sauna, absolutely, you know,
so they can. But I think it's not just feeling healthier.
They're saying, look, there's a science behind it as well,
right exactly. Um. Another benefit of a good sauna sweat
or a good sweat period is this really good for
your skis in it opens your porrors keeps them nice,
(21:02):
impliant and the Uh. There's a study by the Journal
of Dermatology that said, you know, a regular sweat from
a sana has a proactive effect on your skin and
like helps out with x amoun and all kinds of
dry skin conditions. And also um Land points out that
we have long associated like bathing rituals with kind of
(21:23):
um clearing away the like a spiritual the psychic funk.
Yeah yeah, not just bottom funk, but head funk. Yeah. Uh.
And anybody who's felt poorly uh, and it's taking a
shower can attest to that. You just feel better somehow
after a shower. And there's nothing worse than the feeling
of taking a shower, stepping out and still feeling bad
(21:47):
because you know it's going to be another twenty four
hours before you're going to feel start to feel good. Like,
you know, you've screwed up big time if you take
a shower and you still don't feel good afterwards, Right,
you are, Josh, A great shower like great sweat or
good steam, good fits, good fits, does a body good. Um.
We're talking about the Russian banya, the saunas there the bathhouse.
(22:09):
They also would beat themselves. I think they probably still do.
You would flog your skin with what's called the venic
and it's a bundle of leafy branches like oak and
maple and birch branches, right, And by doing that, they're
they're stimulating circulation. Yeah, because the skin is like, what's
gonna quit that? Send some blood there, find out what's
going on, right, let me know what's going on after
(22:29):
you get there. See, and um, that's what that's what
the skin is doing, right. Uh. And it also um
produces a mild euphoric effect apparently yea. It releases the
plant oils, which is also a good thing. And uh yeah,
he said, it stimulates the production of opiate endorphins. And
it's like a mild narcotic effect crazy, which I love
(22:50):
that that those three words together. Mild narcotic effect. That's great.
It's almost like cellar door. Mild narcotic effect. That's better
than massive narcotic effect. Right. Then you're in trouble. Then
that shower doesn't work. Um chuck. Also, saunas produce a
mock fever. Yeah. I thought that was kind of cool.
So your internal body temperature can raise as much as
five point four degrease fahrenheight Right, and uh, the temperature
(23:13):
at your skin can increase by as much as eighteen
degrees fahrenheighth. That's a lot. That is a serious amount.
And by doing that, your body is like, Okay, I'm sick.
I need to jack my immune system up. So white
blood cell count or white blood cell production is increased. Um.
The lymph nodes, which are another internal waste system, a
very important one, um, are flushed. Uh, and you start
(23:37):
to sweat even for even further. Yeah, but it doesn't
increase your blood pressure and increases your blood circulation circulation,
but not your blood pressure. No, but if you do
have high blood pressure, we should say saunas are not
recommended for you. Well, we should just go ahead and say,
who all, it's not recommended for kids and old people.
It's not recommended pregnant ladies. Um, but it is good. Um,
(24:01):
Like those people shouldn't get in, but women definitely might
want to get in because it apparently alleviates menstrual cramps
really well. Right, but if you're pregnant again, you want
to stay away from the sauna if you're pregnant, right,
very very astute point. Suck. Thank you. Um. Lastly about
physiology and saunaing. Um, what you want to do is
(24:22):
keep yourself very hydrated, because the irony is while you're
excreting that one percent the go to excrese excreting organs.
The kidneys need water to excrete the other And if
you're sweating all of it out, things get backed up,
toxic levels, raising your body and you can do some
real damage to yourself. So every time you go into
(24:42):
the sauna, you want to take a jug of water
with you with at least a leader. Right. Yeah, I
would say if you have gout, the sauna is probably
a good place to go. You think, so, oh, because
you're a acid builds up, Yeah, it's your all. This
is a build up. If you're a acid and you're well,
your is your ac acid. So if you have gout,
get thee to a sauna. Okay. Um. And there was
one other cool thing about the physical Oh the reason
(25:04):
they one reason they recommend heart patients not getting saunas
is because one of the traditions is to jump from
the sauna, either into a snow bank or into a
cool pool water in Finland, Yeah, and shock your body.
And the old urban legend that you heard when your
kids about going from the hot tub to the pool
and you'll you'll drown because your pores are open. That's
(25:25):
so not true. Actually, it's big in Turkey too. There's
the Turkish bath, which is like a hot tub and
then a cool tub, right, and you go from one
to the other. I did not know that as far
as or No, that's what I've always heard it. I
had no idea. Um, Chuck, I think it's high time
we talked about the history of the sauna. And saunas
are very very old. Yeah, Neolithic tribes. I love how
(25:47):
he tied culture and humans, like culture springing up around
human physiological needs and bathing. He said was like the
first people that bathe and hot springs lead to saunas.
They're like, wow, this is fantastic. I really like this. Yeah. Um,
And I think in France and Spain especially, a lot
(26:08):
of the Neolithic settlements are located very close to hot springs,
and not by accident either, right. No, um, as people
were remained nomadic. Apparently we started creating collapsible, portable saunas
that resemble like sweat lodges in Native America. UM. And
then as we began to settle down and become sedentary. Uh.
(26:31):
They made more permanent structures like dugouts in Earthen dugouts uh.
And then eventually the Savoy saunas, which remember date back
at least to the twelfth century, right, probably a lot
further than that. Apparently, as Finland settled by modern fins Um,
(26:52):
the the sauna was pretty much brought with them. Yeah.
And through the Middle Ages it was like the common people.
It wasn't just for the rich or anything. The common
like whole villages would would sauna together, sweat it out together, men,
women and children, and at the local bathhouse they would
actually feast inside the sauna. Yes, is really gross. It is.
(27:16):
They would get married, um, and they would get they
would have babies on. Yes, prostitution what what they called
the stews was the nickname they had. Yes. Yeah, that's
not a stew. You want to eat with crackers? Um
maybe afterwards yeah, perhaps. So this this association, like we said,
(27:38):
with saunas and places where you could find a prostitute
and have sex with said prostitute. Um. And just kind
of that Roman Diane ice in or giastic um kind
of vibe going on in the saunas was one of
the reasons why they were eradicated by Europe because in
the early sixteenth century Europe got a little old tents. Yeah,
(28:01):
Protestant Reformation just ruined everything. Yeah, they're kind of like,
you can't do that you put a put a hat
with a buckle on right now. Yeah, you can't do
that either or that or that or that right, get
out to start crying right now, let me teach you
what guilt is all about. Right. And then that lasted
for about five hundred years, and then finally in the
late twentieth century, thanks to the nineteen sixties, people began
(28:22):
to loosen up again and get climbed back into the sauna, right,
and the sauna immediately became associated with sex again, like
the gay bath houses that we were talking about. Have
you ever seen in the band played on? Uh No,
but my brother worked on that. I think we talked
about that, um and I think you said that your
brother worked on it too. But Phil Collins plays a
bath house owner, and I think it's Richard gear who's
(28:45):
like trying to track patient zero, is trying to convince
him to like shut down the bath house because there's
like this epidemic that no one's paying attention to. That.
Back then they called gay cancer, which is now called
HIV or AIDS. They called the gay cancer they did
originally crazy Yeah, um, and so the bath houses featured prominently,
and sauna's featured prominently in the bath houses. Phil Collins,
(29:06):
Phil Collins SUSU studio was Yeah, he did a good
job the bath house. I think we talked about what
a good job Phil Collins did too. Dude, that was
a long time ago. So if that's the case, then people,
you know, that's like a two year old podcast. So
I don't mind repeating things every once in a while.
We should do one on things to do with the
dead body or synaesthesia. That would be a great one.
(29:28):
As watched Wyble sk as good should know. As watch
sk as Good should know. So Chuck, the saunas make
(29:52):
their comeback. Now you can find him at holiday inns
around the world. Actually it's not true. I've never seen
a sauna at a Aliday And since they had my
last really crappy job, they had um a gem in
the building, which was one cool part because you could
go down like during lunch and work out and they
had a sauna in there, and I would work out
and then I could theoretically I did for a time,
(30:15):
and I would go sit in the sauna and it's
just the best man, just sitting there, just like there's something.
I see why the intercourse happened, because there's something very
primal about just sitting there naked and just sweating and
sweating and sweating. But I never had a desire to
like eat food or meet anyone special. You know what
I'm saying? Is that clear? Yeah? I got it. Okay,
(30:38):
I got hint hint um. For those of you can't see,
I just winked that, chuck um. Uh so chuck. Let's
say that you have been inspired to go out to
take a sauna from listening to this, because there's actually
something called sauna etiquette that you need to know about.
First of all, if you're in a country and they
speak German and you decided to go to a sauna,
there will be a person in there now the sauna maister,
(31:01):
the son of master is in charge for basically running
a very strict ten minute session. Your entire job is
to go in there and sit down and shut up right. Uh,
basically follow the son of myster's lead. You're not allowed
to leave once the ten minutes has started, you're not
allowed to come in once the ten minutes and definitely
never ever put your hands on that later. No, that's
(31:22):
the son of master's job. Do not wet the rocks
if you have a son of myster. No, that's that's
the song. And I got the impression. I was looking around,
I couldn't find anything that wasn't in German and that
I could translate. Um, but I get the impression that
the son of mister is actually a paid professional. Well
I hope so, because if someone's just doing that for kicks,
then no, you know, there's like jerks out there. They're like,
(31:43):
I'm just so on a monster, but come here all
the time. It's like no one the son of myster.
It just goes on like that for a long time.
And then they wrist wrestle and yeah they like wrestle.
Yeah with that with just towels on. God, how about
those guys that walk around the gym with the towel
over their shoulder but naked? I know? And why are
(32:04):
they always like seventy I know? And they pretend like, hey,
everybody else is subject to the Protestant Reformation. I'm free.
It's like put a towel on, hippie. I don't even
like I'm this close to being a never nude myself,
are you? I don't you have them? Yeah, shower with
denom jeans now, But I mean, I mean that I'm
not into that. Put some clothes on. Protestant Reformation. No
(32:25):
one can escape it. Yeah, no one escapes the Protestant
Reformation myself. So lastly, with sauna etiquette, basically the whole
thing comes down to putting the ladle on. If you're
alone in the sauna, feel free to add some loyally. Yeah,
do whatever you want. Somebody in there. It's probably one
of those things where you want to be quiet and
then just say, hey, do you mind if I put
(32:46):
some water on the rocks. It's supposed to be a
pretty quiet environment. Don't go in there like some chowder
head with your cell phone, right and um, when you
go in and out, you want to come in out
as fast as possible because that open door changes the
temperature very quickly. Right, and just be considered, don't be
a jerky. I saw him. That just reminded me. I
saw the War of the Roses again the end the
(33:06):
night for like the fiftieth time, and remember Kathleen Turner
locks Michael Douglas and the sauna. And then the next
shot after he like some like falls out of the sauna,
is him drinking gatorade in the office. The next day,
He's got like a gallon of Gatorade's good, didn't Danny
de Vito directly? Man, That's one of my favorite movies.
Has a brilliant mid. Lastly, Chuck, let's talk about the
world record for saunaing. Uh. There is a guy named
(33:30):
timok Conan. He is the world championship, Um, well, the
world record holder. Finish, of course, finish. Yeah. In August
two thousand nine, he sat in a sauna that was
he did to two hundred and thirty degrees parent height,
which is ten degrees celsius for three minutes and forty
six seconds. You can like warm food at that temperature,
(33:53):
you can cook food at that temperature. Uh. That my
friends of saunas, and again I think, Chuck, that both
endorse you. Going over to the website how stuff works
dot com typing in saunas and just reading this really
well written article by Robert Lamb I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah,
then informative. Uh and since I said how stuff works
(34:14):
dot Com, I'm largely abandoning the handy search bar thing.
I think that's run its course. Really. Yeah, so the
new the new signal for for UM listener mail is
how stuff works dot Com? Oh really? Yeah? Okay, watch
I'll say it again. Because I wasn't ready. I was
still in handy search bar mode. Okay. Uh, you want
(34:35):
to just go over and read saunas at how stuff
works dot Com? Watch this? See so you know I
can say now it's time for listener mail. I can't
control it. I used to be able to control a
lot more when I said handy search bar. But oh
look it just happened. That chuck chiming all over the
I need to not say anything else. Okay, let's just
(34:58):
read the listener mail. How about that, Josh, I'm gonna
call this. Uh take that Colbart? Oh yeah, Colbert. I
recently heard this from Scott in Connecticut? Is that what
c T is? Yeah? Okay, I recently heard about your
rivalry with Stephen Colbert's Kiba team. Congratulations on your success.
(35:18):
I'm a fan of both your podcast and his show.
Which is cool, but he has uh. He says he
wasn't gonna choose sides until late one night when this happened.
I know this is pretty amazing because slightly harrowing. I
was up late on winding from a long day of
working class. I was listening to some vintage s Y
s K the Bhutan's Gross National National Happiness episode. After
(35:39):
a little while, I noticed a strange smell, a little
like overheated electronics. Yeah, ozone, Yeah, this is scary smell.
I sniffed around my computer. I noticed that it seemed
to be stronger near the door to the rest of
my apartment. Opened it and this visible wave of thick,
acrid smoke and gas poured it into my room. I
ran awake my housemates, opening a many windows as I
(36:00):
could to vent out some of the gas. Don't like
a smart guy. Uh. It literally tasted like burning. Our
eyes and throats were stinging, and we called the fire department.
They arrived. They found our oil furnace had basically imploded. Um,
those things are dangerous. What oil burnings? Yes, this I
don't know where He isn't going to get a letter
from the oil burning board. Remind me to tell you
(36:23):
about high for your toast corn syrup letter. One day,
the basement was loaded with carbon monoxide and other compounds
you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, and
it had been leaking up into the rest of the apartment.
Not for your podcast, I would have gone to bed earlier,
never noticed that smell. This is why I mentioned Colbert,
you may wonder. As it turns out, my roommate Caitlin,
had been watching Colbert upstairs and she fell asleep. She
(36:47):
was tripping z's when I woke her up and pulled
her to safety. Where was Stephen Colbert in our time
of need? He may have a space treadmill named after
him and a high profile primetime TV show, but he's
no substitute for y s K when it comes to
riveting and informating, informative late night life saving. I thought
I would add another game winning point for Team s
Y s K. Yeah, Scott in Connecticut. He's also no
(37:11):
s y s K when it comes to raising donation
loans for the developing world. Because we beat the tar
out of him on Kiva Keva dot org Slash team
slash stuff. You should know, Chuck, we indirectly save these
people's lives. You realize we've saved quite a few lives
at this point, my friend, if only we've been there
for the family at the end of storytelling, Yeah, I
(37:32):
want to know if we've killed and oh god, so awesome.
You're so hooked on Todd Solins right now, I have
that guy, Todd Solins. If you're listening, I appreciate your work, buddy,
Yeah I do too. Yeah. Uh, if you are Todd Solins,
we want to hear from you. Send us an email,
wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(38:00):
Better For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
com home page. H
Hi, everybody, Happy Saturday. Chuck Here with the Stuff you
should know. Select pick for the week from July twenty two,
Sundas coland more interesting than you think. I think this
was titled by Josh. If I remember correctly, that's a
Josh Clark title all the way. Uh And if I
am not mistaken, I did not know how to pronounce
it back then. I think I pronounced that sauna all
(00:22):
through the episode, and uh, I got a lot of
email that it's actually Suna. So I wanted to write
that ship here eight years later, going on nine years later,
and do it the right way. So here we go
with sound as more interesting than you think because they
are Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff
(00:43):
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuckers
Chuck Chucky Bride of Chucky. He paused, as if you
forgot who I was, I had a thing I have
(01:04):
marble mouth unusual. Today, here we go, this podcast brought
to you by a jolly rancher. Have you ever mixes
with Ziema? No? But you know that Oakland Raiders former
Oakland Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell just got busted with. They
call it purple drank, and it's it's like it's codeine
(01:26):
syrup and I think some sort of carbonet soda and
jolly rancher. Wow, that's robot tripping, is what he's doing. Well,
it came out of the Houston, Texas scene like ten
years ago. Were drink. I never heard of it. That's
how square I am. I haven't heard of it either,
So don't feel bad. Okay. Plus, it's like that's what
they do in Houston. Seriously, that what you want your
(01:47):
town associated with. Yeah, we use codeine water. Yeah, we
came up with purple drink. Wasn't he the QB for
l s U? Yeah? Hey that guy, Well he's a bust.
He's nothing. Now, well he's a big wash really. Yeah.
He went to the NFL and got all fat and
through interceptions and he was great for he was so Anyway,
(02:08):
I guess what all that leads us to, Chuck is saunas. Yes,
football players, Well, they probably your steam room guys. Yeah,
let's talk about that's a great place to start, Chuck.
There's a difference between a sauna and a steam room.
There's a number of differences, but the mode of heat
is what's really different, right. Yeah, And I should point
(02:29):
out we called this Saunas colon more interesting than you
think for a reason because Robert lamb Our, a steam
uh writer and uh stuff from the science Lab. He
wrote this and he told us like months ago, He's like, dude,
you should do Saunas Saunas. It's way cooler than you think,
and it's dirty and filthy and like, and he was
(02:49):
right steeped in history. Yeah, this is uh for my money.
Robert Williams the best writer on how stuff works out
com e um. But he wrote an altogether pleasant article
that I've read like many, many time times and every
time you just love the way you wrote it. It's
a great article. We should read the first line, please do.
The first line of his article says you're going to
want to read this article naked, so please before you
go any further, disrobed completely. So if you're in the
(03:12):
confines of your own home, yeah, if the shades are
drawn and you're an adult, there's no one else around
that you're uncomfortable with. Very specifically, Chuck is only talking
to people who are we'll just go with twenty one
years of age and older and you're alone in your house,
and if you're listening to your podcast and you feel
like doing so naked right now, please do right now.
(03:33):
Saunas more interesting than you think. Thank you. Brought to
you by Jolly Rancher, Um Chuck. We were talking about
the difference between a steam room and a sauna. Steam
room is heated by moisture vapor, water vapor, uh and
for that reason, the average steam room is going to
be about a hundred and four degrees fahenth height, which
is forty degrees celsius. Right, pretty hot it is, but
(03:57):
you can't check it up much hotter than that. And
the reason why is because it feels so much hotter
than it is because it's a moisture rich environment and
our body cools by sweating and then the sweat evaporating
off of the skin that creates our cooling sensation. Well,
in a steam room, you sweat, you sweat buckets, but
(04:18):
it never evaporates because for evaporation to occur, the environment,
the ambient air has to be drier than your skin,
and if it's equally dry or it's wetter, then your
sweat is not going to evaporate, no cooling effect, right,
which is why sweating while you're swimming is is and
it's a problem. It's disturbing, yeah, which is what I do. Yeah,
(04:38):
and then an a sauna. Conversely, this is dry heat,
so it's gonna be a lot hotter temperature wise in there. Right. Yeah,
I mean if steam room is a hundred and four
degrees fahrenheit average, you're talking a hundred and seventy six
degrees fahrenheit. It's hot eighty degrees celsius in in your
average sauna. And I do you like saunas and steam rooms?
(04:58):
You do? I never really sat in the steam room,
but I love saunas. Actually, growing up, there's a holiday
in in Toledo that um my family had a pool
membership too, and they had a sauna. Whoa, whoa. You
could get a pool membership to a hotel in Toledo
in the seventies, seventies and eighties. Yeah, yeah, I never
heard of that. But I mean now that I look back,
(05:20):
I'm like, yeah, that's really really weird. Probably a membership,
your dad was probably yeah, we got a membership kids, right,
I wonder actually had a room key as we had.
I'm pretty sure we had a membership, but I don't remember.
But they had a sauna for sure. Uh. And so
I was introduced to the sauna like really early on.
It was like just a normal thing. So when you
were a little kid, you enjoyed it because it seems
(05:41):
like such an old person thing or an adult thing
to do here in the West. If you go to Finland, baby,
they are all about the saunas. I mean, it's like
their national pastime, right actually, um in their national epic, chuck,
it's called the love Valla. This a little side side note.
(06:03):
It's their national epic, very very old. Uh. It mentioned
saunas frequently. Well, of course, okay um, there's about one
point six million saunas in Finland and uh. The first
description of a Finnish sauna dates back to eleven thirteen.
The Ukrainian historian Nestor wrote about him. That was my
goats name, Nestor, Really did you name it after the
(06:28):
Ukrainian history house? I was eleven and named him after
the Ukrainian storian. It was either that or Plato. Did
your goat love a good sch fitz? Uh? No? But
he drank coke from a bottle which was kind of cute.
That is so cute. It's cute with goats. It's not
very cute when you see a human baby drinking coke
from a bottle, which I've seen and it's disturbingly Yeah,
(06:50):
if you're seeing like a one year old drinking a
bottle of Coca cola, No, it ain't right, man, Yeah,
that's not right at all. It's better than an espresso shot,
I guess, but not much. It's in and by coke.
Of course, I'm using the Southern colloquialism for coke, which
means any kind of soda popu c as always, man,
we got really far off of saunas, didn't we. Let's
(07:12):
go back. So Finland saunas are associated with it, and
for good reason, right did you read the article about
the Finnish navy fighting pirates. Yeah, they have saunas on
the pirate fighting boats. Yeah. And not only that, the
Finnish army and Kosovo built twenty saunas for their for
their fighters over there, like troops, eight hundred troops. And
(07:35):
they have them in prison yeah, finished prisons. Yeah, it's
it's literally a part of daily life. If you go
camping and you're finish you take along a portable sauna
while you're camping, like people take saunas every day. It's
like showering to us, and this is an addition to showering.
They shower a lot too. Yeah. Before we breathe past
the Finnish prison saunas though, we should uh that this
(08:00):
sort of remarkable to me because we'll find out, as
we said, that a lot of about being in sauna
is being completely naked, especially if you're finished. Americans a
little more shy, but we'll get to that in a minute.
But I imagine a finished prison sna is a pretty
happening place to be on a Friday night, wouldn't you think. Yeah,
because the saunas have something of a reputation, especially in
(08:21):
the seventies. Um they developed the reputation for being a
swinging gay hangout, right, and that is nothing new actually,
um saunas, which we'll talk about later, the history of them.
But they were um kind of eradicated thanks to the
Protestant Reformation because they had started they had started to
(08:42):
get pretty frisky. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big party in there. Uh.
And not just gay either, well, no, all sorts of stuff, prostitution, Yeah,
it's on as we're all they were missing was a
disco ball in uh Andy Warhol and it could have
been a studio. Uh So let's get but let's crawl
back inside the sauna for a minute. Okay, you know
(09:03):
all the spruce cedar. Would that looks so nice and
feel so good on your bottom? Yes? I always thought
that was just like I mean, I knew obviously they
weren't gonna put stainless steel in there, but I never
really figured out it's would. But I never gave it
two thoughts. Right, you would think that it was just
a traditional and it is traditional. But at the same time, yeah,
it's never been updated in that respect because if you
(09:25):
did put in stainless steel, you would leave many, many
layers of skin in the sauna from your bottom every
time you sat down with plastic um, you'd just be
in big trouble. So would absorbs heat, and it remains
relatively cool at high temperatures, which is why I mean
it's still warm. Your tookis is hot, but it's not
(09:46):
like you're not hurting yourself. Yeah, And Robert also pointed
out that it's absorbs steam and stores heat and releases
like that. Fine, seed or smell, right, which is why
the youth seedar and spruce because they have natural a
a matic's trapped within more than others. Right. I love
cedar except pine. But I don't know if you'd want
to just sit there and smell pine the whole time,
(10:07):
would you? Maybe you get a little crazy? I think yeah,
I think so, Chuck. Let's talk about the original finished sauna,
the savusana. Yeah. Nice, it looks sort of like the
unibomber cabin. It's literally a cabin like structure, no windows,
no chimney, no chimney, which is important because it is
(10:29):
a wood fire sauna. Yeah, and it's a little disconcerting. Apparently,
if you have an original savosana, it takes like all
day to get it hot enough. You're burning wood, they're
smoking there. Yeah, it's black soot on the walls and
this is where you're supposed to go in and sit. Yeah,
it sounds very dangerous to me. It does. It doesn't
sound healthy, um, which is why the savo sauna um
(10:52):
because of the eye irritants, the fact that you're inhaling
carbon monoxide and all sorts of other stuff. Um, is
gen really relegated to sauna purists. According to Mr R
L A M. Yeah, but I get the idea that
you're supposed to let the smoke clear out as much
as possible, is that right? Yeah? Like, but how how
do you do that well? Because you're just letting all
the heat out you know, yeah that he said it
(11:12):
seeps through uh the cs in the roof. Yeah yeah,
stick to me. And I mean, if you're setting hot
enough as a c o A, I would say, please
do not try to build your own savo sana because
you will likely die of That's what I'm saying. Like,
I don't understand how people survive the saunas, right, so, um,
they're generally left to sauna purists and the rest of
(11:34):
us just use regular saunas. It's just called the sauna.
And this is the very recognizable sauna with spruce or
cedar would um and a stove. Most of the time,
these stove called kiowas, are electric these days, although you
can have a wood burning kiowa kiowas ki u a
(11:55):
s um that has a chimney, right, so you have
gas to the main feature isn't that it's wood heated
for a sava sauna. It's that there's no chimney and
you're inhaling. Yeah, and well we should point out to
like whether it's wood or gas or electric or whatever,
it's not that's not providing the heat. You're heating rocks, right,
and then the rocks transfer the heat to the surrounding environment.
(12:18):
And if you want to jack the temperature a little bit.
Remember we talked about a steam room, uh huh, that
it's heated by water vapor. You can actually use the
same thing for a sauna. You take a little water
too later from a bucket, splash it on the rocks,
and all of a sudden you have. With the Finns
call loyally, there's an m lout in there. I know,
and I don't. I'm not big on Finnish pronunciation. I
(12:39):
know how to say semohaya, and I'm not even sure
I'm saying that right. I'm gonna go with literally literally
literally convening, but Swedish. I'm sorry, I just said something
in Swedish. So since we were talking about the rocks,
so we should say that the rocks, it's very important.
You can't just throw granite in there, because grantit will
probably explode in your face. I think it's that hot.
(13:01):
But water on real danger rocks are not good. No,
you need unweathered quarry rock, and he listed a few.
Hornblender is my favorite. The one they like the most is, uh,
what is it? Podote? Peridotite, peridotite, because there's an there's
a there's a semi precious mineral called parado So I
(13:21):
imagine this is where it comes from. Paradotite or old
friend basalt. Yeah, why why can't we get that one?
It won't stick in our head, like there's no um
neural pathway forming when we hear that word. So anyway, paradotite.
(14:03):
So those those are the rocks, the unweathered corey rock
that that you can use to get really really hot.
You can pour water on them, it'll steam, it'll hiss,
but it won't blow up in your face right again,
which is very important. I was surprised to find that
the Swedes don't have a name for the pile of
rocks that heat the the sauna. They have a name
for the stove kiowas. They have a name for the steam,
(14:25):
which is yeah, they don't have a name for the rock.
It's called the pile of rocks. Yet the water on
the pil rocks and make us some really uh josh.
You can also have what's called an infrared sauna, and
that's the latest and greatest. And people say, people that
believe in the infrared sauna say that it actually penetrates
like into your bones, which it's good and bad. If
(14:47):
you listen to the Butterfly Wings podcast, you know, infrared
means redder than red on the on the spectrum of light, right, Yeah,
and it's radiation, sure exists radiation. That's basically what's going on,
is you're being bathed in infrared radiation. Yeah, so it
heats you up. I'm a semi purist, I think, yeah,
(15:08):
I think I would just like a regular sauna, not
a savasana stove a key us exactly, kind of like
they have at the gym, yeah, or at the holiday
and without the old naked men. Well that is the
thing about um Sawna's that you're going to run into,
Chuck is naked men and naked women even depending on
where why not, Yeah, that's um. Robert made sure to
(15:30):
point out that depending on where you are in the world,
different cultures have different traditions. Finland, a lot of Eastern Europe, Russia.
You can pretty much drop everything. You gotta have your
towel though, because you gotta sit on it. Right You
you may be completely naked, but you still have to
have a towel for hygienic reasons. You don't want to
just sit your butt on the cedar plank where somebody
(15:51):
else just said there but because there's a transfer of
butt punk. Yeah. But you know what also I thought
was funny he said that they don't like Americans who
want to wear like their bathing suit in there. They're
really frowned upon because of hygienic reasons. Right, you just
cover up with a towel. Yeah, but why is that
not hygienic to wear like your speedo in there? Does
a butt funk get trapped in the I think the
(16:11):
butt funk can make it through the licra to the
outside of it? Is that it? Maybe? I don't know.
I just thought that was odd because here in the
U S we're like, now, you wear a bathing suit
for hygienic reasons. That's my point. That's some my point.
Maybe maybe it's because we don't wash our bathing suits
quite as often as we wash ourselves are naked bodies.
(16:35):
This is a steamy episode. You should know, well, we
are talking about nakedness, and we also should mention that, um,
same sex saunas are found all over the place in Europe. Yeah,
where saunas have traditionally been around for a very long time. Yeah,
they tend to have same sex, although they'll also have
mixed sex um as well. Yeah there's both. Wait, um,
(16:59):
so the places where the songs have been around the
most are more likely to have mixed sex. Places where
it went away for a while and came back would
have more like same sex saunas. Right right, I was confused. Germany, Austria, Scandinavia,
Eastern Europe, he says, generally offer nude mixed company bathing.
I yeah, mixed company like men and women. You got it. Yeah.
(17:22):
In Russian Banya's did you ever see Eastern Promises? Yes,
such a good movie. Has there ever been a more
uncomfortable fight scene in your life? Naked? A couple of guys?
It was, Yeah, if you have a Yeah, it's awesome movie. Um,
it's for adults. It's rated R or maybe n C
seventeen even possibly triple X, triple X, triple X. But yeah,
(17:45):
there's a fight scene where Vigo is completely naked in
a bathhouse and fights these guys. I can't imagine anything
worse than being in a fight when I'm completely naked.
I would just that gives me the hives. It does
me as well. Yeah, let's talk about sweat. Yeah, let's
talk about the science of it. Huh. Okay, that's what
it's all about. Yeah. But a lot of people who um,
(18:08):
who use saunas say that they're very healthy, and as
Lamb gets into that goes back to the idea that
sweat is excretion and excreting anything is healthy. But he
also points out that it's very easy to make this mistake. This,
this idea of any excretion is good has been around
for a very long time. And don't forget what we
used to use leeches to suck our blood. Um. We
(18:31):
used to believe that um pooping as much as we
could was a good idea, UM, which I kind of
still clean to that one. I do too good. I'm
a big believer in it. Uh. If you're talking sweat, josh, Um,
what happens is nerve endings are triggered by heat, and
it releases a neurotransmitter called acetal colie exactly, and he
(18:54):
says there are two point three million sweat glands that
all a sudden kick into action, which are also called
ekring glands, are differ from aple kringle. I feel like
I have more, but it's probably not the case. Mine
are just overactive. That's possible. Hard working you do. I've
seen I've seen you sweat in a seventy degree fahrenheight tank,
which is chili. You have to have a wet suit
(19:15):
for that. And Chuck is still sweating again with the
swimming and sweating. Uh so, he claims that in a
fifteen minutes sauna, the average person sweats about four cups
about a leader of sweat, which is way more for
me in fifteen minutes. Right, Yeah, I sweat about a
gallon in fifteen minutes. I guarantee that's a lot. Man.
A leader of sweat is a lot of water to lose.
It is, you know. But you should see me in
(19:37):
a sauna. It's awesome. It's one of the best feelings.
But I'm not exactly Uh, sweating out toxins, am I No,
you're sweating out salt uric acid. Not to be confused
with Robert uruk um and that's pretty much it. You
can you can you do excrete toxins, right yeah, but
(19:58):
not much. No. For the most part, toxins are excreted
through your kidneys. This is your go to um excretion, right, um.
And the researchers have found that in heavy sweat, about
one percent of mercury found in the bloodstream is released,
(20:19):
where the other that's released goes through the kidneys. It
either comes out in the stool or the urine, right
or pooh right uh. And this is it has no
The concentration of a toxin in the blood stream appears
to have no bearing on how much is released through
the sweat. It's almost like our sweat glands are set
up to just do one percent. But people who use
(20:40):
saunas say, man, one percent of a concentration of mercury,
that's definitely worth fifteen minutes in the sauna, absolutely, you know,
so they can. But I think it's not just feeling healthier.
They're saying, look, there's a science behind it as well,
right exactly. Um. Another benefit of a good sauna sweat
or a good sweat period is this really good for
your skis in it opens your porrors keeps them nice,
(21:02):
impliant and the Uh. There's a study by the Journal
of Dermatology that said, you know, a regular sweat from
a sana has a proactive effect on your skin and
like helps out with x amoun and all kinds of
dry skin conditions. And also um Land points out that
we have long associated like bathing rituals with kind of
(21:23):
um clearing away the like a spiritual the psychic funk.
Yeah yeah, not just bottom funk, but head funk. Yeah. Uh.
And anybody who's felt poorly uh, and it's taking a
shower can attest to that. You just feel better somehow
after a shower. And there's nothing worse than the feeling
of taking a shower, stepping out and still feeling bad
(21:47):
because you know it's going to be another twenty four
hours before you're going to feel start to feel good. Like,
you know, you've screwed up big time if you take
a shower and you still don't feel good afterwards, Right,
you are, Josh, A great shower like great sweat or
good steam, good fits, good fits, does a body good. Um.
We're talking about the Russian banya, the saunas there the bathhouse.
(22:09):
They also would beat themselves. I think they probably still do.
You would flog your skin with what's called the venic
and it's a bundle of leafy branches like oak and
maple and birch branches, right, And by doing that, they're
they're stimulating circulation. Yeah, because the skin is like, what's
gonna quit that? Send some blood there, find out what's
going on, right, let me know what's going on after
(22:29):
you get there. See, and um, that's what that's what
the skin is doing, right. Uh. And it also um
produces a mild euphoric effect apparently yea. It releases the
plant oils, which is also a good thing. And uh yeah,
he said, it stimulates the production of opiate endorphins. And
it's like a mild narcotic effect crazy, which I love
(22:50):
that that those three words together. Mild narcotic effect. That's great.
It's almost like cellar door. Mild narcotic effect. That's better
than massive narcotic effect. Right. Then you're in trouble. Then
that shower doesn't work. Um chuck. Also, saunas produce a
mock fever. Yeah. I thought that was kind of cool.
So your internal body temperature can raise as much as
five point four degrease fahrenheight Right, and uh, the temperature
(23:13):
at your skin can increase by as much as eighteen
degrees fahrenheighth. That's a lot. That is a serious amount.
And by doing that, your body is like, Okay, I'm sick.
I need to jack my immune system up. So white
blood cell count or white blood cell production is increased. Um.
The lymph nodes, which are another internal waste system, a
very important one, um, are flushed. Uh, and you start
(23:37):
to sweat even for even further. Yeah, but it doesn't
increase your blood pressure and increases your blood circulation circulation,
but not your blood pressure. No, but if you do
have high blood pressure, we should say saunas are not
recommended for you. Well, we should just go ahead and say,
who all, it's not recommended for kids and old people.
It's not recommended pregnant ladies. Um, but it is good. Um,
(24:01):
Like those people shouldn't get in, but women definitely might
want to get in because it apparently alleviates menstrual cramps
really well. Right, but if you're pregnant again, you want
to stay away from the sauna if you're pregnant, right,
very very astute point. Suck. Thank you. Um. Lastly about
physiology and saunaing. Um, what you want to do is
(24:22):
keep yourself very hydrated, because the irony is while you're
excreting that one percent the go to excrese excreting organs.
The kidneys need water to excrete the other And if
you're sweating all of it out, things get backed up,
toxic levels, raising your body and you can do some
real damage to yourself. So every time you go into
(24:42):
the sauna, you want to take a jug of water
with you with at least a leader. Right. Yeah, I
would say if you have gout, the sauna is probably
a good place to go. You think, so, oh, because
you're a acid builds up, Yeah, it's your all. This
is a build up. If you're a acid and you're well,
your is your ac acid. So if you have gout,
get thee to a sauna. Okay. Um. And there was
one other cool thing about the physical Oh the reason
(25:04):
they one reason they recommend heart patients not getting saunas
is because one of the traditions is to jump from
the sauna, either into a snow bank or into a
cool pool water in Finland, Yeah, and shock your body.
And the old urban legend that you heard when your
kids about going from the hot tub to the pool
and you'll you'll drown because your pores are open. That's
(25:25):
so not true. Actually, it's big in Turkey too. There's
the Turkish bath, which is like a hot tub and
then a cool tub, right, and you go from one
to the other. I did not know that as far
as or No, that's what I've always heard it. I
had no idea. Um, Chuck, I think it's high time
we talked about the history of the sauna. And saunas
are very very old. Yeah, Neolithic tribes. I love how
(25:47):
he tied culture and humans, like culture springing up around
human physiological needs and bathing. He said was like the
first people that bathe and hot springs lead to saunas.
They're like, wow, this is fantastic. I really like this. Yeah. Um,
And I think in France and Spain especially, a lot
(26:08):
of the Neolithic settlements are located very close to hot springs,
and not by accident either, right. No, um, as people
were remained nomadic. Apparently we started creating collapsible, portable saunas
that resemble like sweat lodges in Native America. UM. And
then as we began to settle down and become sedentary. Uh.
(26:31):
They made more permanent structures like dugouts in Earthen dugouts uh.
And then eventually the Savoy saunas, which remember date back
at least to the twelfth century, right, probably a lot
further than that. Apparently, as Finland settled by modern fins Um,
(26:52):
the the sauna was pretty much brought with them. Yeah.
And through the Middle Ages it was like the common people.
It wasn't just for the rich or anything. The common
like whole villages would would sauna together, sweat it out together, men,
women and children, and at the local bathhouse they would
actually feast inside the sauna. Yes, is really gross. It is.
(27:16):
They would get married, um, and they would get they
would have babies on. Yes, prostitution what what they called
the stews was the nickname they had. Yes. Yeah, that's
not a stew. You want to eat with crackers? Um
maybe afterwards yeah, perhaps. So this this association, like we said,
(27:38):
with saunas and places where you could find a prostitute
and have sex with said prostitute. Um. And just kind
of that Roman Diane ice in or giastic um kind
of vibe going on in the saunas was one of
the reasons why they were eradicated by Europe because in
the early sixteenth century Europe got a little old tents. Yeah,
(28:01):
Protestant Reformation just ruined everything. Yeah, they're kind of like,
you can't do that you put a put a hat
with a buckle on right now. Yeah, you can't do
that either or that or that or that right, get
out to start crying right now, let me teach you
what guilt is all about. Right. And then that lasted
for about five hundred years, and then finally in the
late twentieth century, thanks to the nineteen sixties, people began
(28:22):
to loosen up again and get climbed back into the sauna, right,
and the sauna immediately became associated with sex again, like
the gay bath houses that we were talking about. Have
you ever seen in the band played on? Uh No,
but my brother worked on that. I think we talked
about that, um and I think you said that your
brother worked on it too. But Phil Collins plays a
bath house owner, and I think it's Richard gear who's
(28:45):
like trying to track patient zero, is trying to convince
him to like shut down the bath house because there's
like this epidemic that no one's paying attention to. That.
Back then they called gay cancer, which is now called
HIV or AIDS. They called the gay cancer they did
originally crazy Yeah, um, and so the bath houses featured prominently,
and sauna's featured prominently in the bath houses. Phil Collins,
(29:06):
Phil Collins SUSU studio was Yeah, he did a good
job the bath house. I think we talked about what
a good job Phil Collins did too. Dude, that was
a long time ago. So if that's the case, then people,
you know, that's like a two year old podcast. So
I don't mind repeating things every once in a while.
We should do one on things to do with the
dead body or synaesthesia. That would be a great one.
(29:28):
As watched Wyble sk as good should know. As watch
sk as Good should know. So Chuck, the saunas make
(29:52):
their comeback. Now you can find him at holiday inns
around the world. Actually it's not true. I've never seen
a sauna at a Aliday And since they had my
last really crappy job, they had um a gem in
the building, which was one cool part because you could
go down like during lunch and work out and they
had a sauna in there, and I would work out
and then I could theoretically I did for a time,
(30:15):
and I would go sit in the sauna and it's
just the best man, just sitting there, just like there's something.
I see why the intercourse happened, because there's something very
primal about just sitting there naked and just sweating and
sweating and sweating. But I never had a desire to
like eat food or meet anyone special. You know what
I'm saying? Is that clear? Yeah? I got it. Okay,
(30:38):
I got hint hint um. For those of you can't see,
I just winked that, chuck um. Uh so chuck. Let's
say that you have been inspired to go out to
take a sauna from listening to this, because there's actually
something called sauna etiquette that you need to know about.
First of all, if you're in a country and they
speak German and you decided to go to a sauna,
there will be a person in there now the sauna maister,
(31:01):
the son of master is in charge for basically running
a very strict ten minute session. Your entire job is
to go in there and sit down and shut up right. Uh,
basically follow the son of myster's lead. You're not allowed
to leave once the ten minutes has started, you're not
allowed to come in once the ten minutes and definitely
never ever put your hands on that later. No, that's
(31:22):
the son of master's job. Do not wet the rocks
if you have a son of myster. No, that's that's
the song. And I got the impression. I was looking around,
I couldn't find anything that wasn't in German and that
I could translate. Um, but I get the impression that
the son of mister is actually a paid professional. Well
I hope so, because if someone's just doing that for kicks,
then no, you know, there's like jerks out there. They're like,
(31:43):
I'm just so on a monster, but come here all
the time. It's like no one the son of myster.
It just goes on like that for a long time.
And then they wrist wrestle and yeah they like wrestle.
Yeah with that with just towels on. God, how about
those guys that walk around the gym with the towel
over their shoulder but naked? I know? And why are
(32:04):
they always like seventy I know? And they pretend like, hey,
everybody else is subject to the Protestant Reformation. I'm free.
It's like put a towel on, hippie. I don't even
like I'm this close to being a never nude myself,
are you? I don't you have them? Yeah, shower with
denom jeans now, But I mean, I mean that I'm
not into that. Put some clothes on. Protestant Reformation. No
(32:25):
one can escape it. Yeah, no one escapes the Protestant
Reformation myself. So lastly, with sauna etiquette, basically the whole
thing comes down to putting the ladle on. If you're
alone in the sauna, feel free to add some loyally. Yeah,
do whatever you want. Somebody in there. It's probably one
of those things where you want to be quiet and
then just say, hey, do you mind if I put
(32:46):
some water on the rocks. It's supposed to be a
pretty quiet environment. Don't go in there like some chowder
head with your cell phone, right and um, when you
go in and out, you want to come in out
as fast as possible because that open door changes the
temperature very quickly. Right, and just be considered, don't be
a jerky. I saw him. That just reminded me. I
saw the War of the Roses again the end the
(33:06):
night for like the fiftieth time, and remember Kathleen Turner
locks Michael Douglas and the sauna. And then the next
shot after he like some like falls out of the sauna,
is him drinking gatorade in the office. The next day,
He's got like a gallon of Gatorade's good, didn't Danny
de Vito directly? Man, That's one of my favorite movies.
Has a brilliant mid. Lastly, Chuck, let's talk about the
world record for saunaing. Uh. There is a guy named
(33:30):
timok Conan. He is the world championship, Um, well, the
world record holder. Finish, of course, finish. Yeah. In August
two thousand nine, he sat in a sauna that was
he did to two hundred and thirty degrees parent height,
which is ten degrees celsius for three minutes and forty
six seconds. You can like warm food at that temperature,
(33:53):
you can cook food at that temperature. Uh. That my
friends of saunas, and again I think, Chuck, that both
endorse you. Going over to the website how stuff works
dot com typing in saunas and just reading this really
well written article by Robert Lamb I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah,
then informative. Uh and since I said how stuff works
(34:14):
dot Com, I'm largely abandoning the handy search bar thing.
I think that's run its course. Really. Yeah, so the
new the new signal for for UM listener mail is
how stuff works dot Com? Oh really? Yeah? Okay, watch
I'll say it again. Because I wasn't ready. I was
still in handy search bar mode. Okay. Uh, you want
(34:35):
to just go over and read saunas at how stuff
works dot Com? Watch this? See so you know I
can say now it's time for listener mail. I can't
control it. I used to be able to control a
lot more when I said handy search bar. But oh
look it just happened. That chuck chiming all over the
I need to not say anything else. Okay, let's just
(34:58):
read the listener mail. How about that, Josh, I'm gonna
call this. Uh take that Colbart? Oh yeah, Colbert. I
recently heard this from Scott in Connecticut? Is that what
c T is? Yeah? Okay, I recently heard about your
rivalry with Stephen Colbert's Kiba team. Congratulations on your success.
(35:18):
I'm a fan of both your podcast and his show.
Which is cool, but he has uh. He says he
wasn't gonna choose sides until late one night when this happened.
I know this is pretty amazing because slightly harrowing. I
was up late on winding from a long day of
working class. I was listening to some vintage s Y
s K the Bhutan's Gross National National Happiness episode. After
(35:39):
a little while, I noticed a strange smell, a little
like overheated electronics. Yeah, ozone, Yeah, this is scary smell.
I sniffed around my computer. I noticed that it seemed
to be stronger near the door to the rest of
my apartment. Opened it and this visible wave of thick,
acrid smoke and gas poured it into my room. I
ran awake my housemates, opening a many windows as I
(36:00):
could to vent out some of the gas. Don't like
a smart guy. Uh. It literally tasted like burning. Our
eyes and throats were stinging, and we called the fire department.
They arrived. They found our oil furnace had basically imploded. Um,
those things are dangerous. What oil burnings? Yes, this I
don't know where He isn't going to get a letter
from the oil burning board. Remind me to tell you
(36:23):
about high for your toast corn syrup letter. One day,
the basement was loaded with carbon monoxide and other compounds
you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley, and
it had been leaking up into the rest of the apartment.
Not for your podcast, I would have gone to bed earlier,
never noticed that smell. This is why I mentioned Colbert,
you may wonder. As it turns out, my roommate Caitlin,
had been watching Colbert upstairs and she fell asleep. She
(36:47):
was tripping z's when I woke her up and pulled
her to safety. Where was Stephen Colbert in our time
of need? He may have a space treadmill named after
him and a high profile primetime TV show, but he's
no substitute for y s K when it comes to
riveting and informating, informative late night life saving. I thought
I would add another game winning point for Team s
Y s K. Yeah, Scott in Connecticut. He's also no
(37:11):
s y s K when it comes to raising donation
loans for the developing world. Because we beat the tar
out of him on Kiva Keva dot org Slash team
slash stuff. You should know, Chuck, we indirectly save these
people's lives. You realize we've saved quite a few lives
at this point, my friend, if only we've been there
for the family at the end of storytelling, Yeah, I
(37:32):
want to know if we've killed and oh god, so awesome.
You're so hooked on Todd Solins right now, I have
that guy, Todd Solins. If you're listening, I appreciate your work, buddy,
Yeah I do too. Yeah. Uh, if you are Todd Solins,
we want to hear from you. Send us an email,
wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send
it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
(38:00):
Better For more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
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