In early February I found my happy place. Lee and I stopped in Asheville, NC after a weekend visit up to Highlands, North Carolina with the express purpose of visiting a place I found and booked on a whim – Sauna House.
Sauna House is a bathhouse open to everyone with hot/cold therapy available in the form of saunas and cold plunge pools. I was a skeptic going in - but I was also struggling with some pretty intense anxiety/insomnia at the time as well as persistent, food-related inflammation in my joints and muscles.
We'll get into the process of hot/cold therapy in a moment as well as the benefits, but after 2 hours in the bathhouse with 3 sauna sessions, 2 cold plunge sessions and a lot of relaxation time in between I felt like a new person. And that is not hyperbole. I had never felt so calm or so relaxed in my life.
Since that initial experience, Lee and I have been going to Sauna House about once a month – Asheville is about an hour drive away so unfortunately we can't pop up to Sauna House as much as we would like to. We've gone after traveling a lot, after getting Covid, after being in stressful situations and it has absolutely become our favorite activity/hobby. We've been seriously talking about adding a backyard sauna and cold plunge pool into our next house and we can feel the difference consistent use of a sauna and cold therapy has made in our mental and physical health.
So What's the Benefit of Hot/Cold Therapy?
Let me preface this by saying I am not an expert, nor am I a doctor. I've found that health and wellness is a very personal journey with things that work for some people, not useful or even safe for others. Saunas are not suggested for people with serious, preexisting heart conditions or kidney disease. But for the rest of us, the benefits are immense.
While hot/cold therapy is notably associated with Nordic culture (and consequently the happiest countries in the world), evidences of bathhouses can be traced all the back to ancient times. I've visited the Roman baths before in Bath, England and by the size of the excavations you can see that that culture highly valued their wellness time in the sauna.
Benefits of sauna and cold water therapy include:
- reduced inflammation
- reduced chronic pain
- decreased anxiety/depression
- increased cardiovascular health
- improved circulation
- improved cellular health
- enhanced athletic performance
- improved skin texture and health
- improved immune response
- increased mental fortitude
Skeptical? I was too. But I have personally experienced every single item on that list with consistent hot/cold therapy use. The benefits are too powerful to ignore.
A traditional hot/cold therapy is completed in a cycle. Personally, we have a pretty specific routine when participating in this wellness activity.
- 20 minutes in the traditional Finnish sauna. This sauna runs about 170 degrees at 30% humidity. It makes you sweat (obviously the goal of being in a sauna).
- cold shower to wash off all the sweat
- 2-3 minute cold plunge in 49 degree pool. This is something we've been working up to. Most people can't stand but maybe 20-30 seconds in the cold plunge on their first go-round. And this is where the mental fortitude comes in to play. Your body can withstand the cold, it's your mind that needs the convincing.
- Relax and rehydrate for 15 minutes. Hydration is really important when you're doing hot/cold therapy - I typically drink about 2 liters during our routine and 2 throughout the rest of the day.
- 15 minutes in the Dry Cedar Sauna. This sauna is about 190 degrees but without the humidity it doesn't feel as warm as the Finnish sauna.
- cold shower
- 1-2 minute cold plunge in an ice bath style cold plunge that is 42 degrees
- repeat the Finnish sauna/cold plunge once more
If this sounds daunting, you're not alone. Our modern world teaches us to forcefully run from experiences that are uncomfortable and challenging. We are trained that it's ok to avoid things we don't want to do. And while that's true to an extent, in order to grow and improve and change things we have to face and overcome challenging things.
Nothing changes if nothing changes.
And that is just another benefit of the hot/cold therapy. It's a mental challenge to stay in a 190 degree sauna for 15-20 minutes and only focus on your breathing (did I mention technology is not allowed in the bathhouse?). It's not easy to slide your body into a metal tub with 42 degree water and breathe through the shock. But, if you can slowly start to work on it. If you can challenge your mind to settle and calm through the panic and chaos. If you can focus on the beauty of the challenge, you will come out stronger and healthier.
