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FINLAND

I’ve discovered why the Finns

are so happy
No phones, 24-hour spas and no need to get naked,
Helsinki’s saunas aren’t just about health benefits — there’s a
buzzing social scene that combats loneliness too

Sompasauna in Helsinki is open 24 hours a day

NOT KNOWN, CLEAR WITH PICTURE DESK

Claire Cohen Tuesday December 26 2023, 12.01am GMT, The Times

here’s something jarring about seeing your colleagues in

T their swimwear. One minute, you’re in a professional

environment — networking, fully clothed. The next? You’re

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networking while sitting next to one another in a dark cabin, wearing

a sliver of Lycra.

This is how work and play is done in Finland, as I discovered on a

recent trip to the country. Of course, the sauna culture here is no
secret: the tradition is so central to Finnish lives that, in 2020, it was
added to Unesco’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
There are Finnish people alive today who were born in saunas:
considered hygienic with access to hot water, they were used for
giving birth, treating the sick and preparing the dead for burial. We’re
talking about the full circle of life.

Today, for a population of 5.5 million people, there are more than 3
million saunas — in Helsinki there is even one on a ferris wheel. Two
Finns I meet admit they don’t actually enjoy it, but they do so in a
whisper and only once we’re alone.

I had assumed that I knew the drill: get naked, sweat. Turns out,
there’s a lot that we Britons have to learn — and quickly, given there’s
a new wave of sauna enthusiasm spreading through the UK.
According to the British Sauna Society, there are now more than 70
“authentic saunas” here, a number that has doubled every year since
2018 — think wooden huts with wood-fired stoves and panoramic
views, rather than the soulless afterthoughts found in leisure centres.
There are “outdoor saunas” parked everywhere from Parliament Hill
to Brighton and The Times recently declared them one of the year’s
status symbols. Not to mention a new book, Sauna: The Power of
Deep Heat by the British writer Emma O’Kelly, and a recent
documentary film, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, which has been tipped
for an Oscar.

Basically, it’s full steam ahead.

Given the surge in popularity of people enjoying cold-water

swimming, myself included, it’s perhaps not surprising that we’re
looking to warm up too. That’s how the Finns do it: switching
between 90-degree heat and plunging into freezing cold water.
During the winter months, it’s common to drill your own ice hole —
which sounds unappealing, but given that Finland has been named
the happiest country on the planet by the United Nations for six years
in a row, perhaps there’s something in it.

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The Allas Sea Pool is an outdoor swimming complex in Helsinki

It’s certainly good for you and not just because you have to leave your
phone outside. Used sensibly (drink water, don’t stay in for more than
15-20 minutes at a time and leave if you feel unwell), taking a sauna
can improve blood circulation, relax the muscles and boost skin
health. The Hotel Maria, Helsinki’s newest five-star property, which
opened on December 15, claims that its sauna and cold pool can help
with detoxification, enhanced immunity and stress relief. Certainly
after a quick 10pm sauna session in my own Helsinki hotel, Scandic
Grand Central (surprisingly chic for a hotel next to the main train
station and with an unrivalled Nordic breakfast bueet), I sleep better
than I have in weeks.

Sauna enthusiast Tuomas Paloneimi lives in the southern city of

Tampere — the “sauna capital of the world”, which has more than 60
public saunas for 250,000 people — and started sauna-ing with his
family at six months old.

For him the mental health benefits are a big attraction. “Sauna is a
place where you can let your guard down and there are no
distractions,” he says. “That makes it easier to talk about life or share
problems, even with strangers. You can be your authentic self when
you’re reminded that bodies come in all shapes and sizes.”

That’s not to say you have to bare all. I’d assumed that going naked

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was the done thing, but despite the cultural stereotype, Finns tend to
disrobe only in private saunas or single-sex environments. In mixed
public saunas, the etiquette is to don swimwear (and don’t take your
towel in either: sheets of absorbent paper are provided).

Helsinki Cathedral in winter

GETTY

Saunas also oeer a potential cure for loneliness, too — something that
3.8 million Britons say they experience. “Often older people will come
if they’re lonely or want to get to know their neighbours. There are
groups who only gather in public saunas — they go there specifically
to talk,” Paloneimi says.

Is this something we could learn from? “People can be a bit insular, so

this is a way to come together and socialise,” says Michael Newitt,
originally from Belfast, who runs the Helsinki Distilling Company and
has lived in Finland for six years.

Heidi Johansson, who lives in Helsinki, says: “It’s a bit like going to
the pub.”

Indeed, at the city’s 24-hour Sompasauna, set up by three hippie

friends who reconditioned an abandoned sauna, the Friday afternoon
atmosphere isn’t unlike the Dog and Duck. It’s run by the local

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community — which means men and women (many naked, activists

not adhering to social norms) chopping wood with axes and carrying
smouldering buckets of ash. There are no showers here: after sitting —
in my swimsuit — among the friendly locals, I clean oe in the sea by
climbing down an icicle-encrusted ladder into a hole cut into the ice.
On Johansson’s advice, I take short breaths in and force long, loud
breaths out to avoid hyperventilating. After about 30 seconds, I
scramble out and grab my towel only to find I don’t actually need it.
My skin is zinging, so it’s just a short walk through the snow, to the
sauna to warm up.

Every sauna I visit is buzzing with the same energy. At the other end
of the scale is the minimalist and modern Kuuma in Tampere, which
has a Nordic restaurant attached and where groups of friends are
enjoying cocktails before a sauna and dip in Pyhajarvi lake.
Meanwhile the Allas Sea Pool, an outdoor swimming complex with
five “observation deck” saunas by Helsinki’s waterfront, is filled with
women putting the world to rights. A three-hour ticket (£23 with
towel hire; allasseapool.fi) seems ludicrous, but two hours in and I’m
not ready to leave — washing away the stresses of the week, it turns
out, can’t be rushed.

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Kuuma in Tampere
ALAMY

Which is why, instead of simply adding them on LinkedIn, I find

myself stripping down with my new work connections — from
government advisors to local guides. It’s one of the things the Finnish
take pride in: that the sauna is somewhere a president or chief
executive can sit alongside a nurse or a butcher. Everyone is equal in
the steam.

That steam — called loyly ( pronounced “low-loo”) — is central to the

experience. The Finns enjoy the sensation whenever and wherever
they can: saunas aren’t the preserve of those able to aeord luxury spa
breaks

Minja, 39, tells me her apartment building in Helsinki has two

communal saunas for residents and that her family-sized flat also has
its own private one. “My previous apartment only had one communal
sauna and we found it hard to move,” she says. “Buyers didn’t want to
live somewhere where they didn’t have a sauna inside their flat as
well.”

I’m not sure that we Britons are ready to swap our garden sheds for

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saunas, or install them in the en suite. But I do return home with a

sense that we have an opportunity to engage with a ritual that
promotes calm and camaraderie — not to mention a hot place to seek
sanctuary during the cold, grey winter months.
Claire Cohen was a guest of the Finnish Foreign Ministry
( um.fi
um.fi).
). B&B doubles from £130 ((scandichotels.com
scandichotels.com).
). Fly to
Helsinki

This article contains amliate links, which can earn us revenue

Four of the top sauna spots in Europe

1. Ood, Lunan Bay, Dundee & Angus

An Ood Mirror sauna

It seems fitting that Lunan Bay, on the dramatic Angus coastline, was
once a landing point for 10th-century Viking armies — given that the
luxury Ood Mirror cabins here now oeer private saunas to those
seeking to unwind, Nordic-style but surrounded by wild Scottish
coastline. You’ll stay on the grounds of the Arbikie Distillery, founded
in 2014 on the site of a 200-year old distillery, which is striving to be
one of the world’s most sustainable alcohol producers — it claims to
make the world’s first climate-positive gin and vodka, as well as
whisky. All the more reason to sweat it out in the sauna after a day’s

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tasting.
Details B&B doubles from £250 (oodhotels.com)

2. Iglu Park, Estonia

Iglupark

Estonia’s smoke sauna culture dates back to the 13th century and, like
in Finland, it is considered important enough to be included on the
Unesco Intangible Heritage List. Iglupark, on the waterfront in
Tallinn, is a modern interpretation of the tradition, with spacecraft-
like black sauna pods that sit right on the Baltic — perfect for
plunging into for a cool-down. The chic Scandi-style huts come with a
kitchenette and terrace overlooking the water, and the saunas can be
hired privately for up to ten people.
Details Self-catering for two from £145 a night. Sauna hire starts at
£80 per hour (minimum 3 hours) (Iglupark.com). Fly to Tallinn

3. Priedlhof, South Tyrol, Italy

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Hotel Priedlhof
MICHAEL HUBER

Hotel Priedlhof has its own way of straddling the hot and cold
inherent in sauna culture: it’s set on the edge of the Mediterranean,
with almost year-round sunshine and olive groves, alongside snow-
capped mountains and year-round skiing at nearby Schnalstal glacier.
Indoors, the 71-room adults-only wellness hotel has what it calls a
“sauna tower”, run by a “sauna master” and featuring 16 separate
saunas, all with dieerent levels of humidity. There’s a wine sauna, an
olive sauna, a steam sauna, a “hot & fun” sauna (the mind boggles)
and many have panoramic views across the mountains. Specific
programmes, guided by doctors, focus on menopause, grief, trauma
and sleep disturbance.
Details B&B doubles from £186 (preidlhof.it). Fly to Verona or
Innsbruck

4. La Fantasie, France

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La Fantasie hotel
JEROME GALLAND

Embrace the botanical theme of this new hotel in Paris’s 9th

arrondissement, which has a largely plant-based menu, a secret
garden and the subterranean spa, where floral ceramic tiles line the
walls of the wellness areas and the products are vegan. The main
attractions are the wood sauna, luxury infrared sauna and hammam
mineral bath. There are also cold water baths, fountains and crushed
ice to get your endorphins pumping.
Details Room-only doubles from £336 (lafantaisie.com). Fly to Paris