My wife and I have had a 5 am wake up call every morning for the past week.  It’s that time of year in Minnesota, everything is alive and making noise.

We have this crazy cardinal who starts up at the first sign of light with a maddening incessant chirp right outside our bedroom window.

I took three sauna rounds in my backyard sauna last night and tucked myself into bed by 11 pm.  When I awoke, it was 7 am, and I felt like I had just shut my eyes for a minute.

When is the last time you’ve slept that soundly?

A Finnish sauna helps relax your muscles and gets you in a mentally calm state.  You may just need someone to help shovel you into bed, but wow, what a way to get even with a noisy cardinal!

Saunas are most popular in Scandinavia, Seattle, Minnesota.

Is it the chicken or the egg?  Are Scandinavians predisposed to sauna or did the Scandinavian climate, over centuries, create the ingenuity to burn fire in a room and warm up?

In this case, 40 degrees, cold wet rain, the kind of day where those less adventurous say “I’m going to go curl up on the couch with a good book” as a way to go meekly inside and hide.  This is the same day when those with a backyard sauna get excited and fire up their wood burning sauna stove and embrace what nature throws at us.

Between rounds, sitting outside with the birds and the rain dancing off the trees the only word is “ahhhhhhhhh” perfect!

If I had a stick of firewood for every time i’ve been asked this question, I could keep my wood burning sauna stove on idle most of the winter:

1. Double doors. Why do grocery stores all have a double set of entry doors?  Imagine you are a check out clerk at a grocery store and it’s below freezing with 25 mph winds and some old lady is standing in the doorway adjusting her hat.  Now imagine that you build your own sauna without a changing room and some old lady is standing in the open doorway adjusting her hat.  Close the door!

2.  Equalize your body temp. A backyard sauna with a changing room is a wonderful hang out space between rounds.  After a well deserved cold outdoor shower, it’s nice to sit in the changing room and hang out, visit, indulge in a sauna music play list as your body equalizes.   This is not only fun, but important!

3.  Expand your space. A sauna changing room is critical for a sauna party.  Offering hang out zones gives your sauna party structure and expansion.  How come people hang out in the kitchen at parties?

I built my mobile sauna with a changing room for all the above reasons, oh, yea, and you

4.  have a place to hang your clothes.

Click here for the ultimate sauna plan.  It’s the perfect design for a Minnesota sauna or a Finnish sauna or a backyard sauna or even a mobile sauna.