Sand timers. Watches on the wrist. Clocks on the wall.
Q: How long should you stay in the hot room?
A: it depends.
Some rounds last a long time. You take steam like, “Thank you sir, may I have another.” Other times you’re struggling to get past five minutes and find yourself relegated to the low bench.
It’s OK to be a Low Bench Larry. Stratification is a good thing. The microclimate down there can be downright enjoyable. Especially when you’re a little off your game.
Sauna is a body stressor. Heart rate goes up, blood vessels dilate, you’re sweating, and your body is working to regulate temperature. I think about sauna much like I think about running or other strenuous exercise: you don’t necessarily approach every session in exactly the same condition. Some days, running 5 miles feels like purgatory. Other days, 5 miles goes by in a flash.
Some people sauna in the morning. Others prefer evening. For me, I’ve settled into a nice pocket in the late afternoon, before dinner. Food tastes great afterward, I ease into a mellow evening, and eventually shovel myself into bed.
So don’t get too hung up on the clock.
Your tolerance for heat can change depending on what you’ve eaten, how hydrated you are, whether you’ve exercised recently, how tired or stressed you are, and simply how you’re feeling that day.
Your mental state matters, too. Sometimes you’re relaxed and ready for a long round. Other times you’re distracted, wound up, tired, or just not feeling it.
Sauna meets you right where you are.
Every body is different. And every body is different from one sauna session to the next.
A sand timer or clock on the wall can be a guide, but sauna works much better when you roll with how you feel.
You want an answer to “how long should I stay in the hot room?”
Ok, here it is: instead of looking at your watch, or a sand timer on the wall, close your eyes and listen to your core, not your skin. Your body will tell you how long you should stay in the hot room.
Same goes for your cool down. The rubber band theory, the full expansion and contraction of mind, muscle, and zen and the art of hormesis doesn’t have to subscribe to “no pain, no gain.” When we put a wedge into the space between stimulus and response (listening to our core, not our skin) our rounds expand naturally, and that’s one of the great things about sauna.
5 thoughts on “How long should you stay in the hot room?”
Thanks for this Glenn- we all need a reminder that there are no hard rules when it comes to sauna and no pressure or competition. Just listen to your own body!
Right on, brother Rob.
I was just having a chat with a close friend, about how the performance based culture, work out culture specifically, is all about counting reps and looking at the stop watch. It’s a natural evolution of thinking where athletes are judged by performance, and improving their times.
Yet, as we know, with sauna, it’s such a wonderful de-programming of that kind of yard stick thinking. It takes hard work. for many, to let it all go, and i’m reminded of another friend, Harvey Martin, who has a long list of professional athletes in his Rolodex. They come to him for that wonderful, refreshing approach that you mention above.. “listen to your body!”. And with that, he provides a beautiful expansive expression of breathwork, mindfulness, meditation… and the casualness of tossing a shit ton of water on the rocks and riding it out with that contagous, addicting “ahhhhhhhh” and “thank you sir.. may I have another!?”
Papa Glenn knows the vibe! Gotta feel it out folks. Love this brother .
For sure, who feels it, knows it.
I was told most of my early life that a sauna session should last about 15 minutes, followed by a cool-down period of similar length, and then perhaps one repeat of that cycle.
Well, now that I’ve built my own sauna, I sit or lie in the hot room (57 °C) 40 minutes or so, sometimes a full hour, before the cool-down, which is brief—as little as 5 or 10 minutes. Then it’s back into the heat.
I’m not recommending this for anyone else—we’re all different—but it works for me.