The Cold Thrill

It's easy with sauna to focus on the heat. This is understandable especially with phrases such as "it's like a sauna in here". But heat is only one element we play with in sauna. If it was just delicious heat time and again, then sauna sessions would be much shorter.

"The feeling of well being which follows the cold dip is undoubtedly one of the most delightful sensations which the human body can experience. For this reason, jumping into the lake can become almost a passion, and many sauna enthusiasts can take as many as 5 dips in one sauna visit."

— H.J. Viherjuuri, Sauna: The Finnish Bath

Without the cold, there would be no reason to get back into the sauna, which all enthusiasts can agree would be a bad thing. There's nothing quite like the invigorating cold dip to sharpen the sense, safe in the knowledge that the warm embrace of the sauna will greet you soon.

For me, being cold and walking into a warm sauna is like receiving a big cosy hug and I feel like it floods me with Oxytocin (though I have no found any peer-reviewed research on this). During my sauna education, I noticed how I was repeatedly struck by the same patterns of thought:

Firstly I would reach a level of heat that was so uncomfortable that all I wanted to do was get out of the sauna and never return, this was then subsequently followed by a depth of cold that all I wanted to do was get out of the cold and get back into the sauna.

After doing this about 3 or 4 times, my internal temperature regulator seemed to get so confused whether I was boiling hot and rapidly cooling, or whether I was frozen solid and rapidly warming that it just decided to give up and instead make my body feel a nice warm glow for the rest of the day.

It's this experience of multiple cold shocks and delightful sauna sessions, that allows the sweat to clear out all the badness from your indulgences and leave you with that well-baked and fully cleansed aura.

After a while, I came to realise that more and more it was the cold thrill I was looking forward too. Indeed the most amazing sauna club I was lucky enough to be a member of in Copenhagen is called: Det Kolde Gys which means: The Cold Thrill/Shock (Google translates it as The Cold Horror which just ins't right). Indeed, many Danish sauna clubs see themselves as primary 'Winter Swimming Clubs'. The sauna becomes a necessary tool to facilitate a longer extents of cold water swimming. It's just a happy coincidence that saunas are awesome.

For me, learning to love the cold also represented a personal reconnection with nature. I grew up in Edinburgh and the dark, grey, murky, turd-filled cold waters of Portabello beach meant that I learned the sea was a thing to be feared. Seaside holidays involved bravely paddling into the sea and then running away again as a larger wave lapped into one's testicles.

While I haven't changed into any sort of Bear Grylls action figure, I have learned to love the cold sea and to get past that initial mental shock that puts most people off. In doing so, I now understand how and why surfers can be bothered to surf in Scottish waters or why Wim Hof and codl water swimming is taking off so much. It isn't just about the health benefits, there's something uniquely exhilarating about putting your body, which is overly pacified by central heating and comfy seats, into a more extreme environmental situation. Suddenly everything switches on and you are left with an alertness and vigour that surpasses even the strongest of stimulants.

So let's hear it for the cold and give thanks that saunas give us the benefit of two temperature extremes.