The Science of Saunas
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Hello, Luke O'Neill here and welcome to my weekly podcast, Show Me The Science. Now this topic, it's the science of saunas. You might wonder, why is he talking about the science of saunas? Well, there is a lot of science that's been done on the beneficial effects or otherwise of taking a sauna. And I spoke about it recently in a different media context and it caused a lot of interest. So I thought I'd cover the podcast and a couple of extra things have come up actually since I began looking into this. And it was partly triggered as well by I happen to be in Finland. A couple of months ago, I've got a visiting professorship at the University of Turku, of all places. And they're in the sauna all the time, it seems to me, in Turku.
And they seem very happy because of it. And the Finns are great for saunas. Also, recently, a big study has confirmed yet again the happiest people in the world are the Finns. You wouldn't think to look at them or talk to them, but that seems to be the case. And they reckon it's partly because they take so many saunas. So it's been an area that's been sort of investigated, a bit lighthearted, but there is good evidence that taking a sauna can actually be very, very good for you. And in Ireland, there's a boom going on. And reason number three for this topic is I was down in Ballybunion, of all places recently in County Kerry, and I noticed two saunas beside the beaches there. And if you go around Ireland now, you will see saunas all over the place.
Mobile saunas. Booming. And for example, I'll give you some statistics. There's more than 200 public saunas now in Ireland. And 90% of them have opened since 2020. It just shows you. And what's happening here is people, Irish people, love to go for a cold dip. It's very common. Kind of began during the pandemic, actually. People would jump in the sea to feel alive or whatever. And now they like to climb into a sauna either before or after that. And that's what the Finns do commonly. They will have a sauna and then jump out and roll around in the snow. So it's this hot-cold combination that turns out to be especially prominent. And to meet demand, I read, mobile saunas are popping up all over the place. So we're going to go and see even more of them.
They reckon another reason for this is, and it's a startling reality, young people are healthier than I am. So they like doing this kind of thing. They might choose to go and take a sauna and go for a swim in the sea afterwards instead of going to the pub. like we used to do. And that's fine if they can de-stress and enjoy themselves. It's a fantastic thing to do. And in fact, I'm going to give you the bottom line at the very start. It's beneficial because it's sociable.
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