Hot - Cold - Rest - Repeat®

The Mantra

The million dollar question on every sauna-goers lips - how long should I stay in for? And the next most popular question ‘should I start with the sauna or the ice bath?’ And here the can of worms opens…

What has become clear through my time sharing sauna bathing with a large community is that contrast bathing and cold water immersion have definitely overlapped and with that caused some slight confusion. Many people arrive at the sauna and want to begin their session with a ten minute ice-bath - this is not actually what the sauna process is about and in fact after a lengthy time in the tub, or perhaps in the Sea, despite how much one wants to jump straight into the sauna to feel all toastie, this is not actually the best approach for the body and can come with some health indications of its own. Cold-water therapy is a great practice and has a ton of benefits, which relate to submerging the body into cold temperatures for an extended period of time, however the body then needs to reheat slowly and gently and jumping inside a very hot sauna can be too much and lead to some complications. Long story short, a sauna session does not really begin with an ice-bath! Shock horror, I know! 

Having said that, jumping in the cold tub for a super quick dunk, or hopping into the cold shower IS recommended! Not so much for its cold water benefits - although who doesn't love that exhilarating zing of an eye-opening splash of cold! - but more to wet the skin in preparation for a good sweat! You see, when the skin is wet, the body begins to conduct heat more efficiently so starting your sauna session with a quick rinse is absolutely recommended to kick-start the thermal process, and this is exactly what we want when we are beginning our session. We start with the HOT! When we arrive at the sauna, generally the body is cold, the skin is dry, internal systems are ticking along gently but nothing is going full power, the body is in its Winter. And we want Spring to arrive, a bit of warmth and moisture! So if we begin by wetting the skin the body will heat a little quicker. As we throw water on the rocks producing löyly (See ‘The Art of Löyly’) the body is wrapped in heat and steam, getting hotter still and starting to sweat more and more, and the longer we sit inside the sauna we start to feel hot hot hot!

We can enjoy this deep heat as much as our personal constitution allows, until we feel the need, the pull, the desire to step outside and be greeted with the cool air, the cold water, the feeling of being grounded once more - this time by the cold. This could be a cold bucket, cold waterfall shower, full immersion in the tub, or if you're really lucky a bracing dip in the oceans waves! If you're really lucky - the avanto!! This doesn't have to be long, this isn't about endurance, its about the CONTRAST, and thus all the opposing phenomena to what's happening to our bodies in the heat. It's vasoconstriction, it's a whoosh of blood circulation, where all that warm blood that has been sent outwards, perhaps gathering metabolic waste from the muscles, irrigating this through liver and kidneys, and sending that 'warm' blood to the core. It's this type of activity that makes this incredibly healthy for stiff arteries, for vascular health, for improved circulation, health health, brain health, all that good stuff - this part is not necessarily about prolonged cold water exposure.

In fact its often because sauna bathers stay too long in the cold that they feel the need to dash back to the heat - creating something of a ping-pong effect which is missing out a hugely therapeutic and deeply relaxing part of the process! The rest!! The rest is where the magic happens, the homeostasis, the return to our inner equilibrium, our state of balance. Sometimes referred to as the 'air-bath' - the part where you just sit or lie-down in the 'tepid space'. If you are able to fully relax and close the eyes this is where you might experience natural altered states of mind, it can feel trippy and almost psychedelic! Do not skip this bit...it's the best part! Here is where we might experience anandamaya - the bliss body - if we look to yogic philosophies; we transcend the gross body, via the energetic or astral body, and move towards states of bliss, euphoria or deep full-body relaxation. In Russian tradtion, here you might lie on a bed of hay, beneath a heavy blanket, whilst bird-song serves as your soundtrack. It's a huge part of the process, and one often neglected in many a mobile sauna set-up. In fact it's one of the best bits about having a sauna in the back garden - the opportunity to end your session lying on your bed floating like the löyly (See Portasauna - the future of home sauna)

And after your rest, repeat the cycle once, twice, thrice, or however many times the session will allow. Perhaps next time staying longer in the heat, a little longer in the cold, a more meditative time in between cycles, a deeper state of rest. Like many things in life the process is like a wave, starting shallow, low level, building in its intensity to a peak and then coming back down the other side. It’s a beautiful wavelike journey, a thing in itself to be enjoyed. 

If the sauna journey was to have a mantra it would be Hot - Cold - Rest - Repeat®. This simple guide of how to structure your wave can never fail. You do the hot, then the cold, then take a short rest, and then repeat. Each time is called a ‘round’ and ideally you might do three or four rounds each sauna session. It’s super simple and there is no limit or restriction to how long you stay. In fact your first round may well be just five minutes in the heat with a minute or two standing outside to cool down, the next round may be ten minutes inside the heat and then a cold shower and a minute or two enjoying the tingling sensations, the third round could be twenty minutes sitting in the sauna followed by full body submersion in the ice-bath followed by a fourth and final round relaxing in the sauna followed by a short, sharp dunk and then a nice ten mins sitting with the eyes closed when changed and fully dressed. 

There really isn't a one size fits all in terms of how you sauna, but following the hot-cold-rest-repeat protocol is a sure fire way to get maximum benefits for the body and mind. You do the hot, you do the cold, you take a rest and then you repeat. The more often you visit the sauna you will notice the body quickly acclimatise, you will notice that you start to sweat quicker when you first begin your session, you will notice you can stay longer in the sauna and take more heat, you will find that the cold shock response wears off quicker (watch out for new post - What Happens When You Get IN The Ice coming very soon), you will enjoy staying longer in the cold, you basically just get better at the whole process, and thus you will get more out of it. The hot-cold-rest-repeat mantra will always serve you well, be it a 30 min session or a 90 min session, all that changes is how many times you cycle through the process, how many sauna rounds you do. And then you also can start to talk like a true sauna bather - ‘sharing a round with a new sauna friend’ or ‘catching someone on the bench during the next round’! 

How many rounds is your sweet spot, do tell me in the comments? Are you a hot-cold-rest-repeat fan or do you have your own sauna mantra? I’d love to hear about it below!

[Hot-Cold-Rest-Repeat® is a registered trademark and the intellectual property of The Sauna Corner®]