The Finnish Way To Feeling Good

Finland, the pioneer of saunas, has many tales about its therapeutic regimen. Kalpana Sunder takes us through some.

- Kalpana Sunder

I drape my towel decorously and prop myself on a warm pinewood bench with a delectable smell of wood in the air. Pale light sieves in from the windowpanes. Soon I start glowing with the scalding steam, not surprising, given the temperature’s really high! I am spending a day at a sauna cottage in Eastern Finland’s Lakeland region, which includes the picturesque Lake Saimaa and many islands dotted with mökki or summer cabins.

To mitigate the harshness of the long and dreary winters here, the Finns invented something to give them warmth and cheer—the sauna. Of course, the sauna has close cousins in other cultures like the Turkish hammam or even the Japanese onsen, but in Finland, it is a national obsession. I am told that there are more than two million saunas all over the country. Even the Parliament House has a spa, where ‘sauna diplomacy’ is practised.

During sauna diplomacy, international delegations are invited to a sauna before clinching a deal. If there’s an impasse, they first sweat it out and then resolve it. There are portable saunas as well, which are carried while camping. Annual sauna championships are also held in Finland, where the person who endures the highest temperature wins.