The power of hot and cold: from sauna to sea

In Finland, there’s a saying that a woman is considered to be at her most beautiful after a sauna. Helsinki author and outdoor swimmer Katja Pantzar would update the phrase to reflect the growing popularity of contrast therapy, which has a range of researched health benefits: ‘People positively glow after a cold dip followed by a hot sauna.’ For when you take care of your physical and mental wellbeing, you shine inside and out.

I discovered cold water swimming quite by accident. Many years ago, after moving from Canada to Finland, I was invited to try out the Finnish pastime of avantouinti, swimming in a hole cut through the ice on a natural expanse of water, by my friend Riikka, an avid winter swimmer.

As I stood in my swimsuit beside Riikka on a freezing Helsinki dock, I really thought it would be a one-off experience. At the time, I worked as a travel writer and was used to trying out foreign customs and new activities in different destinations.

On a dark, cold February night we stood on a dock in almost central Helsinki in our bathing suits and I remember thinking ‘this is absurd.’

The initial shock was literally breathtaking, as the sea was about 2ºC and the icy water felt like a million tiny pins pricking my skin. However, shortly after dashing out of the water, I felt this amazing rush, a sense of euphoria. I now know this sensation is called ‘swimmer’s high’, a feeling of joy, invincibility and all-over body glow that comes from the rush of happy hormones stimulated by even a brief cold immersion.

The experience with Riikka was the start of a practice that changed my life by giving me the tools for dramatically improving my mental health, which I have struggled with since I was a child.

That evening dip introduced me to a simple, natural way for dealing with anxiety, depression, fatigue and stress. The pastime, combined with hot sauna sessions in between cold plunges, also opened up a fast track into the heart of Finnish culture and society, to which I was a relative newcomer at the time.

Cool joys

I soon became a regular winter swimmer because a short dip allowed me to reset my mental and physical being in a matter of minutes. Indeed, it took several months of gradual acclimatisation before I could go right into the water and bravely swim a loop.

The lure of almost instant relief from my worries, stresses, aches and pains by leaving them in the sea kept me going with this natural form of shock therapy. The benefit was so strong that the brief freeze seemed like just a minor inconvenience.

Finnish winter swimmers have a saying that in its more polite translation sums up the transformative nature of their practice: ‘Your bad mood is water soluble.’

And as so many of us swimmers know, there is solid research to back up the physiological benefits of taking an icy plunge.

Cold facts

During the winter months in Finland, natural bodies of water such as lakes, rivers and seas, are on average about 2-4ºC. A dip of just 30-60 seconds in water that’s about 4ºC causes what’s known as a ‘hormone storm’, according to professor emeritus Hannu Rintamäki, a cold physiology expert.

Many of the so-called ‘happy hormones’ are pushed into action, and these include endorphins (the body’s natural painkillers), serotonin (widely thought to maintain mood balance), dopamine (the neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centres and also helps to regulate movement and emotional response), and oxytocin (known as the love hormone).

After the rush of endorphins, there’s a peaceful feeling. During a cold dip, blood circulation is enhanced, calories are burnt and the immune systems gets a boost, says Rintamäki. Other spill-off benefits include improved sleep and better stress tolerance.

According to the Finnish Outdoor Association, the pastime is shared in Finland alone by about 700,000 active dippers. That’s almost one in five people.

There are potentially many more who don’t make the official statistics because they are so-called cottage dippers, meaning they practise the age-old Finnish tradition of cooling off in a lake or the sea after a hot sauna, but don’t consider themselves to be ‘real’ winter swimmers.

Together is better

What is more difficult to measure scientifically is the spill-off benefits of spending time in nature (green and blue therapy) and the feeling of belonging to a community.

As we warm up in the sauna post-dip at our local winter swimming club, my fellow swimmers and I are part of a strong cultural tradition. In Finland there are more than 3 million saunas for a population of 5.6 million people. We could fit the whole country’s population into saunas at the same time.

The sauna is the quintessential and authentic Finnish steam bath, a way of life and a source of wellbeing and wisdom with roots dating back 10,000 years that is inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Indeed, ‘sauna’ is one of the few Finnish words to make it into the international lexicon.

In addition to its deep cultural roots, the Finnish steam bath has as many wellness benefits as cold water swimming that range from better mental health and a sense of belonging, to improved metabolism and cardiovascular fitness. It’s also one of few places left on earth that’s offline, as no devices are taken into the sauna according to etiquette; it is truly a place for relaxing mind, body and soul.

Hot science

People who visit saunas at least four times a week had a more than 60 per cent lower risk of stroke compared to people who go once a week, according to research by Finnish professor and cardiologist Jari A. Laukkanen. His ground-breaking sauna research has also shown that sauna use is associated with improved lung function, longer lifespan, less pain from arthritis and headaches, and a strengthened immune system. It also lowers CRP, a marker of inflammation in the body. Regular sauna-bathing may also improve cardiovascular function, as the heat causes cells lining the surface of blood vessels to dilate, which improves blood flow and circulation.

Feelings of relaxation and wellbeing associated with sauna sessions may be linked to the increased production of circulating levels of hormones, such as endorphins, which are associated with feelings of relaxation, improved mood and pain reduction. Regular sauna sessions improve brain activity and have been linked to reductions in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, according to Laukkanen’s studies.

Quite simply, Finnish contrast therapy – the age-old tradition of combining a cold plunge with hot sauna – is the secret to caring for mind, body and soul, which in turn is the key to looking and feeling good. The Nordic focus is more on quality than quantity of time spent in the water, and acknowledging everyone’s individual capacity. On some days mind and body can handle only a quick dip or a short steam, while on other days a longer swim or sauna session may be possible. It’s not a competition.

Speaking to the appeal of extremes and why we’re drawn to them, professor Mike Tipton, one of the world’s leading experts in the science of cold water immersion, posits that perhaps we humans have become too comfortable. Our ability to control our environment means we can be warm, sedentary, physiologically unresponsive and unchallenged. This type of lifestyle is unhealthy, as we were designed to move and experience temperature changes.

A professor of human and applied physiology at Portsmouth University, Tipton says that we need to use or perturb our physiological systems in order to maintain them. We know this with the musculoskeletal system and the common saying ‘use it or lose it’. If we don’t, the end result is thermostasis, a state in which we always experience the same temperature, according to Tipton.

Cold water swimming provides a jolt, a perturbation to the system. That healthy perturbation is the energy I share every morning with my fellow winter swimmers, who range in age from their twenties to their nineties. Part of their dynamism comes from simply getting outside, meeting friends and jump-starting the day in a way that’s much more energising than any amount of caffeine.

And in a world that so desperately needs more peaceful spaces for people from all walks of life to come together, the sauna and the sea are among those rare safe spaces left.

The Power of Hot & Cold, from Sauna to Sea: The Finnish Way to a Happy, Healthy Life (Yellow Kite/ Hodder UK) by Katja Pantzar and Carita Harju, will be published on 21 November in the UK. It will be one of the first titles on Finnish contrast therapy – pairing a hot sauna with a cold-water plunge – written from an inclusive perspective.