The Benefits of Sauna
Heated by a wood-burning stove to between 70 and 100 degrees, our saunas are completely off-grid. We recommend switching from hot to cold every 10 to 15 minutes, cooling down with a plunge in the sea if you choose to. It's through that cycle - heat, then cold, then heat again - that most people start to notice the benefits below.
Your Breathing
Many people find that in the sauna, breathing slows and airways relax. Guests with asthma or other respiratory conditions often find some relief while inside, and the switch from dry heat to wet cold and back again is something regular sauna-goers describe real skin benefits from too.
Your Joints & Muscles
Switching between cold and hot encourages increased blood circulation, which can help reduce muscle soreness, improve joint movement and ease arthritic pain.
You Relax
Being off-grid - away from screens, even watches and clocks - combined with slower breathing and muscle relaxation, tends to bring heart rate down and quieten the mind. Many guests tell us it's the first time all week they've properly switched off, and find themselves more able to process complex thoughts afterwards.
Community, Fun & Creativity
Saunas are social places — good for conversation, for opening up creativity, for spending unhurried time with friends and family. With the stress reduction that comes with regular sauna use, a lot of our guests tell us their mental health, creativity and self-confidence all get a boost too.
A Note on Safety
Sauna use involves exposure to elevated temperatures, and it isn't right for everyone. If you're pregnant, have a cardiovascular condition, take medication that affects blood pressure, have a pacemaker, or have had a heart attack in the last six months, please speak to your GP before booking. See our full Terms & Conditions for complete health and safety guidance.
FAQs
Is sauna safe for everyone?
Most people can enjoy sauna safely, but it isn't right for everyone — see the safety note above, and check our Terms & Conditions for full guidance if you have a medical condition or are pregnant.
How often should I sauna?
How often you sauna is up to you.
Scottish Seaside Saunas makes regular sauna bathing easier by offering 3 different levels, or ‘benches’ of memberships.
We also offer discounts at our St. Andrews Sauna, for St. Andrews University students and staff, community members of The University Sports Centre, Fife Sports & Leisure Trust members, members of SALT gym and employees of very many big employers, including The Links Trust, St. Andrews University and various tourism businesses and hotels, in St. Andrews.
How often you sauna is not just linked to affordability, it is also linked to the benefits that you are seeking.
A really accessible way of understanding some of these benefits is to read this article that from Found My Fitness, that first alerted me to these benefits, back in 2021:
https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/sauna
“The Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) Study, an ongoing prospective population-based cohort study of health outcomes in more than 2,300 middle-aged men from eastern Finland, which identified strong links between sauna use and reduced death and disease.
The KIHD findings showed that men who used the sauna two to three times per week were 27 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular-related causes than men who didn't use the sauna.
Furthermore, the benefits they experienced were found to be dose-dependent: Men who used the sauna roughly twice as often, about four to seven times per week, experienced roughly twice the benefits - and were 50 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular-related causes. In addition, frequent sauna users were found to be 40 percent less likely to die from all causes of premature death. These findings held true even when considering age, activity levels, and lifestyle factors that might have influenced the men's health.
The KIHD also revealed that frequent sauna use reduced the risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease in a dose-dependent manner. Men who used the sauna four to seven times per week had a 66 percent lower risk of developing dementia and a 65 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, compared to men who used the sauna only one time per week.
The health benefits associated with sauna use extended to other aspects of mental health, as well. Men participating in the KIHD study who used the sauna four to seven times per week were 77 percent less likely to develop psychotic disorders, regardless of the men's dietary habits, socioeconomic status, physical activity, and inflammatory status (as measured by C-reactive protein).”
I discuss this in more detail in the benefits of sauna question, below, but, broadly speaking, the more that you sauna, the more you gain any of the benefits that you are seeking, be those social, spiritual, or health-related.
Do I need experience to join a session?
No - sessions are open to complete beginners as well as regular sauna-goers.
Is there research behind these benefits?
When discussing ‘how often should I sauna?’, it is worth referencing the research conducted by cardiologist, Jari Laukkanen, MD, PhD, from The Institute of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, University of Eastern Finland, in Kuopio, Finland.
Dr. Laukkanen and his team, conducted long term studies on over 2,500, mainly men, aged between around 42 and 60. Their results suggested ‘that sauna bathing is a recommendable health habit’ and that the more that you sauna the greater the benefits.
To quote one of their many research papers, published in 2015, linked below:
“sauna bathing is inversely associated with the risk of SCD, CHD, CVD, and all-cause mortality.
The higher frequency of sauna bathing was related to a considerable decreased risk of SCDs, fatal CHDs, fatal CVDs, and all-cause mortality events independently from conventional risk factors.
Heart rate may increase up to 100/min during moderate sauna bathing sessions and up to 150/min during more intense warm sauna bathing, corresponding to low- and moderate-intensity physical exercise training.
These proposed functional improvements associated with sauna bathing correspond to similar benefits seen with regular physical exer-cise, such as improvement in blood pressure and left ventricular function.
It has been documented that cardiac output is increased mainly because of the increase in heart rate during sauna bathing.
In the typical warm and relatively dry Finnish sauna, skin blood flow usually increases, leading to the higher cardiac output, whereas blood flow to internal organs decreases with an increased body temperature.
Sweat is secreted at a rate of 0.6 to 1.0 kg/h at temperatures of 80°C to 90°C, with a mean total secretion of 0.5 kg during a typical sauna bathing session.
Repeated sauna treatment improves endothelial function in patients with CHD risk factors and heart failure, suggesting a preventive role of thermal therapy for endothelium.”
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2130724
In a later paper, published in 2018, they concluded:
"increased frequency of sauna bathing is associated with a reduced risk of sudden cardiac death, fatal coronary heart disease, fatal cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality."
See below:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2130724
Put simply the more times that you sauna, in a week, the more that reduces your risk of heart disease. This is particularly important for those who don’t get their heart rates up through exercise, but can have an added benefit when backing-up an on-going exercise programme.
You can read a review of the evidence here:
https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(18)30275-1/pdf
But, regular saunas can have many other benefits, beyond cardiovascular, respiratory and other benefits linked to the improved function of all the body's organs, including brain and skin health.
Regular saunas build connections, connections with yourself, with others and the natural environment. These, in turn, can have many other benefits: reducing a sense of social isolation, low level depression and anxiety, building a sense of community and belonging, improved empathy for the natural environment.
You can read a review of some of these studies linked to these benefits here:
https://www.britishsaunasociety.org.uk/news/sauna-and-mental-wellbeing
It is very much worth reading the work of Rachael McGrath on the subject of the social benefits of regular shared sauna rituals:
Sauna has many benefits linked to symptoms of The Menopause, like for example improving sleep and reducing musculoskeletal pain.
Regular saunas build heat adaptation, which helps manage vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes), but can help us all, as we navigate a warming planet.
A sauna on a warm day might sound counterintuitive, but regular saunas during a heatwave have the same benefits as saunas on a cold day and they just might be the factor that helps you better navigate future heatwaves.