Stuff You Should Know - Saunas: More Interesting Than You Think!

Episode Date: July 22, 2010

Although they seem pretty mundane, saunas are surprisingly fascinating inventions. Josh and Chuck break out all sorts of sweaty, sauna-related trivia, from the Finnish affinity for saunas to sauna etiquette, in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always is Charles W. Chuckers. Chuck, Chuckie, Bride of Chuckie, Bryant. You paused as if you forgot who I was. No, I had a thing. I have a marble mouth, worse than usual today.

Here we go. This podcast brought to you by Jolly Rancher. Have you ever mixed those with Zima? No, but you know that Oakland Raiders, former Oakland Raiders quarterback, Jamarcus Russell, just got busted with, they call it, purple drank. And it's like, it's coating syrup and I think some sort of carbonate soda and Jolly Rancher. Wow, it's robo-tripping is what he's doing. Well, it came out of the Houston, Texas scene like 10 years ago.

Weird. Purple drank. Never heard of it. That's how square I am. I haven't heard of it either, so I don't feel bad. Plus, it's like, that's what they do in Houston, seriously? Is that what you want your town associated with? Yeah, we use codeine water.

Yeah, we came up with purple drank. Wasn't he the QB for LSU? Yeah. Well, he's a bust. He's nothing now. He's a big wash. Really? Yeah, he went to the NFL and got all fat and threw interceptions and he was great for LSU.

Yeah, he was. So anyway, I guess what all that leads us to, Chuck, is saunas. Yes, football players. Well, they probably are steam room guys. Yeah, let's talk about, let's have great places to start, Chuck. There's a difference between a sauna and a steam room. There's a number of differences, but the mode of heat is what's really different, right? Yeah.

You know, we call this saunas colon more interesting than you think for a reason. Yeah. Because Robert Lam, our steam writer and stuff from the science lab co-host, he wrote this and he told us like months ago, he's like, dude, you should do saunas. Yeah. It's way cooler than you think. Yeah. And it's dirty and filthy and like.

And he was right. Steeped in history. Yeah, this is, for my money, Robert Lam is the best writer on howstuffworks.com. We always say that. But he wrote an altogether pleasant article that I've read like many, many times and every time I just love the way he wrote it. It's a great article. We should read the first line.

Please do. The first line of his article says, you're going to want to read this article naked. So please, before you go any further, disrobe completely. So if you're in the confines of your own home. Yeah. If the shades are drawn and you're an adult. Nice disclaimer. And there's no one else around that you feel uncomfortable with.

Yes. Very specifically. Chuck is only talking to people who are, we'll just go with 21 years of age and older. No, 25. And you're alone in your house. And if you're listening to your podcast and you feel like doing so naked right now, please do. Right.

Now, sauna is more interesting than you think. Right. Thank you. Brought to you by Jolly Rancher. Chuck, we were talking about the difference between a steam room and a sauna. Yes. A steam room is heated by moisture. Yeah.

Water vapor. And for that reason, the average steam room is going to be about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 40 degrees Celsius. Yeah, pretty hot. It is, but you can't jack it up much hotter than that. And the reason why is because it feels so much hotter than it is because it's a moisture-rich environment and our body cools by sweating and then the sweat evaporating off of the skin.

Yeah, cools you down. That creates our cooling sensation. Well, in a steam room, you sweat. You sweat buckets. Yeah. But it never evaporates because for evaporation to occur, the environment, the ambient air has to be drier than your skin. Right.

And if it's equally dry or it's wetter, then your sweat's not going to evaporate. No cooling effect. Right. Which is why sweating while you're swimming is a problem. It's disturbing. Yeah. Which is what I do. Yeah.

And then in a sauna, conversely, this is dry heat. So it's going to be a lot hotter temperature-wise in there, right? Yeah. I mean, if a steam room is 104 degrees Fahrenheit average, you're talking 176 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, it's hot. 80 degrees Celsius in your average sauna. Yeah. And do you like saunas in steam rooms?

Mm-hmm. You do? I've never really sat in a steam room, but I love saunas. Actually growing up, there's a Holiday Inn in Toledo that my family had a pool membership too and they had a sauna. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You could get a pool membership to a hotel in Toledo in the 70s. 70s and 80s, yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Never heard of that. When I look back, I'm like, yeah, that's really, really weird. You know what? It probably wasn't a membership. Your dad was probably like, yeah, we got a membership, kids. Come on.

Right. I wonder, actually. You get a room key, is what he had. I'm pretty sure we had a membership, but I don't remember. But they had a sauna, for sure. Uh-huh. And so I was introduced to the sauna really early on. It was just a normal thing.

So when you were a little kid, you enjoyed it? Uh-huh, yeah. Because it seems like such an old person thing, or an adult thing to do. Here in the West. If you go to Finland, baby, they are all about the saunas. I mean, it's like their national pastime. Right. Actually, in their national epic chuck, it's called the Kalevala.

This is a little side note. Never heard of that. It's their national epic, very, very old. Uh-huh. It mentions saunas frequently. Well, of course. Okay. There's about 1.6 million saunas in Finland.

Wow. And the first description of a Finnish sauna dates back to 1113. The Ukrainian historian Nestor wrote about him. That was my goat's name. Nestor? Uh-huh. Really? Yeah.

Did you name it after the Ukrainian historian? Yeah, I was 11 and I named him after the Ukrainian historian. Was it that or Plato? Did your goat love a good schvitz? No, but he drank coke from a bottle, which was kind of cute. That is so cute. With goats, it's not very cute when you see a human baby drinking coke from a bottle, which I've seen and it's disturbing.

Really? Yeah. Wow. Have you ever seen like a one-year-old drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola? No. It ain't right, man. Yeah, that's not right at all. No.

It's better than an espresso shot, I guess, but not much. It's in there. It's on par. And by coke, of course, I'm using the southern colloquialism for coke, which means any kind of soda pop. Sure. See you away, as always. Man, we got the really far off of saunas, didn't we?

Yes. Let's go back. So Finland, saunas are associated with it. And for good reason, right? Uh-huh. Did you read the article about the Finnish Navy fighting pirates? Yeah, they have saunas on the pirate fighting boats. Yeah.

And not only that, the Finnish army in Kosovo built 20 saunas for their fighters over there, like 800 troops. 800 troops. Crazy. They had 20 saunas. And they have them in prison. Yeah. Finnish prisons.

They're literally a part of daily life. If you go camping and you're at Finnish, you take along a portable sauna while you're camping. Like people take saunas every day. It's like showering to us. Sure. And this is an addition to showering. They shower a lot, too. Yeah.

Before we breeze past the Finnish prison saunas, though, this is sort of remarkable to me, because we'll find out, as we said, that a lot about being in sauna is being completely naked, especially if you're Finnish. I think it's a little more shy, but we'll get to that in a minute. But I imagine a Finnish prison sauna is a pretty happening place to be on a Friday night, wouldn't you think? Yeah, because the saunas have something of a reputation, especially in the 70s. They developed a reputation for being a swinging gay hangout.

Yeah. The bath house. Right. And that is nothing new, actually. No. Saunas, which we'll talk about later, the history of them. But they were kind of eradicated, thanks to the Protestant Reformation, because they had started to get pretty gay.

Frisky. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big party in there. Right. And not just gay, either. Well, no, all sorts of stuff. Yeah.

Prostitution. Yeah. Saunas were where it was at. All they were missing was a disco ball and Andy Warhol, and it could have been Studio 54. Nice. So let's get... But let's crawl back inside the sauna for a minute.

Okay. So this is the spruce cedar wood that looks so nice and feels so good on your bottom. Yes. I always thought that was just like... I mean, I knew, obviously, they weren't going to put stainless steel in there. Right. But I always just figured... You never really thought about it, did you?

Yeah, it's wood, but I never gave it two thoughts. Right. You would think that it was just a traditional, and it is traditional, but at the same time, yeah, it's never been updated in that respect, because if you did put in stainless steel, you would leave many, many layers of skin in the sauna from your bottom every time you sat down. Yeah. And then, you know, plastic.

Mm-hmm. You'd just be in big trouble. So wood absorbs heat, and it remains relatively cool at high temperatures, which is why. I mean, it's still warm. Your tucus is hot, but it's not like you're not hurting yourself. Yeah. And Robert also pointed out that it absorbs steam and stores heat and releases like that fine cedar smell.

Right, which is why they use cedar and spruce, because they have natural aromatics trapped within more than others, right? I love cedar. Except pine. But I don't know if you'd want to just sit there and smell pine the whole time, would you? Maybe not. It would get a little crazy, I think.

Yeah, I think so. Chuck, let's talk about the original finished sauna. The Cebu sauna. Yeah, nice. Cebu sauna. It looks sort of like the unibomber cabin. It's literally a cabin-like structure. Right.

No windows. No chimney. No chimney. Which is important because it is a wood fire sauna. Yeah, and it's a little disconcerting. Apparently, if you have an original Cebu sauna, it takes like all day to get it hot enough. You're burning wood. Yeah.

There's smoke in there. Yeah. It's black soot on the walls. And this is where you're supposed to go in and sit. Yeah. It sounds very dangerous to me. It does. It doesn't sound healthy, which is why the Cebu sauna, because of the eye irritants, the

fact that you're inhaling carbon monoxide and all sorts of other stuff, is generally relegated to sauna purists, according to Mr. R.L. Lam. Yeah, but I get the idea that you're supposed to let the smoke clear out as much as possible. Is that right? Yeah. But how? How do you do that?

Because you're just letting all the heat out, you know? Yeah. He said it seeps through cracks. Oh, the cracks in the roof. Yeah. Yeah. Still, yeah. And as a COA.

I mean, if it's getting hot enough. Yeah. As a COA, I would say, please do not try and build your own Savu sauna because you will likely die of affixiation. That's what I'm saying. You have to understand how people survive these saunas, right? So they're generally left to sauna purists, and the rest of us just use regular saunas. It's just called the sauna.

And this is the very recognizable sauna with spruce or cedar wood and a stove. Most of the time, the stove called kiyawas are electric these days, although you can have a wood-burning kiyawas, K-I-U-A-S, that has a chimney. So you have gas, too. The main feature isn't that it's wood-heated for a Savu sauna, it's that there's no chimney and you're inhaling it. Right. Yeah.

And well, we should point out, too. Like, whether it's wood or gas or electric or whatever, that's not providing the heat. You're heating rocks. Right. And then the rocks transfer the heat to the surrounding environment. Yes. If you want to jack the temperature up a little bit, remember when we talked about steam room, it's heated by water vapor.

You can actually use the same thing for a sauna. Take a little water, too ladle, from a bucket, splash it on the rocks, and all of a sudden you have what the fins call loyally. Well, there's an umlaut in there. I know. And I'm not big on Finnish pronunciation. I know how to say simohaya, and I'm not even sure I'm saying that right. I'm going to go with lirly.

Lirly? Lirly. That's Swedish, I'm sorry. I just said something in Swedish. So since we were talking about the rocks though, we should say that the rocks, it's very important. You can't just throw granite in there, because granite will probably explode in your face if it gets that hot and you put water on it. Real danger.

Exploding rocks are not good. No, you need unweathered quarry rock, and he listed a few. Hornblende is my favorite. The one they like the most is, what is it? Periodotite. Periodotite. Periodotite, because there's a semi-precious mineral called peridot. So I imagine this is where it comes from, peridotite.

Or an old friend, basalt. Basil. Basil. Basil. Why? Why can't we get that one? I don't know. It won't stick in our head.

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That's promo code HEART20 through January 30th. Visit gateonetravel.com for more information or to book your tour. That's gatethenumberonetravel.com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. So anyway, Pareto-tight. Yeah, so those are the rocks, the unweathered quarry rock that you can use to get really, really hot.

You can pour water on them. It'll steam. It'll hiss. It'll get really hot in your face. Right. Again, which is very important. I was surprised to find that the Swedes don't have a name for the pile of rocks that heat the sauna.

They have a name for the stove, Kiyos. They have a name for the steam, which is... Lurly. Yeah. They don't have a name for the rocks. It's called the pile of rocks. Yeah. Interesting.

I bet there is a name for it. Just pour water on that pile of rocks and make us some Lurly. Josh, you can also have what's called an infrared sauna, and that's the latest and greatest. When people say, people that believe in the infrared sauna say that it actually penetrates into your bones, which is good and bad. If you listen to the Butterfly Wings podcast, infrared means redder than red on the spectrum of light, right? Yeah.

And it's radiation. Sure. Because this is radiation. Yeah, I don't know if that's good. Basically, what's going on is you're being bathed in infrared radiation. So it heats you up. I'm a semi-purist, I think. Yeah, I think I would just like a regular sauna.

Not a savage sauna. Just a stove, a kiosk. Exactly. Kind of like they have at the gym. Yeah. Or at the holiday. Without Toledo. Without the old naked men.

Well, that is the thing about saunas that you're going to run into, Chuck, is naked men and naked women even, depending on where you are. Why not? Yeah. Robert made sure to point out that depending on where you are in the world, different cultures have different traditions. Yeah. Finland, a lot of Eastern Europe, Russia.

You can pretty much drop everything. You've got to have your towel, though, because you've got to sit on it. Right. You may be completely naked, but you still have to have a towel for hygienic reasons. You don't want to just sit your butt on the cedar plank where somebody else just sat their butt because there's a transfer of butt funk. Yeah, but you know what else I thought was funny? He said that they don't like Americans who want to wear their bathing suit in there.

They're really frowned upon because of hygienic reasons. Right. You just cover up with a towel. Why is that not hygienic to wear like your speedo in there? Does a butt funk get trapped in the lycra? I think the butt funk can make it through the lycra to the outside of it. Okay. Is that it?

Maybe. I don't know. I just thought that was odd. Yeah. Because here in the US, we're like, no, you wear a bathing suit for hygienic reasons. That's my point. Yeah. That's some point.

Maybe it's because we don't wash our bathing suits quite as often as we wash ourselves, our naked bodies. Maybe so. This is a steamy episode of Stuff You Should Know. Well, we are talking about nakedness, and we also should mention that same sex saunas are found all over the place in Europe. Yeah. Where saunas have traditionally been around for a very long time, they tend to have same

sex, although they'll also have mixed sex as well. Yeah. There's both. Wait. I'm sorry. The saunas that have been around the most are more likely to have mixed sex places where it went away for a while and came back would have more like same sex saunas, right? Right.

I was confused. I'm sorry. Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, he says generally offer nude mixed company bathing. Yeah, mixed company. Like men and women. You got it. Yeah.

And Russian Banyas, did you ever see Eastern Promises? Yes. It's such a good movie. Have there ever been a more uncomfortable fight scene in your life than the naked fight scene? Completely naked. If you haven't seen that movie. If you haven't seen that movie.

Yeah, it's awesome movie. It's for adults. It's rated R or maybe NC 17 even. Possibly triple X. Triple X. The old triple X. But yeah, there's a fight scene where Vigo is completely naked in a bathhouse and fights these guys.

I can't imagine anything worse than being in a fight when I'm completely naked. I would just, that gives me the hives. It does me as well. Thank you about it. Yeah. Let's talk about sweat. Yeah. Let's talk about the science of it, huh?

Yeah. Because that's what it's all about. Yeah. A lot of people who use saunas say that they're very healthy and as Lam gets into that goes back to the idea that sweat is excretion and excreting anything is healthy. But he also points out that it's very easy to make this mistake, this idea of any excretion is good. It's been around for a very long time and don't forget we used to use leeches to suck

our blood. We used to believe that pooping as much as we could was a good idea, which I kind of still cling to that one. Yeah. I do too. Good. I'm a big believer in it. If you're talking sweat, Josh, what happens is nerve endings are triggered by heat and

it releases a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Exactly. And he says there are 2.3 million sweat glands that all of a sudden kick into action. Which are also called eccring glands, which are different from apocryngal glands. I feel like I have more, but it's probably not the case, mine are just overactive. That's possible. Hard working. You do.

I've seen you sweat in a 70 degree Fahrenheit tank, which is chilly. You have to have a wetsuit for that and Chuck is still sweating. Again with the swimming and sweating. So he claims that in a 15 minute sauna, the average person sweats about 4 cups, about a liter of sweat, which is way more for me. In 15 minutes, right? Yeah. I can sweat about a gallon in 15 minutes, I guarantee it.

That's a lot, man. A liter of sweat is a lot of water to lose. It is. You know? But you should see me in a sauna. It's awesome. Right. It's one of the best feelings.

But I'm not exactly sweating out toxins, am I? No. You're sweating out salt, uric acid, not to be confused with Robert Uric, and that's pretty much it. You do excrete toxins, right? Yeah, but not much. No. For the most part, toxins are excreted through your kidneys.

This is your go-to excretion organ. Excretion station. Right. Yes. The doctors have found that in heavy sweat, about 1% of mercury found in the bloodstream is released, where the other 99% that's released goes through the kidneys. It either comes out in the stool or the urine, right? Pea or poo.

Right. And this is, it has no, the concentration of a toxin in the bloodstream appears to have no bearing on how much is released through the sweat. It's almost like our sweat glands are set up to just do 1%. But people who use saunas say, man, 1% of a concentration of mercury, that's definitely worth 15 minutes in the sauna. Absolutely. You know, so they feel, but I think it's not just feeling healthier.

They're saying, look, there's a science behind it as well. Right. Right. Exactly. Another benefit of a good sauna sweat, or a good sweat period, is this really good for your skin. It opens your pores, keeps them nice and pliant, and the, there's a study by the Journal of Dermatology that said, you know, a regular sweat from a sauna has a proactive effect on

your skin. Yeah. And like helps out with eczema and all kinds of dry skin conditions. And also, land points out that we have long associated like bathing rituals with kind of clearing away the, you know, like a spiritual thing, the psychic funk. Yeah. Yeah. Not just bottom funk, but.

Head funk. Yeah. Uh-huh. You know, you feel poorly, and it's taking a shower can attest to that. You just feel better somehow after a shower. And there's nothing worse than the feeling of taking a shower, stepping out, and still feeling bad. Because you know it's going to be another 24 hours before you are going to feel, start

to feel good. Sure. Like, you know, you've screwed up big time. If you take a shower. Yeah. And you still don't feel good afterward. Right. You are, Josh.

A great shower, like a great sweat. Yeah. Or a good steam. A good chvitz, does a body good. We were talking about the Russian Banya, the Saunas there, the bathhouse. They also would beat themselves, I think they probably still do, you would flog your skin with what's called a veneque, and it's a bundle of leafy branches, like oak and maple and birch branches.

Right. And by doing that, they're stimulating circulation. Yeah. Because the skin's like, what's going on? Quit that. Send some blood there. Right. To find out what's going on.

Right. Right. That's what the skin's doing, right? And it also produces a mild euphoric effect, apparently. Yeah, it releases the plant oils, which is also a good thing. And yeah, he said it stimulates the production of opiate endorphins, and it's like a mild narcotic effect. Yeah.

Crazy. Which I love that those three words together, mild narcotic effect, it's almost like cellar door. Right. Mild narcotic effect. That's better than massive narcotic effect. Right, yeah. Then you're in trouble.

The power doesn't work. Chuck also saw us produce a mock fever. Yeah, I thought that was kind of cool. So your internal body temperature can raise as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, right? And the temperature at your skin can increase by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit. That's a lot. That is a serious amount. And by doing that, your body's like, oh, okay, I'm sick.

I need to jack my immune system up. So white blood cell count or white blood cell production is increased. It's good. So lymph nodes, which are another internal way system, a very important one, are flushed. And you start to sweat even further. Yeah, but it doesn't increase your blood pressure. It increases your blood pumping. Circulation.

Circulation, but not your blood pressure. No, but if you do have high blood pressure, we should say saunas are not recommended for you. Well, we should just go ahead and say who all it's not recommended for. Kids and old people. Yeah. It's not recommended. Pregnant ladies.

Yeah. But it is good. Like those people shouldn't get in, but women definitely might want to get in because it apparently alleviates menstrual cramps really well. Right. But if you're pregnant again, you want to stay away from the sauna. But you would have menstrual cramps first if you're pregnant, right? Very, very astute point, Chuck.

Thank you. Lastly, about physiology and saunaging. What you want to do is keep yourself very hydrated because the irony is while you're excreting that 1%, the go-to excreting organs, the kidneys, need water to excrete the other 99%. And if you're sweating all of it out, things get backed up, toxin levels raising your body, and you can do some real damage to yourself. So every time you go into the sauna, you want to take a jug of water with you, with at least

a liter, right? Yeah. Yeah. I would say if you have gout, the sauna is probably a good place to go. You think so? Oh, because uric acid builds up? Yeah. Well, urea is a build-up of uric acid, while urea is uric acid.

So if you have gout, get lead to a sauna. Okay. And there was one other cool thing about the physio... Oh, the reason, one reason they recommend heart patients not get in saunas is because one of the traditions is to jump from the sauna either into a snow bank or into a cool pool water in Finland and shock your body. And the old urban legend that you heard when you were kids about going from the hot tub to the pool and you'll drown because your pores are open.

Right. That's so not true. No. Actually, it's big in Turkey too. There's the Turkish bath, which is like a hot tub and then a cool tub. Right. And you go from one to the other. Is that what a Turkish bath is?

Uh-huh. Did not know that. As far as I know. That's what I've always heard it. I had no idea. Chuck, I think it's high time we talked about the history of the sauna. And saunas are very, very old. Yeah.

Neolithic tribes. That's how he tied culture and humans, like culture springing up around human physiological needs. And bathing, he said, was like the first people that bathed in hot springs led to saunas. They were like, wow, this is fantastic. I really like this. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think in France and Spain, especially a lot of the Neolithic settlements are located very close to hot springs and not by accident either, right? No. But as people were remained nomadic, apparently we started creating collapsible, portable saunas that resemble like sweat lodges in Native America. And then as we began to settle down and become sedentary, they made more permanent structures like dugouts, earthen dugouts. And then eventually the savusanas, which remember date back at least to the 12th century.

Right. Right? A lot further than that. Apparently as Finland settled by modern Finns, the sauna was pretty much brought with them. Yeah. And through the Middle Ages, it was like the common people, it wasn't just for the rich or anything. The common like whole villages would sauna together, sweat it out together, men, women

and children. Yeah. And at the local bath house, they would actually feast inside the sauna. Yes. Which is really gross. It is. Ask me. They would get married.

Uh-huh. And they would get... They would have babies? On. Yes. Prostitution, what are they called? The stews. Yeah.

Was the nickname they had? Yes. Yeah. That's not a stew. You want to eat with crackers. Maybe afterwards. Yeah. Perhaps.

So this association, like we said, with saunas and places where you could find a prostitute and have sex with said prostitute and just kind of that Roman Dionysian orgiastic kind of vibe going on in the saunas was one of the reasons why they were eradicated by Europe because in the early 16th century, Europe got a little tense. Yeah. Protestant Reformation just ruined everything. Yeah. They were kind of like, you can't do that.

You put a hat with a buckle on right now. Yeah. You can't do that either. Or that, or that, or that. Right. Yeah. Right now. Let me teach you what guilt is all about.

Right. And then that lasted for about 500 years. And then finally, in the late 20th century, thanks to the 1960s, people began to loosen up again. And get climbed back into the sauna. Right. And the sauna immediately became associated with sex again, like the gay bathhouses that we were talking about.

Have you ever seen in the band played on? No. But my brother worked on that. I think we talked about that. Uh-huh. And I think you said that your brother worked on it too. I was forgetting. I think Collins plays a bathhouse owner.

And I think it's Richard Gere, who's trying to track patient zero, is trying to convince them to shut down the bathhouse because there's this epidemic that no one's paying attention to that back then they called gay cancer, which is now called HIV or AIDS. They called it gay cancer? They did originally. Crazy. Yeah. And so the bathhouses feature prominently, and saunas feature prominently in the bathhouses.

Phil Collins? Phil Collins. Sususudia was running the bathhouse. I think we talked about what a good job Phil Collins did too. Dude, that was a long time ago. So if that's the case, then people, you know, that's like a two-year-old podcast. So I don't mind repeating things every once in a while. We should do one on things to do with the dead body.

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trip. So Chuck, the saunas make their comeback. Now you can find them at Holiday Inns around the world. Actually, it's not true. I've never seen a sauna at a Holiday Inns since. They had my last really crappy job. They had a gym in the building, which was one cool part because you could go down during lunch and work out and they had a sauna in there and I would work out and then I would

... You could theoretically. I did for a time and I would go sit in the sauna and it's just the best, man. Just sitting there, just like... I see why the intercourse happened because there's something very primal about just sitting there naked and just sweating and sweating and sweating. I never had a desire to eat food or meet anyone special, you know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah.

Is that clear? Yeah, I got it. I got hint, hint. For those of you who can't see, I just winked at Chuck. So Chuck, let's say that you have been inspired to go out to take a sauna from listening to this. There's actually something called sauna etiquette that you need to know about. First of all, if you're in a country and they speak German and you decide to go to

a sauna, there will be a person in there named the sauna meister. The sauna meister is in charge for basically running a very strict 10 minute session where your entire job is to go in there and sit down and shut up, right? Basically follow the sauna meister's lead. You're not allowed to leave once the 10 minutes has started. Definitely. You're not allowed to come in once the 10 minutes has started. Yeah, and definitely never, ever put your hands on that ladle.

No, that's the sauna meister's job. You do not wet the rocks if you have a sauna meister. No. You wet the sauna. And I got the impression, I was looking around, I couldn't find anything that wasn't in German and that I could translate, but I get the impression that the sauna meister is actually a paid professional. Well, I hope so, because if someone's just doing that for kicks, then...

No, you know there's like jerks out there that are like, I'm the sauna meister because I come here all the time. It's like, no, I'm the sauna meister. Yeah, I'm the sauna meister. It just goes on like that for a long time. And then they wrist wrestle. Or what's that? They leg wrestle.

Yeah, they leg wrestle. Yeah, with just towels on. Oh, God. How about those guys that walk around the gym with the towel over their shoulder butt naked? I know. And why are they always like 70? I know. And they pretend like, hey, everybody else is subject to the Protestant Reformation.

I'm free. It's like, put a towel on hippie. I don't even like, I'm this close to being a never-nude myself. Do you have the denim jeans on? Yeah, a shower with denim jeans. No, but I mean, I'm not into that. Put some clothes on. Protestant Reformation.

Jesus. No one can escape it. Yeah. No one escapes the Protestant Reformation. I'm the sauna meister. So lastly, with sauna etiquette, basically the whole thing comes down to putting the ladle on. If you're alone in the sauna, feel free to add some loyally.

Yeah, do whatever you want. If there's somebody in there, it's probably one of those things where you want to be quiet and then just say, hey, do you mind if I put some water on the rocks? It's supposed to be a pretty quiet environment. Don't go in there like some child or head with your cell phone. Right. So when you go in and out, you want to come in and out as fast as possible because that open door changes the temperature very quickly.

Right. And just be considerate. Don't be a jerk. Yeah. I saw, God, that just reminded me, I saw the War of the Roses again the other night for like the 50th time. And remember, Kathleen Turner locks Michael Douglas in the sauna. And then the next shot after he like falls out of the sauna is him drinking Gatorade in

the office the next day. Yeah. He's got like a gallon of Gatorade. That was good. Didn't Danny DeVito direct that? Yeah. This is one of my favorite movies. Yeah.

It has a brilliant mind. Lastly, Chuck, let's talk about the world record for saunas. Oh, yeah. There is a guy named Timo Coconin. He is the world championship, well, the world record holder. Finish, of course. Finish. Yeah.

In August 2009, he sat in a sauna that was heated to 230 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 110 degrees Celsius for three minutes and 46 seconds. You can like warm food at that temperature. You can cook food. Oh, yeah. At that temperature. That, my friends of saunas and again, I think Chuck and I would both endorse you going over to the website, HowStuffWorks.com, typing in saunas and just reading this really well

written article by Robert Lam. I think you'll enjoy it. Yeah. And informative. And since I said HowStuffWorks.com, I'm largely abandoning the handy search bar thing. I think that's run its course. Really? Yeah.

So the new signal for listener mail is HowStuffWorks.com. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, okay. Watch. I'll say it again because I wasn't ready. I was still in handy search bar mode. Oh, okay.

You want to just go over and read saunas at HowStuffWorks.com. Watch this. See? So you're not even saying now it's time for listener mail? I can't control it. I used to be able to control a lot more when I said handy search bar. Yeah. But, oh, look, it just happened.

That's when you were the saunamister. Everything screwed up, Chuck. Chiming all over the place. I need to not say anything else, okay? Let's just read the listener mail. How about that? Josh, I'm going to call this. Take that, Colbert.

Oh, yeah. Colbert? I recently heard this from Scott in Connecticut. Is that what CT is? Yeah. Okay. So you've heard about your rivalry with Stephen Colbert's Kiva team. Congratulations on your success.

I'm a fan of both your podcast and his show. Which is cool. But he says he wasn't going to choose sides until late one night when this happened. I know. This is pretty amazing. It's slightly harrowing. I was up late unwinding from a long day of work in class. I was listening to some vintage SYSK, the Bhutan's Gross National Happiness episode.

After a little while, I noticed a strange smell, a little like overheated electronics. Yeah. Ozone. Yeah, this is a scary smell. I sniffed around my computer and noticed that it seemed to be stronger near the door to the rest of my apartment. Opened it and this visible wave of thick, acrid smoke and gas poured into my room. Wow.

I ran to wake my housemates, opening as many windows as I could to vent out some of the gas. Don't look like a smart guy. It literally tasted like burning. Our eyes and throats were stinging and we called the fire department. They arrived. And our oil furnace had basically imploded, those things are dangerous. Oil burning furnaces?

Yeah. Yes. I don't know where he is in Connecticut. We're going to get a letter from the oil burning furnace board. Okay, remind me to tell you about high fructose corn syrup letter one day. The basement was loaded with carbon monoxide and other compounds you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. It had been leaking up into the rest of the apartment.

If not for your podcast, I would have gone to bed earlier and never noticed that smell. This is why I mentioned Colbert. You may wonder. As it turns out, my roommate, Caitlin, had been watching Colbert upstairs and she fell asleep. She was tripping z's when I woke her up and pulled her to safety. Where was Stephen Colbert in our time of need? He may have a space treadmill named after him and a high-profile primetime TV show, but

he's no substitute for SYSK when it comes to riveting and informative late-night life-saving. Thought I would add another game-winning point for team SYSK. Yeah. Scott in Connecticut. He's also no SYSK when it comes to raising donation loans for the developing world, because we beat the tar out of him on Kiva. Yeah, kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know. Chuck, we indirectly saved these people's lives, you realize.

We've saved quite a few lives at this point, my friend. If only we'd been there for the family at the end of storytelling. Yeah, I want to know if we've killed an- oh, God. It's so awesome. You're so hooked on Todd Solans right now. I love that guy. Todd Solans, if you're listening, I appreciate your work, buddy. Yeah, I do too.

If you are Todd Solans, we want to hear from you. Send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. For more How Stuff Works, check out our blogs on the howstuffworks.com homepage. There's nothing quite like the excitement of knowing a baby is on the way. After all, you have been dreaming of this moment your entire life. With Kate and Lane, we have everything you need to keep your little love cuddly soft all year round, from personalized swaddlers and super soft blankets to newborn knotted

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