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

Episode Date: February 2, 2019

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.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi everybody, happy Saturday. Chuck here with the Stuff You Should Know select pick for the week. From July 22nd, 2010, Saunas, Colin. More interesting than you think.

I think this was titled by Josh. If I remember correctly, that's a Josh Clark title all the way, and if I am not mistaken, I did not know how to pronounce it back then. I think I pronounced it sauna all through the episode and got a lot of email that it's actually sauna. So I wanted to write that ship here eight years later, going on nine years later, and do it the right way.

So here we go with Saunas. More interesting than you think, because they are. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as 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. Wow, jeez. Here we go. This podcast brought to you by Jolly Rancher. Nice. 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 drink. What is it? 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 drink. Never heard of it. That's how square I am. I haven't heard of it either, so I don't feel bad. Yeah, okay. 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 drink. Wasn't he the QB for LSU? Yeah. I hate that guy. Well, he's a bust. He's nothing now. Well.

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, and I should point out, we called this Saunas colon more interesting than you think for a reason. Yeah. There's 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. Saunas. 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's the best writer on howstuffworks.com ever.

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. Yeah. 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, if the shades are drawn and you're an adult and there's no one else around that you feel uncomfortable with. Very specifically, Chuck is only talking to people who are, will we 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. Okay. Now, sauna's 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, vapor, water vapor. And for that reason, the average steam room is going to be about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 40 degrees Celsius, right? 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, but it never evaporates because for evaporation to occur, the environment, the ambient air has to be drier than your skin. 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. It's 80 degrees Celsius in your average sauna. And I, do you like saunas in steam rooms? 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 to and they had a sauna. You could get a pool membership to a hotel in Toledo in the 70s.

70s and 80s, yeah. Wow. Yeah. I've 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've 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. 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?

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.

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. It was either 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. It's 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 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. In Finland, saunas are associated with it, and for good reason, right? Did you read the article about the Finnish Navy fighting pirates? Yeah, they have saunas on the pirate fighting boats. Yeah. Not only that, the Finnish army in Kosovo built 20 saunas for their fighters over there, like 800 troops. 800 troops, 20 saunas.

And they have them in prison. Yeah. Finnish prisons. It's 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. People take saunas every day, it's like showering to us. And this is in 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 of about being in sauna is being completely naked, especially if you're Finnish. 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. 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. It's a big party in there. And not just gay either. Well, no, all sorts of stuff, prostitution, saunas were where it was at. All they were missing was a disco ball and Andy Warhol, and it could have been a Studio 54.

Nice. So let's crawl back inside the sauna for a minute. You know all 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, but I always just figured, 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. Sure. Same as 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. I get a little crazy, I think. Yeah, I think so. Chuck, let's talk about the original Finnish sauna. The Sevusana. Yeah, nice. Sevusana. It looks sort of like the unabomber 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 Sevusana, it takes like all day to get it hot enough.

You're burning wood, there's smoke in there. It's black soot on the walls, and this is where you're supposed to go in and sit. It sounds very dangerous to me. It does. It doesn't sound healthy, which is why the Sevusana, 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. A. M. Yeah, but I get the idea that you're supposed to let the smoke clear out as much as possible.

Is that right? Yeah, like once it's... But how? How do you do that? Well, he... 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. Well, he hated me. Yeah. I mean, if it's getting hot enough... Yeah, as a COA, I would say, please do not try and build your own Sevusana because you will likely die of affixiation.

That's what I'm saying. Like, I don't understand how people survive these saunas. I know. 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. Right. You have gas, too. The main feature isn't that it's wood-heated for a Sevusana, 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. And if you want to jack the temperature up a little bit, remember when we talked about a steam room that it's heated by water vapor, you can actually use the same thing for a Sevusana.

You 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 Simohaja, and I'm not even sure I'm saying that right. I'm going to go with lyrli. Lyrli.

Lyrli. Lyrkiridin. But Swedish, I'm sorry. Yes. 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 our old friend, basalt. Yeah, basalt. Basil. Basil. Basil. Why can't we get that one?

I don't know. It won't stick in our head. Like, there's no neural pathway forming when we hear that word. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing.

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And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step, not another one, kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. So anyway, Pareto tight. Yeah. So those, those are the rocks, the unweathered quarry rock that, that you can use to get really, really hot. You can pour water on them and it'll steam and it'll hiss, but it won't blow up in your face.

Right. Uh, again, which is very important. I was surprised to find that the, um, Swedes don't have a name for the pile of rocks that heat the, the sauna. They have a name for the stove, kiosk. They have a name for the steam, which is dirty. 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 put some water on that pile of rocks and make us some lolly. Josh, you can also have what's called an infrared sauna. And that's the latest and greatest. And people say, people that believe in the infrared sauna say that it actually penetrates

like into your bones, which it's good and bad. If you, uh, listen to the butterfly wings podcast, you know, infrared means redder than red on the, on the, um, 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. Yeah. So it heats you up. Yeah. I'm a semi-purist, I think. Yeah. I think I would just like a regular sauna.

Not a cyber sauna. A stove, a kiosk. Exactly. They're kind of like they have at the gym. Yeah. Or at the holiday. And without Toledo. The old naked men.

Well, that is the thing about, um, saunas that you're going to run into, Chuck, is naked men and naked women even, depending on where you are. Why not? Yeah. That's, um, Robert made sure to point out that depending on where you are in the world, the cultures have different traditions, 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 like their bathing suit in there. They're really frowned upon because of hygienic reasons.

Right. You just cover up with a towel. Yeah. But 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, 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. We're saunas have traditionally been around for a very long time.

Yeah. They tend to have same sex, although they'll also have mixed sex as well. Yeah. There's both. Wait. The places where the saunas 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 offered nude mixed company bathing. I, 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 bath house 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 for that. Yeah. Let's talk about sweat.

Yeah. Let's talk about the science of it, huh? Yeah. Okay. Because that's what it's all about. Yeah. But 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, has 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 ekring glands. Ekring glands. Which are different from apocrine 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's 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 you. 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.

A lot of doctors have found that in heavy sweat, about 1% of mercury found in the blood stream 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... I couldn't agree more. 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 it's really good for your skin. It opens your pores, keeps them nice and pliant, and there's a study by the Journal of Dermatology that said a regular sweat from a sauna has a proactive effect on your skin and helps out with eczema and all kinds of dry skin conditions. And also, land points out that we've long associated bathing rituals with kind of clearing

away the... You like a spiritual thing. The psychic funk. Yeah, yeah. Not just bottom funk, but... Head funk. Yeah. And anybody who's felt poorly and has taken 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 start to feel good. Sure. You know you've screwed up big time if you take a shower and you still don't feel good afterward.

Right, you are, Josh. A great shower, like a great sweat, or a good steam. Good schvitz. Good schvitz. Does the body good. And we were talking about the Russian banya, the saunas there, the bath house. 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. Let me know what's going on after you get there. See? And that's what the skin's doing. 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. Then that shower doesn't work. Fuck also, saunas 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 waste 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. 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 will 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, 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 Turkish bath is? Uh-huh.

Did not know that. As far as I know. That's what I've always heard of. 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. Because people 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 savu saunas, which remember date back at least to the 12th century. Right.

Right? That's the unit. So 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 bathhouse, they would actually feast inside the sauna, which is really gross. It is. And they would get married. 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.

That's what I'm saying 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. But Phil Collins plays a bathhouse owner.

And I think it's Richard Gere, who's trying to track patient zero, is trying to convince him 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 featured prominently, and saunas featured prominently in the bathhouses.

Phil Collins? Phil Collins. Sususudia was running the bathhouse. Yeah. 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. Or synesthesia. That'd be a great one. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Which episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s? Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. You ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh, God.

Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step.

Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Live friendships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. No, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, you're everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

You listen to podcasts So Chuck the saunas make their comeback Now you can find them at Holiday Inn's around the world. Actually, it's not true I've never seen a sauna at a Holiday Inn since they had my last really crappy job. They had a A gym in the building, which was one cool part Yeah, because you could go down like during lunch and work out and they had a sauna in there And I would work out and then I would could theoretically I did for a time Okay, and I would go sit in the sauna and it's just the best man

Yeah, just sitting there just like there is something I see why the intercourse happened because there's something very primal About just sitting there naked and just sweating and sweating and sweating But I never had a desire to like eat food or meet anyone special You know what I'm saying, right? Yeah Yeah, I got it. I get hint hint for those of you can't see I just winked at Chuck. Yes So Chuck, let's say that you have been inspired to go out to take a sauna from listening to this Yeah There's that there's actually something called sauna etiquette that you need to know about

Yeah, 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 ten minute session where your entire job is to go in there and sit down and shut up. Yeah, right? Basically follow the sauna meisters lead. You're not allowed to leave once the ten minutes has started Definitely not allowed to come in once the ten minutes and definitely never ever put your hands on that ladle No, that's the sauna meisters job. You do not wet the rocks if you have a sauna meister No, that's that's the song 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 and no, you know, there's like jerks out there They're like I'm the sauna meister come here all the time. Yeah, it's like no one's the sauna meister It just goes on like that for a long time. Yeah, and then they wrist wrestle and Or what's that? They like wrestle. Yeah, they like wrestle. Yeah with that with just towels on. Oh, God How about those guys that walk around the gym? I know with the towel over their shoulder, but naked I know and why are they always like 70? I know and they pretend like hey everybody else is no

They're not 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 Are you that I don't like you have the denim jeans? Yeah, I shower with denim jeans No, but I mean, I mean, I'm not into that put some clothes on Protestant Reformation. No one can escape it Yeah, no one escapes the Protestant Reformation I'm the sauna my stuff. 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 Well, 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 chowder head with your cell phone Right and 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 um That just reminded me I saw the war the roses again the other night for like the 50th time I remember Kathleen Turner locks Michael Douglas in the sauna Mm-hmm, and then the next shot after he like

Stump 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 a good didn't Danny DeVito direct. Oh, man This is one of my favorite as 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 you 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 how stuff works calm 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 how stuff works calm I'm largely abandoning the handy search bar thing. I think that's run its course really. Yeah so the new the new signal for for Listener mail is how stuff works calm. Oh

Really? Yeah, okay watch. I'll say it again. Thanks. I wasn't ready. I was still in handy search bar mode. Oh Okay, you want to just go over and read saunas at how stuff works calm watch this See So you're not gonna say 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 sauna my shirt 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 gonna call this

Take that cold bear. Oh, yeah Colbert I recently heard this from Scott in Connecticut. Is that what CT is? Yeah, okay I recently 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 has he says he wasn't gonna 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 national happiness episode After a little while I noticed a strange smell a little like overheated electronics. Yeah ozone

Yeah, this is scary smell. I sniffed around my computer I noticed that it seemed to be stronger near the door to the rest of my apartment opened it and this visible wave of thick Accord smoke and gas poured into my room. Well, I ran to wake my housemates opening as many windows as I could to vent out Some of the gas I'm like a smart guy It literally tasted like burning our eyes and throats were stinging and we called the fire department. They arrived They found our oil furnace had basically imploded Those things are dangerous What oil burning? Yeah, yes, this thing. I don't know where he is in Connecticut

We're gonna get a letter from the oil burning furnace board. I got remind me to tell you about high fructose corn syrup letter Okay one day the basement was loaded with carbon monoxide and other compounds You wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley and it had been leaking up into the rest of the apartment Not for your podcast. I would have gone to bed earlier never noticed that smell This is why I mentioned Colbert you may wonder as it turns out my roommate Caitlyn 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 informing 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 keep it Yeah, keep it org slash team slash stuff you should know Chuck we indirectly save these people's lives you realize We've saved quite a few lives at this point my friend. If only we've been there for the family at the end of storytelling Yeah, I want to know if we've killed in it. Oh, God So awesome. You're so hooked on

Todd solans right now of that guy Todd solans if you're listening. I Appreciate your work buddy. Yeah, I do too. Yeah 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 stuff podcast at how stuff works calm For more on this and thousands of other topics visit how stuff works calm Want more how stuff works check out our blogs on the how stuff works calm home page On the podcast hey dude the 90s called David lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show Hey, dude bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces

We're gonna use hey dude as our jumping off point But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it Listen to hey, dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, I'm Lance Bass host of the new iHeart podcast frosted tips with Lance Bass Do you ever think to yourself? What advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation if you do? You've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life Tell everybody yeah everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen

So we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye Listen to frosted tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts