The Current - Are saunas really good for your health?

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

A sauna feels nice on a cold winter’s day — but what do we know for sure about the benefits? Matt Galloway talks to filmmaker Anna Hints about sauna culture and asks Dr. Peter Attia what sweating it out does for our health and longevity.

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Large parts of this country are getting walloped with snowstorms. I spent some quality time this morning on my way into work, digging myself out before I could actually get here into the studio. You know what feels great at this time of the year? Being in a sauna. Our relationship with saunas appears to be getting steamier.

TikTok and Instagram are full of sauna champions who believe that sitting in a sweltering room is the secret to living longer and living better. And so this morning we are going to hear about both and we'll start by going for a sauna and to do that you need some wood for the fire. Valtteri Rantala is chopping wood for his business, the Finnish sauna. Started in 2019 as a mobile sauna on a trailer. Valtteri tows it from the beaches to yards

and even through back alleys across Vancouver. He has since expanded this project, but the core of sharing Finnish sauna culture has stayed the same. The heat has a slightly, not even slightly, but it has a humbling softening and present awakening characters to it. So it cultivates a space where you want to share and listen and be in whatever comes up. So I love Sana for storytelling, for listening stories, for singing, or just being in silence and listening the fire crackle and then see

what comes up. In Finnish we call it lølø, it's very similar in Estonian and we call it the lølø is a good way to put your intentions, ask for the spirits of Lølø for kind of like healing, soothing or whatever you want to let go. So it is kind of a good way to set intentions and make it into a spiritual health or whatever for yourself. The memories are coming back now because I go back home and I have eight nieces and nephews there which are from two months to 11 years so you can see the whole, all the chapters and the different steps in the Sun alive when they first start in a little top in the floor When they become a bit more like four or five you start like going with the bottom bench

Five six you go in the you try the top bench And I think my memory is would be yeah somewhere around four or five with with mom and dad and just like just you know going for it and being like overwhelmed and then rolling in the snow for it and being like overwhelmed and then rolling in the snow banks after and we would make a hole in the lake with the ice, which would be like three feet thick and then have little stairs to go down the ice and have cold dips.

Some of the best saunas that you go in Finland and Northern Europe can be 100, 150 years old. When you go into a 100 year old sauna, you know how much life it has seen, how many sweats, how many stories. So there is a depth to the space that is different than a brand new, shinier sauna. So I would say sauna is like wine. It will just get better over time as long as you properly maintain it. Sounds cozy. Now, Finland should not get all the credit here. Estonia also

has a vibrant sauna culture. Anna Hintz is an Estonian filmmaker. Her documentary Smoke Sauna Sisterhood lets us into the intimate conversations of women over several years in a smoke sauna. This film was Estonia's nominee for last year's Academy Awards. I spoke with her last year. Here's that conversation. I have a friend, a colleague who is Estonian and she says there's a sign near her sauna that says, a sauna is a poor man's doctor. What does the sauna broadly mean to Estonian culture? What's its place in Estonian culture? It is a sacred place, especially smoke sauna. So, smoke sauna is like

old type of sauna that has no chimney and it dates back to pre-Christian times. When people go to church, we go to smoke sauna and we take off our clothes, not just physical clothes, but also emotional clothes, and we enter there into kind of cosmic womb where you can share absolutely everything. And it is, I can say, the best doctor, like best mental and physical doctor, and something that is so deeply in our culture or like people need that. Like you need, you get the sauna need. When you haven't been to sauna or you haven't been to smoke sauna, you get this kind of itching in your body. At least I get. Can you explain how that works? You said there's no chimney.

Yes. So the smoke just comes back into the room or what happens? So there is no chimney. It means that just comes back into the room or what happens? Uh, so there is no chimney. It means that you have to hit it beforehand. You have to take time, uh, six to eight hours, depending on the temperature of what is outside. And then you hit it and then you let it stay for some time. And then you let the smoke out and then you enter.

So, and you cannot be inside smoke sauna and put fire or hear the fire because then smoke would come and you would die basically. So it works it works differently and really you have to take time to be in smoke sauna. You cannot do it in rush and because there is no chimney, the walls are dark and it's this kind of tardy smell and really it has no electricity and you enter into this darkness that has only one or two, maximum two small windows and natural light or candlelight and you feel like you're inside kind of timeless space. And it's really, it's also a place where you can meet your ancestors. Like we have special time in late autumn when we believe our ancestors, our spirits come to see us and then we make special smoke sauna

for them. And there's this, yeah, this smell and this different type of laity, different type of this heat that comes from smoke sauna. And it stays long time warm, and women used to give birth in smoke saunas, also wash the dead, and heal for centuries. So it's significantly special for women. Pete Slauson All the way through life, as you said, from birth to death. Vida Svoboda Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, you give birth there and then later your body is being washed there with cold water before funeral.

Pete Slauson What is that heat? You said it's a different kind of heat. What does that heat feel like when you're in that space? It feels, it really goes deep into your body and cells. And it is this kind of heat where, that at the same time, it's not like you're not feeling exhausted. Because sometimes saunas can be very sharp. It's not sharp. It's like it gets to your bones, but at the same time it is like embrace, you know, it's and how it is, how it functions is that with the heat you start to sweat and then with time deeper, deeper layers of physical dirt start to come up to the surface, but also emotional dirt starts to come up to the surface. And then you let it out. And I've never experienced this kind of listening to each other,

like smoke sauna. Like every story, every experience has the birthright there. And you just hear each other out. It's this kind of safety, you feel very safe there, and very like, protected and embraced. And what is nice is that that warmth comes with you also outside to this world. That is, you know, as we know, a lot of challenges and not nice things also in the world, but then you have that heat that stays with you. When were you first introduced to this? When did you, I mean, as I said, it goes right through life, but what's your earliest memory of that?

Yeah, you start to go to smoke sauna already when you're in the mother's womb, but a very significant moment for the remembrance is when I was 11 and my grandfather had just died and his body was in the house. And we went to smoke sauna before funeral. One day before funeral, it was my granny, my aunt, my niece. And there granny revealed that grandfather had actually cheated on her, not just once, once but several times and she released like all the emotions connected with that. And there was, I remember frustration and anger, but also a lot of shame and you know, like how difficult it was Soviet time and four kids and she released all that. Also like, oh, you know, like really vocally releasing

all the emotions. And one smoke session lasts several hours. So you're there, you know, like really vocally releasing all the emotions. And one smoke sauna session lasts several hours. So you're there, you go out, you come back, you're there. And once we put clothes on and we fully went out, I felt that granny had made peace with grandfather so that next day we could bury grandfather in peace. And this was the time when like next layer or next door of smoke sauna opened to me and they realized that okay on this earth there is a safe space where absolutely all your emotions all your experiences can be shared can be heard and when we give voice to our story and when we give space to other stories there is like huge huge healing power in that.

So and also now I think it is is the time when I was initiated to the sisterhood, to these kind of sharings. So I was 11 at that time. This is the thing that you see through it. Your film is beautiful. And that's the kind of emotion and the scenes that we see throughout the film, where there are women who are talking about cancer and miscarriage and sexuality and violence, and these are hard things to talk about, but they're also laughing and there's moments of joy. And I mean, it sounds obvious, but you're in the sauna

and you don't have your clothes on, you're naked, but you're not just naked physically, if you know what I mean. There's something else that is brought up, as you said, in that space. What do you think is going on that those conversations are different than outside of that space? There is the permission for everyone to be totally vulnerable. And there is this kind of, I mean, many things.

First of all, there is the darkness, there is the heat, but there is also the centuries long tradition that gives you that permission. And, you know, I've thought about that when I started to make the film that I made seven years, I thought that the most important is the courage to share the uncomfortable. And by uncomfortable, I mean all these experiences that we are usually hiding outside in the

world or we're ashamed to talk about. But there you have that permission. But then when I made the film, I realized that maybe the most important is the courage to hear the uncomfortable. We are looking for connection, but we are often thinking that there should be like an easy way, or like, okay, can we connect without being vulnerable? And I'm like, no, there is no other way. It is through that vulnerability. And you learn to be okay with that. You learn to be okay with the uncomfortable.

You learn how to be okay with the uncomfortable, you learn how to be okay with that vulnerable, and you, after that, you start to feel more and more alive. And my granny said that, you know, when we have traumas, then they are like frozen water inside us. But, and sometimes we can find ourselves in deep dark winter, just ice fields, but it's so important to remember that that ice has the power to flow again. We just need warmth and safety, and then we can melt our traumas. So with that thought, I say a lot of love to everyone. Your granny was right. Thank you. Thank you, Ana.

Thank you. Ana Hintz is an Estonian filmmaker. Her documentary is called Smoke Sauna Sisterhood. I'm Dina Temple-Reston, the host of the Click Here podcast from Recorded Future News. Twice a week, we tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. And these days, our digital world is being overrun by hackers. I was just targeted by a nation state. And they range from reflective... It's a crime, bro.

And I live with that every day....to ruthless. Do you feel guilty about it? It turns out that saunas aren't just culturally important. Researchers are finding evidence that they can actually both help your heart and your mind as well. Dr. Peter Atiyah is a Toronto-born medical doctor, specializes in lengthening lifespan. His best-selling book is called Outlive, the Science and Art of Longevity. Here's my conversation with him. Dr. Atiyah, good morning. Yeah, thank you.

Are you a sauna person? Yes, I am, yes, pretty much so. Tell me about that, because that changed, right? You used to, I remember reading somewhere that you I am, yes, pretty much so. Tell me about that because that changed, right? You used to, I remember reading somewhere that you used to believe that they felt great, but that was kind of it. What did you learn that led you to become, as I say, a sauna person? Maybe about 10 years ago, my view, and looking at literature was now, there were a lot of

what were called healthy user biases. So people of higher socioeconomic status, people who were healthier tended to use SANA. But I repeated the analysis, or I should be more clear, I had my team repeat the analysis in 2020, late 2019, and actually came to a different conclusion based on the strength of the data that in fact there probably was causality there. And if that's the case, then it would imply that using sauna, at least within the parameters that the research suggested, might actually reduce the risk of chronic disease. Tell me more about that and what you learned and what we know about the actual, the health

benefits of using a sauna from medical literature, from research that's been done? Well I think, you know, it's always easiest to stop with the findings and then what's a little harder to parse out sometimes is the why. But the findings would suggest an unambiguous association between sauna use at about the following frequency. So in, you know, in individuals using sauna at least four times a week, at least 20 minutes per session at at least 179 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. And I apologize that my Canadian-ness has... I've forgotten what that is in Celsius, but I'm guessing it's about 80 degrees Celsius,

maybe plus or minus. But so, we're obviously talking about a very hot sauna here, at least 20 minutes, at least four times a week. And if an individual does that, the association is clear that there is on the order of a 30% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease and on the order of a 60% reduction in Alzheimer's disease. So then the next order of question is, well, okay, what would be the mechanism for that

if we were to believe that there's causality there? And I think here it gets a little harder to work out, but I would actually attribute three benefits, two of which are kind of technical, but one of which I think is interesting and not necessarily as technical. So on the technical level, I think we're seeing an improvement in cardiovascular function. So there's this concept called hormesis or stress where little bits of stress are very beneficial when we respond to them and recover from them. So the obvious example of this is exercise, right?

Everything you do while you're exercising is actually stressful to the body, right? Your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up. None of those things would be good for long periods of time, but it's when your body responds and recovers from those things that good things happen. Similarly, when you're in a sauna, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, your body's working very hard to rid itself of the extra heat, and that hormetic stress, because it's just given in small doses doses produces a positive effect during the recovery. The other thing that seems unique to sauna is something called heat shock proteins,

which as their name suggests are proteins that are produced when the body's under a lot of heat. Those heat shock proteins you can think of as little sort of, I don't know, garbage disposal, cleaning crews that walk around the body, cleaning up cellular debris, cells that are potentially, you know, on the down that are maybe gonna become cancerous or things of that nature. But I actually wanna emphasize a third benefit to sauna that I wouldn't have fully appreciated until I started becoming a regular user,

which is sort of the pro-social effects of sauna, right? So it's really a wonderful time to be completely detached from your electronics, a TV, your phone, the stresses of life, and you're often doing it with people you enjoy being with. So, for me, that means my wife. My wife and I are always in the sauna together, and it's a great time for us to talk. And we just tend to do it in the evening. So it's kind of part of the wind down ritual to produce a far better night of sleep. And I don't think you can discount

the health benefits of that. You mentioned earlier that there was the possibility of minimizing risk of Alzheimer's. What more do we know about that? Well, again, at this point, it is just a very, very strong association. But again, I don't think it's an accident that the two chronic diseases that seem to have

an improvement of risk are cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, because those two diseases, more than any two chronic diseases, tend to travel together. And the old adage that what's good for the heart is good for the brain is almost universally true. And so I think what's happening is that the same factors that are improving circulation, reducing inflammation, utilizing these heat shock proteins as we talked about,

they're having all of these favorable effects on the heart. And I think we're also seeing them have the same effects on the brain. And of course, Alzheimer's disease is a pretty complex disease. There's many paths to get there. There are some that seem a little bit more genetically predetermined. There are some that seem a little more tied to the same types of risks of cardiovascular disease. And it might be that we're seeing just a subset of that disease respond

favorably here. It's interesting in talking to you about this at a time when we're seeing stats that show that life expectancy in countries like Canada and the United States is trending downward in recent years. What do you make of that? Why is that happening? Well, I can't speak to Canada because I don't, I'm not as familiar with the stats, but I can speak to the United States and it wouldn't surprise me if they're very similar. In the United States, you're absolutely correct, the past four years have seen a reduction in lifespan. There's two things going on there,

one which is transient. So, you have to sort of strip out the COVID deaths from that because that was obviously seen across the globe. But even when you strip out deaths from COVID, the US is still on a decline of life expectancy. And it's actually being driven by what we would call deaths of despair. So these are deaths attributed to alcohol use, accidental overdose, and suicides. And in particular, it's the former two that are driving it the most. So alcohol-related deaths and accidental overdoses more than suicide or deliberate self-death. And so again, we can speak to what that's about and what might be at the root of that is that a crisis of meaning, despair, other factors, isolation.

I think there's probably a lot of things that factor into that, but it is worth noting that that trend began before COVID. So something was going on even pre-COVID and potentially COVID exacerbated that, certainly in terms of isolation it did. Pete Slauson In the face of that, your book, Outlive, has become a sensation. What do you think people are looking for? Adam Snell That's a great question. I suspect that one of the reasons the book has been as successful as it's been, which has actually been a very big surprise, but I think it's actually been an equal emphasis on health

span to lifespan. So I think people might look at the title of the book and say, well, this is a book about living longer. Okay, that's interesting, but who cares? But really, I think the book is more about living better. And if you really focus on how to live better, so how to be more physically robust, how to be able to play with your grandkids later in life, how to be able to stay cognitively sharp and perhaps most importantly, how to be emotionally healthy, then you're going to live a better life full stop. And by the way, as a bonus, you're probably going to live five or seven years longer along

the way. But I think it's this focus on health span where you get some of the lifespan benefits for free that might be what's resonating with people. Because I don't think anybody out there in a sane state of mind would say, yeah, I'd like to live longer and prolong suffering, right? Nobody's really interested in lifespan without health span. What is a better way to think about who we want to be and what we want to be as the new year starts? I think one of the things to do is not tether it to the new year per se.

I find it very difficult when I'm working with my patients to make or to help them or guide them into making sustainable behavioral changes. The good news is that behavioral changes, whether it be exercise probably more than anything else, but certainly nutrition, sleep, et cetera, these things have a much greater impact on both the length and quality of your life than people realize. They're far more potent tools than the suite of pharmacopeia that we learn about in medical school. That's the good news.

The bad news is they're actually harder to comply with. It's hard enough for most people to just take their pill for blood pressure. There's about 60% compliance in something as simple as that. When it comes to these behavior changes, it's obviously much less. But to me, the first step begins with a very clear understanding of your goals.

And I think they can't be abstract. It can't be, yeah, I want to be healthy or I want to live longer. It has to be, no, picture exactly what you want to be doing in that last decade of your life, something I write about and call the marginal decade. And if, if you can picture what you want to happen in the marginal decade, who do you want to be with? What do you want to be doing? And I mean that very specifically, right? Like, do you want to be able to sit on the floor with

children? Do you want to be able to stand up on your own? Do you want to be able to walk up a flight of stairs carrying a bag of groceries? If you can go through that exercise very tangibly, then all of a sudden the exercise you have to do 40 years sooner becomes far less abstract because it's in service of a very specific goal. I'm really glad to talk to you about this. Dr. Atia, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Dr. Peter Atia's bestselling book is Outlive!

The Science and Art of Longevity. We spoke last year. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.