In the Scandinavian region having a sauna is a traditional formal procedure practiced in various countries, but primarily in Finland. In addition to relaxing effect it also has health benefits. For instance, your skin is cleansed when sweating and opening the pores, hence bulk of impurities that may have been stuck in the deeper layers of your skin are removed. Moreover it makes your skin softer and the heat can be of assistance to relieve the stress in your muscles. There's nothing to it yet if a sauna is close at hand. However some saunas are much better than others, and certainly different kinds of saunas feel different. Sometimes you may visit quite horrible sauna, with the warnings strictly prohibiting the throwing of water on the heated stones, which is one of the essential parts of the sauna! This sort of saunas is referred by Finns as “Swedish” kind of sauna and likewise denounced by traditionalists – in Sweden saunas have a tendency to be much smaller, and people use less water and even read in the sauna on occasion!

A traditional sauna is typically built of logs, and the inside is wooden from top to bottom. It is habitually located near to a lake, a river, the sea or other body of water. There is a stove filled with cobbles of the fist size that are got warm by fire underneath, and provides the heat as a result.

Modern saunas are disposed to separate the warm area from showering areas, while older ones have a very large area that is the genuine sauna with space for washing inside. The sauna without a chimney where the smoke is only released just before use is known as savusauna, the best kind of traditional sauna. A wood-burning sauna with a chimney, an alternative to a savusauna, feels almost the same but normally heats up the room much quicker. Growing warm in some wood-burning saunas may take right up to eight hours. Nonetheless, such conditions are the best for your skin, even if it will be tens of degrees hotter than an electric sauna the heat feels milder there. In view of the fact that the wood-burning saunas occupy a total construction in general, city-dwellers mostly have a preference for saunas heated with electricity. Electric saunas can heat up in about half an hour, which is their main advantage. Sure, they provide the intensive heat too, however not as much impression. They are really might be considered as a substitution until you will experience a proper sauna.

Instructions and etiquette
It is advised to reserve about an hour and a half for a relaxing sauna, a little shorter and you may feel hurried. Probably you wouldn’t use up this much time, but planning to spend longer is always better than getting out sweltered at the end since you’ve been in for too long which would bring to situation when you loose all the relaxing you’ve just done!
“What do you wear in the sauna?” is one of the most common questions people ask with reference to visiting a sauna. More often than not the answer is nothing, that’s the traditional way to get on with it and it will give you a better understanding as well. Many saunas outside the Finland are, sadly, adjacent to the pool in gyms rather than near the showers in the changing room and so stripping off may be inappropriate! Sometimes you don’t have a choice and must wear a bathing suit in sauna, which is actually very unhygienic, and it is prohibited in nearly all saunas of Finland. As an alternative option you may wrap a towel around your body, which is of course far better. Not being stripped is considered bad form in a single sex sauna.