‘It lowers inhibition’: how saunas are challenging UK pubs as the place to meet | Health & wellbeing

Delegates to the UK’s first sauna conference will walk out after the final panel discussion, faced with a choice of where to continue the talks: bar or sauna?

The queue for the latter may be longer – one of the reasons Britain’s sauna scene has grown rapidly in the past few years is that fans find them surprisingly similar to pubs.

“The sauna performs a similar function to alcohol in some ways,” said Charlie Duckworth, director of Community Sauna Baths, which runs several saunas in London. “It lowers inhibition. This makes you feel comfortable and chatty and hopefully in a place that is social and friendly. But not in a sexualized or intoxicating way.

Saunas in the UK have until recently been a thing of the past in hotel spas or places where suffocation has another, darker meaning. But after Liz Watson and Katie Bratcher created a Finnish-style pop-up sauna on Brighton beach using a converted horse box, in 2018 a wave of mobile or permanent saunas appeared, mostly on the seaside or by lakes. There are more than 100 in the UK and Ireland, according to the British Sauna Society, with more than 30 of them popping up in the past six months.

Sauna Summit 2024 on May 20 is an attempt by the people who make up this fledgling industry to share knowledge, find ways to improve their operations and figure out how to solve problems, such as the reluctance of some local authorities to give permission to create new saunas.

Panels at the summit will explore ways to scientifically prove the sauna’s obvious benefits and discuss ways to convince councils that beachside saunas can help revitalize coastal communities.

“It’s a bit of a gold rush,” said Emma O’Kelly, author of a forthcoming UK sauna guide and organizer of the summit. “People want to be close to parking lots and restrooms and have access to running water, and there aren’t that many accessible places.”

Speakers travel from the sauna centers of Europe – Finland, Estonia, Norway and Denmark – to give advice on best practice. But a uniquely British sauna culture is emerging, according to local Finn Mika Meskanen, chairman of the British Sauna Society, which hosts the event.

“I often promote this idea outside the UK because I think the British are a bit shy about it – they could be a bit more proud of what’s being cooked or created here,” Meskanen said.

“It’s an interesting combination of honoring the Finnish tradition, the Estonian tradition and other European traditions, but also the open-mindedness to apply that creatively.”

Some of these traditions include reverence for löylythe Finnish word for steam evaporating from a hot stove, leaf-beating enthusiasm – brushing and patting the sauna skin with twigs and leaves – and circulating steam using a towel, a German practice called Aufguss.

Scandinavian and Baltic visitors to places like Hackney Wick are surprised by British innovations, including grief saunas – gatherings inspired by Irish wakes – yoga saunas, life drawing classes and saunas for transgender or men’s circles. They come from the lack of sauna dogma, according to Meskanen, who likens it to the UK’s greater openness to international cuisine compared to countries with a strong food culture, such as Italy.

Markus Hippi, a press officer at the Finnish embassy in the UK, said things had come a long way from the dry, uncomfortable saunas when he first arrived 14 years ago. “There’s more action now,” he said. “In Finland, we like to keep it basic – a nice place to relax and have friendly banter. Whereas in London I think there’s pressure to be very active and get a lot done. Also saunas [here] they are not that hot – 60C is very low for a Finnish sauna. I think it will be more like 75C, 80C. I’ve been in saunas that were 120C.

Finns tend to have saunas at home, he said, so people grow up having them with their parents instead of watching TV, but the past 10 years have seen a rise in new, impressive public saunas where people can meet .

The sauna has the potential to become an important kind of “third place,” a term used by sociologist Ray Oldenburg to describe spaces away from home and work where people can meet and make friends. Traditional third places such as pubs and churches are in decline, but sauna operators are making a conscious effort to build communities by encouraging people to book sessions as part of a group.

“There is a resurgence of the sauna as a community space,” Meskanen said. “Roman baths in ancient Britain had this social function – meeting places, places for convalescence and exercise. I call them friend boxes – people come in, they may not know each other, but they come out as friends.”

One major stumbling block remains: nudity.

“The sauna is a real concern,” O’Kelly said. “The number of people who asked me about it, ‘oh my God, we’re going to have to be naked.’ But it’s not like Finland or Germany. In fact, in some of the saunas I’ve been in, people wear all their clothes.”