The Surprising Benefits Of Saunas And Better English Too Ep 801
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Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Do you go to the gym? Do you enjoy a sauna? That's S-A-U-N-A. I'm thinking about rejoining a gym in the next year and I'd like a gym with a nice swimming pool. But one of the things that I would really enjoy about a gym, and I've not been a member for a while, I

having a sauna. The gym I used to go to had both a sauna and a steam room and a jacuzzi, but it was the sauna that I enjoyed the most. Let's have a look today at saunas, what the health benefits are and at the precautions too. Also, the strange disinhibition that happens in saunas. That's disinhibition, D-I-S-

I-N-H-I-B-I-T-I-O-N.

That's a good word. And it means that strange effect where people lose their inhibitions. They put down their guard and they talk freely to people that they don't know. If you've had a sauna, you probably know what I mean. So let's have a look at that too. Sauna is an essential part of life for many people. Listen on to find out about not only the benefits for your physical body, but also the psychological benefits of sauna.

sauna. And you'll be learning great English as you go, of course. This is going to be an English lesson that you'll really enjoy. That's what Adept English aims to provide. Here we go. Hello, I'm Hilary and you're listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.

So saunas are beloved amongst people in the Scandinavian countries, especially Finland. And these are the countries that we associate saunas and cold water swimming with. The idea of sauna goes back hundreds of years and is part of tradition in these countries.

But sauna is also part of the culture in countries like Russia and Estonia. One statistic for you, sauna is an everyday event for Finns, people in Finland, who have 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million inhabitants. Sauna is pretty important there then. As I said in my introduction, like many people, my experience of sauna is at the gym.

The sauna I experienced was probably electrically heated, powered by electricity, a small heater with rocks on the top. You could splash water onto the rocks to provide greater heat and humidity. This is what seems to make the sauna hotter when you're in it.

The more traditional type of sauna is wood burning and is located outside. Let's cover the precautions around sauna first of all. Just before I do that, if you would like to work on your English conversation, Adept English can help you even more than we do in the podcast.

If you'd like to learn the common vocabulary and the grammar that we use in everyday English conversation, look at our course, Activate Your Listening. This course includes lots of conversations between two people.

And alongside what I always advise, getting a language partner to practice your English with, this course will really help those of you who are getting ready to start speaking English. Your understanding is great. You can understand the podcast,

Now it's time to start having conversations. So if you're ready to start speaking, check out Activate Your Listening. That's on our website, adeptenglish.com. You can download this course and start learning in the next hour. So the precautions of sauna, first of all, and this is from the website Harvard Health. Saunas can get as hot as 185 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh,

or 85 degrees Celsius. That's hot. And this can raise the temperature of your skin to as much as 104 degrees Fahrenheit or 40 degrees Celsius. And it can do it very quickly. You can lose about a pint of sweat. That's S-W-E-A-T. That's over half a litre of water from your body. Even if

in just a short time in a sauna. So it needs caution. Your pulse rate, that's P-U-L-S-E, well that rises by 30% or more, meaning that your heart pumps twice as much blood around your body.

Most of the extra blood flow is directed towards your skin. That's because your body pushes the blood away from the internal organs and towards the skin as a way of cooling down. Blood pressure or your BP, which is usually given as two numbers,

Your blood pressure might be 120 over 70. That's a nice blood pressure. But blood pressure is unpredictable in a sauna. It can go up or down. So that's the first caution. If you have problems with your blood pressure, then sauna is probably not for you. Saunas are safe for most people.

But this is what the Harvard Health website advises. Don't mix alcohol or medications that stop you sweating with sauna. Stay in no more than 15 to 20 minutes. Cool down gradually afterwards.

Drink two to four glasses of water after every sauna. You need to rehydrate. Don't have a sauna if you feel ill. And if you feel at all unwell in the sauna, get out straight away. People with heart conditions, multiple sclerosis or pregnant women shouldn't use a sauna. And if you have asthma, A-S-T-H-M-A, which is triggered by high humidity,

not a good idea to use the sauna. So that's the precautions taken care of. What about the benefits? I know that for me, I feel great after a sauna, especially in the winter. I can struggle to get warm in the winter, but after a sauna, I feel as though I've been thoroughly warmed through and my circulation, that's

C-I-R-C-U-L-A-T-I-O-N. And I'm talking here about the system that moves blood around your body. Well, after a sauna, it feels like my circulation is working properly for once. Like many women of my age, poor

circulation is just something we have. Dead fingers and toes are a thing. No blood in them sometimes. So sauna feels good. I also think I sleep better after a sauna. And just checking out the research on both of those things. Yes,

Both effects are scientifically proven. People feel more relaxed after a sauna and some research in 2020 showed that having the sauna regulates the hormones, H-O-R-M-O-N-E-S, that are associated with the body's stress response.

So you're more relaxed after a sauna, better sleep. In a small survey of people who had a sauna once or twice a week, 83% said they slept better after a sauna. And having regular saunas does also improve your blood circulation. Your blood vessels dilate, D-I-L-A-T-E, or

widen and your blood pumps faster around your body. With repeats with frequent soreness, this temporary improvement in circulation leads to generally better circulation, no more dead fingers or toes. If you have any muscle pains or conditions like fibromyalgia or arthritis,

sauna can help. Sometimes just warming a muscle can help with the pain. And regular sauna improves the health of your heart. A 20-year study of middle-aged men who used the sauna regularly showed that it improved their overall heart health.

And it showed that the more saunas the men had, the less likely they were to die of problems relating to the heart. And in fact, the less likely they were to die of what's called all-cause mortality. That means dying of any other condition was less likely too. That's amazing. There were half as many deaths from heart attacks in the group who had four to seven saunas per week compared with the group who just had one.

So it appears the more saunas, the better. That statistic alone makes you want to go and have a sauna straight away, doesn't it?

Another study following men and women who had soreness over 15 years also had similar results. I've mentioned the word humidity, H-U-M-I-D-I-T-Y. That means the amount of water in the air. And the humidity in a sauna widens the airways and relaxes the lungs. That's L-U-N-G-S. So

Those are the organs that you breathe with. Again, some great health benefits. Another 20-year study of middle-aged men. What is it with these middle-aged men? Anyway, a 20-year study found that sauna reduced the risk of lung conditions like COPD, asthma and pneumonia.

Again, what a wonderful benefit. Sauna is believed to boost the immune system, that's I-M-M-U-N-E, and reduce inflammation in the body. Another study, this time 11-year study, showed that four to seven saunas a week, in middle-aged men of course, reduced problems with inflammation. But these physical health benefits are not all that's going on in the sauna.

I mentioned earlier this idea of disinhibition. Disinhibition, that's a hard word for me to say. It also happens online where sometimes people are much freer with their personal information than they would be if they were face to face in person with people they didn't know or didn't know well.

Somehow this also happens in the sauna. Inhibitions seem to be removed and people talk about all sorts of things with others that they don't know. It makes me think of the idea of Roman baths, which were obviously popular,

and a big part of Roman life. I'm thinking of the Roman baths, which we saw in Herculaneum last summer. It was a social thing too. And an article in Stylist magazine, which was published last week, written by Sophia Haddad, had the title, and this is your practice in more difficult English, from breakup debriefs to the vagaries of new parenthood. Everyone over shares at my sauna.

And that habit may be extending our lives. By breakup debriefs, Safiya Haddad is talking about the breakup of a relationship and how people often process this by talking about it to other people. A debrief, D-E-B-R-I-E-F,

is a military term, so slightly humorous when used in this context. Its original military meaning was when someone was asked lots of questions about a mission they'd just completed. That's a debrief. But now this word debrief is used to refer to how talking about a difficult experience can help us get over it. Anyway, disinhibition in the sauna.

It's a nice place to talk. So people may go together, may go with others that they already know and be chatting, talking in the sauna in close proximity to other people who join in. You're sitting right next to one another in a tiny space, wearing your swimming gear at most.

Perhaps it's hard to ignore someone else's conversation in that situation. And then there's the relaxing effect of the sauna. It relaxes people's boundaries and their conversation too. It's as though those normal social rules are dropped. Perhaps the people you see in the sauna, you'll never see them again. So it doesn't matter. They catch you in a moment of openness and this prompts philosophising about relationships,

the state of the world, life in general. And there's something really positive about that. Sophia Haddad writes about how important that time of week is for people. Well,

when they have their sauna. She herself has really learned to value it and looks forward to her weekly sauna and the conversation that goes with it, especially so as hers is a London-based sauna. So what happens in the sauna is a real contrast with the way that Londoners usually interact.

Let us know your thoughts and experiences. Do you enjoy a sauna? Is it a tradition in your country? And have you experienced this disinhibition effect? Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.