“Will be soon enough you won’t be allowed go to the bog anymore.”
“Sure young people don’t want to go to the bog anyway. It’s just ourselves.”
“Theresa May will have plenty of time to go to the bog now.”
“You’d be doing well to get her out I’d say. She’d be full of excuses sure.”
- Sauna talk, Ireland.
Ireland is famous worldwide for its pubs and the free-flowing wit that’s to be heard in and around the high stools up and down the country. But pubs have been closing at a steady rate, with some blaming deaths and taxes, others saying that Irish people just don’t live up to the stereotype of constantly being drunk any more.
So where to go to let your hair down and chill out after work, do a bit of socialising outside of the house and catch up with the goings on of the community, without having to pay through the nose to poison yourself with the cursed drink; somewhere that provides the same levels of chat and banter that could surely only be found in the great Irish pub?
I’ve recently gotten into the joys of the sauna. It’s probably related to the obsession with the Japanese onsen I developed there earlier this year. More than just a hot bath, hot spring culture in Japan is an important part of life, and the benefits extend beyond the physical properties of healing yourself in water containing various revitalising minerals, said to cure certain aches and ailments (most of the purpose-built ones have a steam room or sauna too).
The physical rejuvenation of getting a bit too hot for comfort brings mental benefits in itself, such as reducing stress. As well as being a long-term prescription, the benefits can be felt immediately, as you stroll out of the bathhouse after an hour of active relaxation feeling an inch taller and infinitely looser, with the content mind of a Buddhist monk. These places exude peace.
But there are also the benefits that the onsen as a social hub brings. Men – and women, though they’re generally segregated so I can only comment on how what I see – meet up at or head to hot spring together in the same way that Irish people meet up down the pub (something which the Japanese have an important cultural emphasis on too).
Elderly men meet up to relax and chat, strangers often engage in small or large talk. Kids are generally kept in line by elders but I did see older guy mucking about smashing large blocks of snow on each others’ heads a couple of times.
No pictures of this were allowed, sadly.
I had a funny layover in sauna a few years ago but I never made it to a sauna.
The Finns are the most devout worshippers to the gods of heat in this part of the world, with 1.8 saunas in the country for every citizen. The Irish pub couldn’t boast those sort of numbers, even back in the day.
Although slightly different in setup the sauna has a similar effect to the hot spring – using heat for relaxation and therapy.
The Finns have a saying:
“Behave in the sauna as you would in the church.”
Although a place of relaxation, they see it as something as more, see the deeper significance of where that relaxation comes from.
The heat intensifies your heart rate, which is turn affects your breathing. The longer you stick with it the greater the benefits. Sweating rids the body of toxins, rinse yourself in a cold shower after for added stress relief and improved circulation, amongst other things.
The hotter your body gets, the more cold you can withstand, and you still get the same benefits. And the longer you can stay in the cold the longer you can withstand when you re-enter the sauna.
Having previously thought of the sauna as something that might be of benefit if you could put up with it for five minutes, I’ve started to enjoy sticking it out that bit longer.
It’s almost like a sport, and for something that seems so passive there’s a level of active effort that must be put in in order to be able to get the best results. I’m starting to feel the benefits like I did when I stuck with a bit of the early-days torture of running. There’s a mental gain from sticking with something, as well as the physical.
There was even a World Sauna Championship but it’s been cancelled since a Russian guy died challenging a Finn in 2010.
So be careful. It’s hot after all (often well over 80 degrees Celsius) and it dehydrates you more than you’d think. You do need to build up a tolerance. And make sure to drink enough water.
Having warmed myself up to the idea in Japan, I’ve discovered the joys of the sauna of my local swimming pool back in Mayo that extend beyond just the heat-rinse and repeat.
Basically the sauna is like a small country pub, with a cloud of eucalyptus suffocating the air like a cloud of cigarette smoke might have long before the smoking ban ever came in. In the few weeks that I’ve been using it regularly I’ve gotten to know its regulars, and the patterns of chat and craic and banter that permeate through the thick vapours.
The news is discussed, as is the upcoming Mayo match at the weekend. Local and national gobshites are gently derided, the woman on the swing and Trump are given no mercy. Regulars are missed if they’re absent and welcomed back with open arms and bits of banter upon their return.
There is craic and good humour in there. There’s no barman but someone throwing a bit of water on the fire every now and then serves the function of everyone getting a round of straight whiskeys in as vapours fill the small room and the heat intensifies. Like downing whiskey, some shudder but if they can’t handle it they let themselves out.
And some hardshaws whip out their own little hipflask of eucalyptus with a glint in their eye to really up the ante.
The combination of heat and sweat gives the mental clarity and lucidity and freedom of speech that a couple of pints might otherwise provide down the street.
Oul lads come in for their one or two metaphorical pints and a bit of a chat. Off home at a reasonable hour, content.
‘Tis great for the community. If young people are so worried about their gym and their social media image then they’d do worse than head for the sauna.
There they’d learn the joys of the chats as well.
The high bench of the sauna is the new high stool.
I think I feel a bit more comfortable in there now than sitting at the counter of the pub. I feel like I’m more ready for the talk that comes, although it’s much the same. Maybe I’m one of those people now.
Mam tells me there’s been a sauna crowd at the pool since she was young.
And there was me thinking it was a new fad.
I guess people will gather wherever, drink or no drink, health or no health.
[Bosca Beatha, a mobile sauna at Cork’s Garretstown Beach. Warm air and a warm atmosphere and general good vibes. Perfect for getting you to want to swim in the sea.]
Down in Cork at the weekend I visited Garretstown beach, a beautiful and relatively quiet beach near the Old Head of Kinsale. There I got to enjoy the remarkable bit of entrepreneurship and wellness-promotion that is the Bosca Beatha.
This box of life is a fully functional and comfortable mobile sauna, situated on the edge of the beach. Get in and warm up before running – dily-dallying will hurt you in the long run into the cold waters of the Atlantic. Repeat at your leisure.
This wonderful combination combines the detoxifying goodness of the sauna with the revitalising benefits of sea-swimming, and they complement each other perfectly in terms of enabling greater endurance of, and therefore benefits from, the other.
You stop fearing the sea and start dashing into it to cool off.
Anything that gets people doing that is good for the parish.
And there’s serious craic in there as well.
Tell me this, are you a sauna person?
Why do you do it? And what benefits, if any do you get from it?
Physical?
Mental?
Social?
Spiritual?
Or maybe it’s just something you’ve been doing so long you can’t remember…
Get in touch.
Gav.