Something special is happening in the world of sauna research.

In this episode of Sauna Talk, Glenn Auerbach takes us to The Well in Norway, where the Sauna Research Foundation has brought together 15 researchers from nine countries to advance the science of sauna bathing.

For years, researchers studying sauna and its potential health benefits have often worked independently, across different countries and scientific disciplines. Now, they're coming together to share ideas, challenge assumptions, establish common research standards, and build a foundation for future collaboration.

With his handheld recorder, Glenn captures spontaneous conversations in the hallways of this international gathering. We hear directly from researchers studying cardiovascular health, cardiac rehabilitation, mental health, stress, sleep, and the physiological mechanisms behind sauna's potential benefits.

Among the voices featured are Earric Lee of the Montreal Heart Institute, Sam Oliver of Bangor University in Wales, Norwegian researchers Rune Jonasen and Eva Hillan, and Sauna Research Foundation board members John Sabes and Hans Hägglund.

The conversations range from clinical research protocols and long-term health studies to wood-fired saunas, Norway's floating sauna culture, and the importance of simply enjoying the sauna experience.

And perhaps one of the most memorable insights comes from Rune Jonasen, who suggests that sometimes the best part of sauna isn't the heat itself. It's waking up in the morning knowing that today is a sauna day.

What makes this gathering remarkable isn't just the science. It's the openness, trust, and collaborative spirit among researchers who share a common interest in understanding sauna and its place in our lives.

This episode captures an important moment in the evolution of sauna research, told through the voices of those helping move it forward.

Learn more and connect:

SaunaTimes: https://www.saunatimes.com

Explore sauna culture, sauna building, and the stories behind the heat.

Discover Sauna Life: From Heat Up to Cool Down, a coffee table book celebrating sauna through photography, stories, and personal experiences from around the world.

Until next time, I'll see you on the bench.

#SaunaTalk #SaunaResearch #SaunaHealth #SaunaTimes #SaunaCulture

What happens when we stop performing and start remembering who we actually are?

In this live conversation from Sauna Days 2026, Glenn Auerbach sits down with longtime friend Harvey Martin for a wide-ranging Sauna Talk about performance, identity, intuition, nervous-system regulation, and the role sauna can play in bringing us back to ourselves.

Harvey has spent years inside the world of high performance. After playing professional baseball, he worked in player development and spent four seasons doing human performance coaching with the San Francisco Giants. Today, he works privately with elite athletes, musicians, and other high-level performers navigating pressure, identity, and life beyond the performance itself.

But Harvey came to Sauna Days with one word on his mind:

Remembrance.

Remembering who we are underneath the noise. Underneath the information. Underneath the algorithms, expectations, status, and constant pressure to perform.

Glenn and Harvey explore what happens when a profession becomes an identity, why facts alone rarely change human behavior, the difference between performance and presence, and why intuition becomes increasingly important in a world built around information and algorithms.

And, naturally, they bring it back to sauna.

Harvey shares the story of his wood-fired horse trailer sauna in Arizona—with an office in the front and hot room in the back—and why building a fire, tending it throughout the day, and making your own heat forces you to slow down.

As Harvey puts it, there's something different about heat you make yourself.

In this episode:

• Harvey's journey from professional baseball to the San Francisco Giants
• Working with elite athletes and musicians under extreme pressure
• Separating performance from identity
• Why emotional experience changes behavior more than information
• Intuition, presence, and nervous-system regulation
• What algorithms may be doing to our awareness
• Sauna as a practice of remembrance
• Why wood-fired sauna naturally slows us down
• Harvey's Arizona horse trailer sauna and writing space
• The value of making your own heat
• Why sometimes "it takes all day to live"

Recorded live at Sauna Days 2026.

Learn more about authentic sauna culture, sauna building, Sauna Days, and the Sauna Talk podcast at SaunaTimes.com.

This episode of Sauna Talk is supported by Kuuma Sauna Stoves, built by Lampa Manufacturing in Tower, Minnesota.

Until next time, we'll see you on the bench.

What does it mean to be "3 Percent Finn" yet feel deeply connected to Finnish sauna culture?

For Sauna Talk Episode 137, Glenn sits down with Michael Nordskog, author of The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition, recorded live at Sauna Days 2026.

Michael grew up in the heart of North American sauna country, and his work has helped document a sauna tradition that runs deep through northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the greater Lake Superior region.

In this conversation, Michael and Glenn get into Finnish ancestry, Northwoods sauna culture, the traditions that took root around Lake Superior, and the way sauna gets passed down through families and communities.

It's also a conversation about place, identity, and why authentic sauna has endured in this part of the world long before the current wave of sauna popularity.

For those of us who believe sauna is more than a hot room, Michael's perspective is an important reminder: the buildings matter, the löyly matters, but so do the stories and the people who keep the tradition alive.

Recorded live at Sauna Days 2026.

This episode of Sauna Talk is brought to you by Homecraft, makers of quality sauna heaters and sauna equipment. Homecraft has been building sauna products for generations and continues to support the culture of good sauna across North America.

Learn more about Homecraft at homecraftsaunas.com.

In Episode 135 of Sauna Talk, Glenn Auerbach welcomes psychotherapist Sierra Blake for a live conversation recorded at Sauna Days 2026 on the shores of Lake Superior.

Sierra brings a graduate background in mental health psychology from the University of Minnesota, along with clinical experience working in trauma and addiction medicine. Her work explores the relationship between mind and body, including the potential psychological effects of sauna and cold-water immersion.

This conversation moves beyond the usual discussion of what heat does to the body and asks a bigger question: What can shared sauna experiences do for our relationships, our communities, and our sense of belonging?

Sierra explains how heat and cold create manageable stress, followed by a calming nervous-system response that may support openness, awareness, and connection. She also shares emerging research suggesting that the benefits of communal sauna may come not only from the heat itself, but from ritual, emotional synchrony, shared challenge, and the feeling of belonging to something larger than ourselves.

Glenn, Sierra, and the Sauna Days audience explore:

• The connection between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
• Sauna, cold water, and the mind-body relationship
• Why shared challenge can bring people closer together
• The difference between routine and ritual
• Sauna as a generator of "loose ties" and everyday community connection
• The role of mindfulness, meaning, and intention in sauna practice
• Sauna as a third space outside of home and work
• The potential for sauna to become part of a healthier social infrastructure
• Why there may be no single "best" way to sauna

Across cultures, sauna and bathing traditions have long served as places for healing, reflection, storytelling, and community. This episode offers a thoughtful look at why sauna's deepest value may lie not only in what happens inside the body, but in what happens between people.

Recorded live at Sauna Days in May 2026.

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USA Sauna Celebration: Reflections on Good Heat, American Ingenuity, and the Spirit of Freedom

For this special July 4 edition of Sauna Talk, Glenn reflects from island cabin country near the Superior National Forest in northeast Minnesota, looking out across open water and thinking about sauna in America: where it came from, what it means today, and the people helping carry the flame forward.

As the United States celebrates 250 years since its founding, this episode gathers excerpts from several of Glenn's favorite Sauna Talk conversations with American sauna personalities and sauna-adjacent voices. Together, they form a tribute to the deep and growing sauna culture in the United States — a culture shaped by Finnish immigrants, small-town manufacturers, researchers, builders, bathers, and longtime sauna nuts who understand that good heat knows no borders.

We begin with Bruce Oreck from Episode 72, former United States Ambassador to Finland, who shares how Finland corrected his American misunderstanding of sauna and introduced him to the deeper rhythm of good heat. From smoke saunas to the Finnish Sauna Society, Bruce reminds us that America could use not just more hot rooms, but more sauna culture: rounds, cool downs, conversation, patience, humility, and time together on the bench.

Next, we hear from three American sauna stove makers as featured in Sauna Talk Episode 120. Their conversation brings us to the heart of the sauna: the stove. These are small-town American manufacturers building durable heat sources close to home, with family history, shop-floor knowledge, local jobs, and real accountability behind every stove. In a world where so much is distant and disposable, their work speaks to craftsmanship, simplicity, and American ingenuity.

From there, the episode moves into sauna science with Dr. Ashley Mason, associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Ashley studies whole body hyperthermia, sleep, depression, body temperature, and the effects of heat on the body and mind. While she is careful to distinguish traditional sauna from the controlled heating practices used in her lab, her research helps explain something many sauna bathers already feel: heat changes us. It brings us out of the narrow band of climate-controlled modern life and back into a more dynamic relationship with the body. This conversation with Dr. Mason can be heard in entirety in Sauna Talk Episode 102.

Finally, from Episode 123, Glenn turns to Mikkel Aaland, author of Sweat and one of the great connectors in global sweat bathing culture. Mikkel offers a wider lens on what makes bathing traditions endure across generations. It is not enough to have the best sauna on the block. The deeper goal is to get the block into the sauna. For sauna culture to last, it needs the physical, the social, and the spiritual. It needs safety, community, respect, generosity, and shared experience.

Taken together, these excerpts celebrate the American sauna movement at a special moment in time. Sauna can live in a backyard, a research lab, a bathhouse, a welding shop, a mobile trailer, a tent, a cabin, or a community gathering place. But wherever it lives, the best sauna experiences point us toward something simple and deeply human: warmth, freedom, equality, connection, and the joy of sitting together in good heat.

Happy July 4, happy Independence Day, and welcome to Sauna Talk.

Recorded live before a full audience at Sauna Days 2025, this special episode of Sauna Talk brings together four authors, educators, and lifelong students of human experience for a conversation that moves well beyond sauna itself.

Joining me are Garrett Conover, author of Sauna Magic; Jesse Coomer, author and educator in breathwork and cold exposure; Harvey Martin, author of Breathe, Focus, Excel and Without Words; and myself, Glenn Auerbach, author of Sauna Build from Start to Finish. Together, we explore the experiences, obsessions, and questions that led each of us to write books and dedicate years of our lives to sharing what we've learned.

Our discussion ranges from sauna culture, cold plunging, breathwork, athletics, coaching, and creativity to broader questions about wellness, personal growth, and what it means to live an examined life. We talk about the tension between science and intuition, the limits of protocols and optimization, and why authentic experiences often teach us more than information alone. Along the way, we reflect on how writing changes the writer, how teaching changes the teacher, and how books become snapshots of who we were at a particular moment in our own journeys.

The conversation is candid, thoughtful, and at times deeply personal. Rather than presenting ourselves as experts with all the answers, we share stories of uncertainty, evolution, mistakes, and discovery. Whether discussing sauna, breath, cold exposure, nervous system regulation, or the search for meaning and connection in modern life, a common theme emerges: the most valuable lessons often come not from information, but from direct experience.

If you've ever wondered why practices like sauna, breathwork, cold immersion, and time in nature can have such a profound impact on how we feel, think, and connect with ourselves and others, you'll find plenty to reflect on in this conversation.

Recorded in the Great Lake Room at Sauna Days 2025, this is a live authors panel about writing, learning, teaching, and the lifelong pursuit of awareness, presence, and authentic human connection.

What happens when the exploding UK sauna movement meets the rapidly evolving North American sauna scene?

Recorded live at Sauna Days 2025 on Minnesota's North Shore, this episode of Sauna Talk features a wide-ranging conversation with Jake Newport of Finnmark Sauna in the UK. Together, Glenn Auerbach and Jake explore where global sauna culture is headed next — from grassroots mobile saunas and floating bathhouses to luxury urban wellness spaces, aufguss experiences, and the rise of social sauna culture.

Jake shares the remarkable story behind Finnmark Sauna and the transformation of sauna culture across the UK over the last decade. What was once dismissed as "hot dry boxes" in hotels and gyms has evolved into a thriving movement centered around contrast therapy, community, craftsmanship, ritual, and meaningful human connection.

Topics include:

• The rise of sauna culture in the UK and parallels with the USA
• Mobile sauna movements, beach saunas, and floating saunas
• Othership, guided sauna experiences, and modern wellness trends
• Authentic sauna culture vs. commercialization
• Aufguss and curated sauna rituals
• Building community through heat and cold
• Sauna entrepreneurship and the future of the industry
• Why education and experience matter more than marketing hype
• The importance of purpose, connection, and slowing down

This episode also features audience discussion and insights from leaders helping shape North American sauna culture, including conversations around social sauna spaces, accessibility, manufacturing, wellness businesses, and preserving the roots of authentic sauna practice.

If you care about where sauna culture is going — and how to build it without losing its soul — this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Subscribe to SaunaTimes.com for more authentic sauna conversations, builds, culture, and community.

#sauna #finnmark #contrasttherapy #wellness #saunaculture #coldplunge #aufguss #communitysauna #saunatalk #saunadays #saunatimes

In this of Sauna Talk, Glenn Auerbach is joined bench-side by Josh Leddy of Get Sweaty with Leddy and sauna builder Leif Kjorness of Excelsior Saunas for a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation recorded after multiple sauna and cold plunge rounds on Lake Ann in Minnesota.

What unfolds is more than a discussion about sauna. It's a conversation about craftsmanship, friendship, healing, community, and the ways sauna culture continues to evolve while still holding onto its roots.

Josh shares how his lifelong connection to sauna eventually inspired him to launch Get Sweaty with Leddy, a YouTube channel and podcast focused on natural healing, pain management, and meaningful conversations that happen best on the sauna bench. He talks about his upcoming mobile sauna project, his vision for creating immersive wellness gatherings through movement and music, and why sauna creates a unique environment where people can truly connect without barriers.

Leif reflects on his journey from custom home building into the sauna world, and how building saunas became more than construction work — it became a calling. He discusses craftsmanship, quality building principles, the importance of slowing life down, and the fulfillment that comes from creating spaces where people gather, reflect, and reconnect with themselves and each other. The conversation also dives into the details behind the "party sauna" concept, including large panoramic windows, skylights, thoughtful ventilation, and building mobile saunas designed to foster memorable shared experiences.

Throughout the episode, Glenn shares stories from the early days of SaunaTimes, the origins of Sauna Days on the North Shore of Lake Superior, and his own formative sauna experiences hitchhiking through Finland and Sweden as a young traveler. Together, the three discuss the rise of mobile sauna culture in Minnesota, the power of hot-cold contrast therapy, the difference between manufactured cold plunges and natural bodies of water, and the emotional reset that happens when people gather around heat, steam, cold water, and conversation.

There are moments of humor, reflection, and philosophy woven throughout — from stories about cutting fresh ice holes by hand to discussions about social media fatigue, authentic community building, and the importance of finding your own operating system for life. Glenn closes by sharing the personal framework that grounds him today: Freedom, Enoughness, Nature, and Simplicity.

This episode captures what sauna culture is really about at its best: generosity, vulnerability, camaraderie, and the simple but profound experience of being fully present together.

Topics discussed include:

• Mobile sauna culture
• Sauna building and craftsmanship
• Sauna Days and grassroots sauna community
• Cold plunging and winter swimming
• Natural healing and pain management
• Lake Superior sauna culture
• Music, movement, and sauna gatherings
• The mental and physical benefits of contrast therapy
• Friendship, reflection, and slowing down
• The future of sauna culture in America

Guests:

• Josh Leddy — Get Sweaty with Leddy
• Leaf Kjorness — Excelsior Saunas