Among the skerries formed by the glacier, and the pine trees going into the sky, lived different peoples. Formally, they are called Finno-Ugric, Pushkin and his contemporaries called them Chukhontsy, but this is not the point.
The meaning is that among this unique and harsh nature lived people, preserving their customs, habits and the power transmitted to them by nature, without which it is difficult to live in these places.
One of the traditions of these places, which allows you to resist the harsh nature and cold, – the sauna has found its admirers in very remote places from Scandinavia.
For Finns, the sauna has always been a significant part of life, and not just a place where people wash. Here they gave birth and nursed the sick, smoked fish and meat, insisted malt. with a sauna life began in a new place… Today in Finland with a population of about 5 million people, there are 2 million operating saunas.
Modern saunas are built all over the world, in private houses they are given basement or first floors, a sauna for visitors is an art that unites the ideas of its owner about beauty and health, about the entourage. about lifestyle after all.
It is believed that the sauna is very useful for stress and overstrain: physical, mental and emotional. Sauna has a healing effect on the skin, whether adolescent problems or age-related changes, it serves as a prevention of arthritis, rheumatism, relieves pain and accelerates stagnant areas in the muscles and joints. Sauna precedes a healthy deep sleep and increased immunity. Especially if the sauna stands on the shore of a cold northern lake, for example, Onega, and breathing in the aromas of herbs, evaporating toxins and slags from your body along with sweat, you can dive into cold water. The contrast of temperatures will provide cheerfulness of spirit, physical fitness and high resistance to all the vicissitudes of fate.
The most significant difference between a Russian steam room and a sauna is humidity, if in a Russian steam room the steam is humid. the sauna heater allows you to maintain humidity at 20%.
In a modern sauna (visiting) it is customary to adhere to the rules:
1. Changing into a sheet, you get into the "holy of holies" of the sauna room itself.
2. where (visiting) as a rule, there are devices showing the air temperature (80-90 ° C at the bottom), humidity, pressure. The devices allow advanced sauna users to orient themselves in the situation and take a place at a suitable height for them.
3. Even more advanced users are well versed in the registration of the above characteristics, if you are not one of them, then the "dummies" are treated with respect and, towering above them with the level of their competence, slowly explain all the basics.
4. Among the basics can be attributed the need to splash water on the heater, when sweat already covers you from head to toe, otherwise it will simply dry out on the body.
5. As in the Russian steam room, in the sauna you can experiment with brooms,6
. However, experiments with herbs are more accepted, their decoctions are splashed on the heater in accordance with their condition and expectations from visiting the sauna (about herbs below)
7. Essential oils are a fashionable experiment in the sauna, their concentrated aromas allow you to bring with you in a small volume so many different variations on the theme of beauty and health that not a single broom dreamed of.
8. More from the basics: the sauna is a Fiinn bath, here you can not rush, fuss and stare at the girls, (girls, for those who understand a lot in saunas, will be happy not in the sauna, but after), in other words, a sauna is an hour or two of a different pace of life, a different sense of reality, other values of being.
9. While the heater heats up and dries the water splashed on it, you breathe in the aromas of herbs, relaxing your muscles and thoughts, learn to feel the shades of smells and move in space to those distant (in time or space) places where these herbs grew.
10. Do not delay the "approach", it is better to leave the steam room and wash off all the excess in the cold water of the shower, cool the skin, no one prevents you, having rested, to return to the "holy of holies" again.11
Rest lasts, as a rule, 10-15 minutes, the number of "rests" corresponds to the number of visits to the steam room, in one of these rests you can cleanse the body with a scrub (do not rub anything into the skin with all your might, and do not wipe it dry with a hard towel)
12. In another rest, there will be time for drinks that replenish the salts and moisture lost with sweat.
13. If you went to the sauna for the whole day, you can have a little refreshment with cheese or other light food, however, it is still customary to go to the sauna an hour after eating.
14. After a cold shower, the temperature is set slightly below the initial one, alternating between the sauna and the shower, gradually achieve the greatest temperature contrast, so after each next cooling, the temperature in the sauna will be slightly higher than the previous one.
Sauna techniques are finished, your soul is in harmony with the body, and the body is washed, do not rush, sit, lie down (if there is such an opportunity), soak up the sensations received, let your body remember them, get used to them …
Promised addition about herbs:
To prevent colds and improve lung function, pine aromas are used, both decoctions and essential oils: fir, spruce, cedar, pine (I consider pine the best of them, given that cedars are also pines) You can use eucalyptus, but caution is necessary with it, perhaps it is better than trying to drip no more than one drop of essential oil to use a decoction or soap based on eucalyptus. It is also advised to use thyme, sage, elecampane.
To strengthen the nervous system and relieve stress, essential oils of lemon, mint and lavender are suitable. Lemon is advised to use for places where it is possible to increase the radiotion background or their work is associated with chemically active media.
A joyful desire to live, create, love arises after a sauna with warm aromas of tangerine, orange and geranium. Women for … instead of ready to break through all the protections of modern medicine complexes, in the aroma of geraniums manifest themselves as having sensuality and charm and cease to complex.
Those who want to take a Finnish bath. of course, they use birch, oak, St. John's wort, juniper, chamomile, linden and other plants growing in the northern forests.
Lovers of exotics and distant countries are more suitable for variations of fragrances with ylang-ylang, basil, citrus and neroli.
Decoctions can be prepared from herbs or leaves directly in the sauna, letting them brew, but do not splash water on the heater along with herbs, try to separate one from the other.
Essential oils, of course, are easier and more convenient to use, it is enough to add a few drops to the water and you can splash it on the stones.