Sauna Talk

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