You will enjoy lazing on the sauna boards better and for longer if you wear a sauna hat. Excuse me, what? A sauna hat should be worn in a hot sauna; can not be true! What kind of fashion fad is this anyway? For us Finns, nudity in the sauna is normal and we are not used to wearing any sauna hats. But, the wise person does protect his/her head (as well as his/her hair) in the sauna, and this is what e.g. Russians and Germans long before us. Now of course you ask why?

Childhood memories
First, let me tell you about my own sauna experiences and why I have ended up agreeing with the title of this blog post. To be honest, the sauna has always been a little strange to me, because I lived in an apartment building when I was a child and my family was not a sauna-crazy bunch. We didn’t have a summer cottage, so a cottage sauna is not a very familiar thing either. In my childhood, I spent many summers with my aunt in Jyväskylä (Central Finland), where they had a detached house and a separate sauna building by the lake. According to the story, I took my very first sauna there ???? When I was a child, the best thing about sauna trips was the yellow Jaffa (Finnish soft drink without any alcohol) after the sauna together with grilled sausages; those were in the foil above the stove and looked pretty blackened after the sauna session!

Getting friends with sauna
Even as an adult, I haven’t done sauna so much, even though I’ve lived in a detached house; before we happened to move to a house with its own separate sauna building in the yard. Oh, that it brought childhood summers to my mind so vividly. In that spacious and high sauna room, I already started to enjoy myself, but it couldn’t be hot – I enjoy better in a, shall we say, lukewarm bath – around 60-70 degrees.
When I was talking about my sauna behaviour with a sauna expert, he suggested that I should try a sauna hat. Of course, I laughed at it with a bit of a smile, and the idea remained dormant for a few years, until I ended up working in the sauna industry myself, under the supervision of that experienced sauna conker. The only thing to do was to humbly take the sauna hat and put it when going to the boards of the sauna. And you won’t believe what an ”aha” experience I had!

My preferred way
First of all, when you go to the sauna, you usually go from a completely different temperature to another – that is, you go from about 20 degrees directly to 70-100 degrees. Even common sense tells us that such a range of up to 100 degrees cannot be good. Secondly, the head is very sensitive and it heats up faster than the rest of the body, so that’s why many of us feel a little unwell in the sauna. Some people may get headaches, even migraines, from taking a sauna, so you should try a sauna hat. I’ve heard that a sauna hat has helped with that, it prevents the blood vessels of the head from expanding in the warm and contracting in the cold during cooling off!
And we, busy modern power packs usually don’t have time to get our bodies used to a warmer climate, instead we jump straight onto the top decks in sauna without any strings attached! Our body, and especially our scalp, can’t really keep up with such rapid changes. And what does our often dyed hair likes about all this?

It would be good to start your sauna session, even on the second lowest bench and get your body used to the warm air in peace. At the same time, you should wear a sauna hat, which protects your head from excessive heat and overheating. In this way, the body can more evenly adapt to large temperature fluctuations.
I personally like to soak my sauna hat in ice-cold water before going to the sauna, so wonderfully refreshing cold water splashes from the hat to cool and refresh my body. With this way, I have been able to extend my sauna enjoyment to 45 minutes, which of course for a real sauna person is still no time and nothing. In between, it’s been nice to go, for example, to cool off on the terrace in cold weather, and then again I’ve been able to enjoy the fact that the sauna hat protects against the cold!
Sauna hat is your best friend
So, all in all sauna hat works in many occasions. I have visited at a friend’s cottage, where there was an outdoor jacuzzi on the terrace, and there, on dark autumn night, you could enjoy the bubbles between the saunas, while your head stayed warm and you didn’t have to worry about the flu!

After starting to use the sauna hat when going into sauna I have noticed, that:
- Falling asleep has been easier and the quality of sleep has improved! I’m a really bad sleeper in general and this has been a wonderful help. It is said about sauna that the increase in the body’s internal temperature increases the metabolism of serotonin in the brain, which is a precursor to the dark hormone melatonin, which means it affects sleep. The amount of noradrenaline, which maintains alertness, also reportedly decreases. However, right before going to bed, you shouldn’t take a sauna or take hard löyly, because you can feel refreshed after the sauna. Sleepiness starts only when the body cools down.
- And the best thing about sauna hat! Your head stays cool and you can bare to sit in the sauna longer. It is more pleasant to soak in the heat of the sauna when you are feeling good and comfortable. When I stay longer in the sauna, it feels as if the body is thoroughly cleansed, as well as the mind. And yes, that heat, at least in my case, is good for muscles eg. strained by gardening. So here may be the keys to the solution – give it a try!
- You could probably test the effect of the sauna hat by putting hair conditioner under the hat for the last sauna session – I don’t have experience with this yet, but I should test this next time.
I wish all of you can create a sauna ritual that suites your needs, being it pampering and good for your body and mind. Time your sauna sessions with a traditional sand timer – it is fun!
PS: In sauna you are not expected to ”do” anything but enjoy. Feel good and enjoy relaxing your body and mind, breath in the spirit of sauna in the company of your loved ones, or alone.
With sauna regards
Nina/ I Love Sauna crew