Sauna Talk

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...

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...

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 flo...

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, comm...

n this live panel from Sauna Days 2025, Glenn welcomes two of the most thoughtful voices in sauna research, Dr. Ashley Mason of UCSF and Earric Lee of the Montreal Heart Institute, for a candid conversation about the current state of sauna science, where the evidence is strong, where it is still emerging, and why integrity matters when talking about health benefits in the sauna world. This episode...

In this episode of Sauna Talk, Glenn sits down with Bill Gifford, author of Hotwired: How the Hidden Power of Heat Makes Us Stronger , for a wide-ranging conversation on sauna, heat adaptation, and the connection between physical challenge and mental well-being. Bill shares how his journey into heat began through personal stress, scientific curiosity, and his reporting on the powerful effects of s...

Recorded live at Sauna Days 2025 , this episode of Sauna Talk brings together a thoughtful panel of doctors who sauna for a grounded conversation on heat, health, and the real role of sauna in modern life. Glenn is joined by Dr. Jeremiah Eisenchenk, Dr. Brandon Dotson, Dr. Brittany Kimball, and Dr. Ashley Mason for a lively discussion on what we know, what we don't know, and why sauna continues to...

In this special episode of Sauna Talk , I'm joined inside one of the Culture of Bathing Sauna Village saunas in New York City by three fellow authors whose work explores heat bathing culture from very different perspectives. This conversation was recorded on the sauna bench during the 2026 Culture of Bathing Festival in New York City. Recorded during Culture of Bathing 2.0 gathering on the East Ri...

In this special episode of Sauna Talk, the tables are turned as Adam Pambatanaka, COO of Therme Group U.S., steps into the interviewer's role and puts Glenn on the bench. Recorded live at Sauna Village in New York City in February 2026, this conversation dives into Glenn's own sauna origin story, from getting hooked in the Baltic archipelago to helping champion mobile saunas, sauna building, and p...

Today on the bench, we sit with Valtteri Rantala , A Finn living in Vancouver BC since 2016. Val started a  Sauna  company in Vancouver in 2019. And in the shadows of Western Red Cedars, we'll hear the origin stories of the budding West Coast  Sauna  Summit at Loon Lake Lodge and Retreat center, one of the pins on Val's Vancouver Sauna Circuit. We just returned from the second West Coast Sauna Sum...

Welcome to this episode of Sauna Talk recorded on multiple sauna benches at the Culture of Bathing Sauna Village in New York City. I'll keep this introduction brief as we turn the microphone over to four pillars behind the second annual Culture of Bathing gathering. This year, the gathering was layered adjacent to the opening of New York Cities first sauna village. A village of  15 architecturally...

Today's episode comes to you from the recent West Coast Sauna Summit, outside Vancouver BC Canada, where I had the honour of interviewing Mikkel Aaland, the Godfather of Sweat, live in front of a packed room of thermal enthusiasts. It's no secret that Mikkel has been a mentor to me, in sweat, in sauna, and in life. What I've always admired is his refusal to stay inside the box. Instead, he works t...

Today on the bench, we sit together with Keegan Kittock, co-founder of Deep Wave Sauna. With the rising tide of sauna also comes marketing talk, pedantic chatter, and graphs and charts about how air supposedly moves in the hot room. So it's extra special and refreshing to visit with someone like Keegan. In this episode, we start at the beginning—picturing Keegan after elementary school, dragging a...

Today on the virtual bench we visit with longtime thermal enthusiast, friend, and SaunaTimes contributor Kev who takes us through the public bathhouses in and around Chicago for this Sauna Circuit. As you'll hear in this episode, Kev is no stranger to the saunas, banyas, and bathhouses in his hometown. What's cool about Chicago is that the banya culture is well developed.. and also quite historic...

Today, on Sauna Talk, and almost on the sauna bench, I'm pleased to bring you the folks behind the three major American sauna stove makers. American manufacturing at work! Garrett,  Lamppa Manufacturing , Tower, Minnesota, Population 421 Philip,  Nippa , Beulah, MI, Population 303 Lynn,  Ilo , Dollar Bay, Michigan, Population 1,070 We talk through what their company looks like, their community, an...

Today on the bench, we bring you to Larsmont Cottages, Two Harbors. Minnesota for a special roundtable discussion with four sauna builders from four different countries as part of Sauna Days 2025. Alex, Bsaunasusa, Belarus Keegan, Deep Wave Saunas, USA Jake, Finnmark, UK Andrew, Sauna Builder, Canada The weather was wonderful, the heat was resonating, and our conversation went deep.

Today on Sauna Talk, we are joined by the dynamic duo of researcher from Emery University, Deanna Kaplan and Roman Palitsky. Deanna Kaplan Deanna Kaplan, PhD is a clinical psychologist with expertise in digital health technologies. She has more than a decade of experience using wearable and smartphone-based technologies to study the dynamics of health processes and clinical change during daily lif...

I've had the pleasure of sitting on the sauna bench with well over a hundred guests for  Sauna Talk . Whether you're listening in your car, out for a walk, or sweating it out on your own bench, my goal as host is to help keep the conversation flowing. Like good löyly,  Sauna Talk  rises, rolls, and wraps around us—natural, unforced, and alive. That same spirit was there last night with Chris Heck....

Welcome to this episode of Sauna Talk, where we head back to  Farris Bad , resort spa and wellness retreat South of Oslo, Norway. We get to sit with Jerome, who is a long standing steam master at the resort. Here he leads aufguss ceremony and assists two time Sauna Talk guest  Lasse Eriksen . 10,000 hours One thing I wish I had asked Jerome in this interview is to venture a guess at how many guest...

Today on Sauna Talk, we welcome a very special guest: Dr. Hans Hägglund. Hans Hägglund, MD, PhD, is a physician, professor at Uppsala University in northern Sweden, and senior consultant at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. With a deep background in clinical research and leadership in cancer care, his work bridges modern medicine with the enduring traditions of sauna and health. In this...

Today on the sauna bench, we head to Oslo, Norway, and visit with the folks at  Oslo Badstuforening , (Oslo Sauna Association). This is my second trip to Norway in as many years. They say that you never step into the same river twice, and I'll contend that we never sit on the same sauna bench twice. For last year, I took many saunas in the Oslo Harbour, as well as published a Sauna Talk with the O...

This episode of Sauna Talk is a special joint conversation with Linda and Otto of The Spirit of Sauna podcast, coming to you from Sipoonjoki Heritage Sauna just outside Helsinki, Finland. Linda and Otto are partners in both business and passion—dedicated to preserving the cultural roots of Finnish smoke sauna while creating a place for education, rituals, and retreat in nature. I'd call Sipoonjoki...

This episode of Sauna Talk comes to you from London, England—on the morning after the British Sauna Summit. I meet up with Stig Arild Pettersen, Secretary General of the Norwegian Sauna Association, at Hackney Baths. It's the perfect setting for a conversation about what's happening in sauna culture right now—not just in Norway, but across borders. Stig is also the host of Badstuprat , Norway's ve...

This episode of Sauna Talk comes to you from the British Sauna Summit, held May 20, 2025, at the Hilton London Canary Wharf. What a difference a year makes. At the first Summit in 2024, about 120 of us gathered on a rooftop in Hackney—part conference, part family gathering. This year, attendance swelled to well over 300, and the setting shifted to a proper hotel ballroom. A clear sign of something...

Welcome to this special episode of Sauna Talk, recorded at the Culture of Bathing gathering in New York City, January 2025. This is a bit of a two-part conversation. We begin with a behind-the-scenes discussion featuring Adam of Thermë USA, who moderates a panel of public sauna operators from across North America. Together, they reflect on the gathering itself and the growing interest in sauna as...