Sauna's clean Finnish

JUST in case you ever wanted to, the Finnish tradition of sauna offers the perfect excuse for rolling around naked in the snow, writes Jonathon Moran.

Staying power ... competitors in action during the Sauna World Championships in Finland / Kirsti Talsi

IF the entire population of Finland was told to immediately enter a sauna, they'd all be accommodated.

With a population of around five million, there are more than 2.5 million saunas.

That means almost every household has its own sauna.

And there are plenty of public saunas.

"Sauna is basically in the nature of everything here," says Jari Etelalahti, who runs local tour company Eat and Joy Helsinki.

"A lot of homes have them and Finnish people are crazy about summer cottages which all have sauna."

For Finns, going to a sauna is more than a pastime.

It is part of their Nordic culture.

"In the old days, that was the only place that was really heated," said Etelalahti.

"It was hygienic also so you gave birth in a sauna ... you spent half of your day in the sauna.

As a tourist, there are many opportunities to experience the traditional Finnish sauna.

Public saunas are open daily and you may be lucky to be invited to enjoy some Finnish hospitality at a local's home.

A traditional sauna is a wooden building where bathers sit on benches splashing water on hot stones and gently beating themselves with leafy birch whisks.

Nowadays, it is more common for homes to have electric saunas.

"The real sauna is the smoke sauna which is heated for like six hours before the whole event and it stays like that."

"Saunas can be electrical ... many of these flats nowadays have electrical saunas.

"But for me the wooden heated saunas are the best."

Temperatures can range from 70C to 180C for hardcore sauna lovers.

"It can get up to 150 or 180 degrees and the guys sit there happily sweating."

There are even competitions where people attempt to stay in the sauna for a lengthy time at a high temperature.

Etelalahti said men were particularly competitive.

"Of course when guys have a sauna, they want to be competitive and there is also a world championship for people to see who can stay in the sauna the longest at some high temperature," he said.

"Guys are always competitive and many have fainted in the heat of the battle.

"But usually it is about being therapeutic so you can stay in the sauna as long or as little as you want."

Certain rules generally apply to saunas.

"Sauna is not supposed to be connected to business so the rules are: no politics, no religion, no business and hardly no sex talk at all," says Etelalahti.

"It is just about pure and natural things. It is nice to just talk about everyday subjects like the weather or food."

A trip to the sauna usually takes a couple of hours and involves a sequence of rituals.

Sauna is usually taken nude and everyon must shower before entering.

"Every time you go naked because it is more hygenic not to go with the swimsuit," says Etelalahti.

In public places, men and women are generally segregated. At home, saunas are usually mixed.

The term sauna refers to the whole bathing process and includes several repeated periods of perspiring in the heat and the steam, known as "loyly", produced by the water thrown on the stones.

Loyly is described as the spirit of the sauna. It is a Finno-Ugric word going back 7,000 years.

Between bouts in the sauna room, people often bathe in cold water.

In winter, people cut holes in the ice in the Baltic sea or any lake and jump in for a short time.

If there is no water nearby, the Finns will often roll around naked in the snow.

"If you have water next to you, of course you want to jump into it," says Etelalahti.

"If you don't have the ocean or a lake near you, you always go outside and chill out in the cold for a while."

"It is addictive, both sauna and going into the icy water."

The writer was a guest of Scandinavian Airlines, Finnish Tourist Board, Helsinki City Tourist and Convention Bureau and MyPlanet.