Sweat Lodge
For thousands of years, people purposefully sweated.
Across cultures and times, people would leverage heat inside a structure, and have a brief ceremony.
Stone structures in Scotland dating back to 4,000 B.C were an ancient form of saunas.
In Korea, pine was burned to heat a dome-like kiln. Monks have used these traditional saunas, called hanjeungmak, to treat sick people since the 15th century.
The Lakota Native American tribe called it an Inipi and it was part of a sacred purification ceremony for prayer and healing. These structures were made of wood and then were covered with blankets or animal skins.
Finland has over 3 million saunas today and just 5 million people! It’s the birthplace of the modern sauna. Their saunas were originally built inside of pits in the ground and heavily used in the winter.
Today we know the health benefits of saunas because of the many studies of the Finnish population which include increased cardiovascular health, reduced Alzheimer's disease and dementia, improved mental health and mood regulation, and removal of toxins.
We often forget the origin of ancient wisdom that we benefit from today, but we can still be thankful to those who came before us for their blood, sweat, and tears.
