Can anyone suggest why after covid I can't do Finnish sauna anymore? Prior to that I used to do 1-2x a week a sequence of 5x(10 minutes in sauna + 5 minutes cold water immersion + 10 minutes rest) which was absolutely great for both stress reduction and blood flow. Now if I do 5 minutes in sauna I feel like my skin was burning and I am about to die, and I need to recover for 1 hour from that to be able to just walk away from sauna.
I'm a big fan of soaking in hot water and have noticed that cardiac function seems to have a massive effect on heat tolerance as measured vs body temperature.
For example, if I've been totally sedentary for the whole day (and my feet are chilly+blue), a body temperature as low as 101F is unbearable. But if I've been actively moving around all day (and my feet are warm and pink), I only start getting uncomfortable at a body temperature around 103.5F-104F.
This also seems to correlate over a longer timespan re: exercise habits, consumption habits, sickness, etc.
Once in a while as I get sick I have to retrain myself to going to sauna (e.g. taking lowest level, even skipping the Aufguss, German infusion where temperature is raised gradually etc.)
Also IMO your body fat/water/lean muscle ratio may play a role. I once lost 5 kg due to Influenza A and all my sport achievements as well as sauna endurance were gone
No idea. How hot is and was your sauna? Is it possible that it's hotter than it used to be? Maybe try one that's slightly less hot?
I've got the opposite problem: saunas don't seem to be able to make me sweat anymore, so I'm looking for the hottest saunas I can find.
The usual 95"C, nothing extraordinary. Sweating after covid got impaired, I might have some thermoregulation issue.
95 is pretty hot. At commercial spas I see them start at 70, and rarely above 90.
95 is normal where I live for Finnish saunas. Then there are other types of saunas that start lower, but Finnish are always around 95.
95 is high for Finnish saunas in Finland at least. Public saunas are very rarely so hot here, and few like it that hot.
Edit: to put it into some numbers, per one study[1] Finnish sauna sessions were on average at 75.9°C with SD 9.9°C. If we assume normal distribution, that means that more than 97 % of sauna sessions are at < 95°C.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6262976/
After covid I've found i cannot stand the cold. A friend of mine can't stand alcohol since.