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Saunas are (ahem) hot right now. So much so that the editors of New York Magazine featured glistening guys on the cover of September’s Men’s Style Issue – “some of New York’s most stylish men” sporting trunks and neck towels at the Russian and Turkish Baths. (While that institution has been around long before the East Village was even cool, it's facing plenty of competition these days).
It’s a vibe, apparently. “I have a little community here, from the Hasidim to locals to other artists and creatives,” artist Rashid Johnson told New York, name-dropping chef Daniel Humm and comedian Aziz Ansari. “There’s a number of people I oftentimes lean on for advice or ask questions of. There’s a sense of being on the same plane; everybody’s kind of exposed.”
And while schmoozing may be an important part of the sauna experience, there’s growing evidence that the heat itself may be good for mental health, as NPR’s Will Stone reports.
The science is just beginning to catch up with many of the theorized benefits. Though the cardiovascular impact of sauna has been studied more, mental health has emerged as one of the more exciting and appealing applications.
When your skin senses heat, those signals travel to a primitive part of the brain that tells your body to cool down. That process overlaps with a pathway involved in mood and pleasure, which is implicated in depression. Heat also triggers a specific anti-inflammatory response – similar to what occurs during exercise, which is known to improve symptoms of depression and other mental health conditions. Separately, animal studies find heat activates a group of "serotonin neurons" in the brain that may "provide stress resilience and antidepressant effects,” says Christopher Lowry, an integrative physiologist and neuroscientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In a 2016 study co-led by Lowry, 30 people with depression were randomly separated into two groups. About half spent around two hours in a whole-body infrared machine designed to raise their body temperature to 38.5 C, or about 101 F. The rest received a sham treatment. Within a week, a majority of those in the treatment group had a 50% reduction in their symptoms and the effects persisted throughout the six-week follow-up period.
That study inspired Ashley Mason, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, San Francisco. She’s interested in the connection between depression and body temperature. "What we know from a bunch of literature is that depressed people seem to run hot," says Mason. "When their depression improves, their thermoregulatory system seems to also change."
Mason and Lowry both worked on a recent study that tracked the link between self-reported symptoms of depression and body temperature, using wearable device data collected from close to 20,000 people. They found that depression symptoms were more severe when skin temperature was higher, and when peoples’ bodies weren’t cooling down as much at night.
Mason says heat may be an effective treatment for depression because warming up the body seems to train the system to be more efficient at cooling down. "So when you are actually done being exposed to that heat, your body temperature drops for a much longer period of time than you were spending in that heat," she says. "Days, possibly weeks, we still don't know."
Check out the full story to learn more about emerging research on heat and mental health, and see photos of Oslo Harbor’s floating saunas.
Plus: Learn more about the research on health benefits of sauna on a visit to the International Heat Therapy Research Symposium in Norway |
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When Life Kit host Marielle Segarra was diagnosed with breast cancer, she asked her friend Zoe Saunders to accompany her to her first appointment with her surgeon.
“ I wasn't quite sure what to expect, so I brought a Mary Poppins bag full of every possible emergency supply we could need. I brought extra masks, like COVID protection masks. I brought hand sanitizer. I brought a lot of tissues.” Saunders recalls. She also brought chocolates to reward Segarra “for being brave through this appointment.”
But Segarra didn’t invite Saunders to the appointment just for emotional support and snacks. Saunders helped Segarra prepare questions for the doctor ahead of time. During the meeting she took notes and asked follow-up questions, and she typed everything up afterwards.
Getting cancer at 34 was shocking and life-changing, Segarra says. But through the course of tests, decision-making and treatment, she never felt alone. Her loved ones showed up and supported her in different ways.
If someone you care about is diagnosed with cancer, you don’t need to have magical British nanny energy to help out. Based on Segarra’s experience and her interviews with other cancer survivors, here are three roles friends and family can play to meet critical needs cancer patients often have.
📋 Doctor’s appointment buddy
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed when you’re meeting with doctors, getting second opinions and being confronted with a life-threatening illness. Bringing along someone organized and detail-oriented, or a friend who has a medical background can help you gather essential information and make informed decisions about your care.
NPR listener Rich Coker, whose wife Maya was diagnosed with cancer in 2024, says that having a couple of doctor friends accompany them to early appointments was invaluable.
"They asked questions we wouldn't know to ask in our shock at the news and newness to these systems," he says.
🫂 Procedure pal and patient advocate
This is someone who accompanies a patient to scans, surgeries, and radiation and chemotherapy appointments. This role is about providing a hand to hold, and speaking up for your loved one if needed.
Segarra’s chemotherapy treatments kept her in the hospital for seven hours at a stretch. She wore something called a cold cap to preserve her hair follicles. “It felt like having a frozen bowling ball strapped to my head,” she remembers. “I was in pain, and I was cold, so it was important to have someone there who was comfortable touching me and cuddling up with me to warm me up,” Segarra says.
This role might be for you if you’re comfortable with physical touch, okay with silence, and are good at cheering people up. And, you should be willing to get a little pushy with a nurse or a doctor if necessary.
🍜 Home care helper
Segarra says the toughest times for her came a few days after chemo. A friend would take her soup and little gifts, and keep her company while she lay on the couch. Bringing a meal can go a long way, Segarra writes. It saves the trip to the grocery store, the energy of cooking, and the mental task of having to think about what to eat.
NPR listener Indira White, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023, says a friend would come over and "just start doing the dishes or tidying something up. That was really helpful."
If you’re good at planning and have access to your loved one’s network, you could create a calendar to coordinate different kinds of help over the course of treatment and recovery.
Read Marielle Segarra’s full piece to learn more. Or listen to the Life Kit podcast episode.
Also: Caregiving can test you, body and soul. It can also unlock a new sense of self |
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Gut microbes followed migrating humans across continents, new study suggests
Watch: Suicide is up among Black Americans. We need to talk about it.
4 ways to battle performance anxiety, according to a confidence coach
How LA. County is working to spare patients from crushing medical debt |
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Andrea Muraskin and your NPR Health editors |
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