7 Healthy Reasons You Need to Start Going to a Sauna

Longer life

Contrary to the popular saying, sweating the small stuff may actually help you live longer—if you’re doing the sweating in a sauna, that is. In a study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine, people who sat in a sauna at least once a week lowered their risk of dying from any cause by 22 percent, while those who sweated it out at least four times a week lowered their risk by two-thirds. If that sounds like a lot of sauna-sitting, note that the study was done in Finland, where the practice is much more popular than in the U.S. But if you’re interested in lengthening your life, take this opportunity to broaden your cultural and health horizons and try out what the Finnish call “sauna bathing.”