Swedish sauna users cite mental recovery and social connection as top motivations, with gender differences emerging

A cross-sectional survey of 588 regular sauna bathers in Sweden used both closed-ended questionnaires and open-ended thematic analysis to map why people use saunas and how they perceive the practice's contribution to their health. Researchers identified four overlapping themes — mental recovery, social togetherness, purification, and physical health — while finding that women and men differed meaningfully in which motivations ranked highest.

What the study found

The study drew on responses from 384 women and 204 men who bathed in saunas regularly, analyzing their open-ended answers with inductive thematic analysis and their structured responses with descriptive and comparative statistics. Four interconnected themes emerged as a conceptual model of why people engage in the practice.

Mental recovery was the most prominent motivation among women, while social togetherness ranked first among men. Both groups described the sauna as a space for relaxation, reflection, physical recovery, and a sense of cleanliness or renewal, suggesting the practice carries psychological, social, and physical meaning simultaneously.

Women reported significantly greater perceived improvements in sleep quality and reductions in bodily pain following sauna use compared with men, for whom no statistically significant changes in those outcomes were observed. Because these are self-reported perceptions rather than measured physiological outcomes, the direction and size of any real effect cannot be established from this data alone.

The authors frame sauna bathing as a person-centered health-promotion behavior and call for prospective studies to test whether the self-reported benefits hold up under more rigorous measurement conditions.

Limits worth knowing

As a cross-sectional, self-report survey, the study cannot establish causation or rule out recall bias. The sample was drawn from Swedish regular sauna users, limiting generalizability to other cultural contexts or infrequent users. No objective health measures were collected, and the study did not control for confounding lifestyle factors. Funding sources were not disclosed in the abstract. The gender comparison was unbalanced (roughly two-thirds women), and the study did not examine non-binary or other gender identities.

About this entry. The Heartwood Review summarizes published, peer-reviewed research in its own words and links to the original source. It is not medical advice; consult a physician before beginning or changing any thermal or recovery practice. Findings summarized here describe the study cited, not any product sold by Teak & Marble Atelier. Corrections.