8 Things to Tick off During Your Sauna Time

Enhance your Daily Sauna Routine

There are two types of sauna users — those who prefer to fully embrace the relaxation, and those who try to squeeze more into their sauna minutes. Whichever stool you sit on (see how ours works here), we’ve tapped our performance-minded PeakMe Core Users to share their favourite supplemental sauna activities that either deepen their relaxation, leave them feeling more accomplished, or both. Hello, natural dopamine! ✅

• Practice Breathwork: Adding breathing techniques to your heat therapy helps enhance almost every element of your sauna experience, including circulation, recovery, blood pressure, and more. Learn how easy it is to combine breathwork with your sauna time here (link that article once it’s live)  

• Add a Face Mask: Heat can help enhance the benefits of both the sauna and the face mask, as the increased temperature helps open your pores and boost circulation. And since our Retreat Steam Sauna combines steam with the heat, you’ll already be leaving with a glow from head to toe. Adding a mask allows it to deliver active ingredients more directly and effectively to deeper layers of your skin barrier, thereby cleansing the skin, enhancing your detoxification, and improving nutrient absorption. You’ll step out of the sauna feeling even more relaxed and rocking a brighter, more radiant complexion. 

• Pop on a Podcast or Get Lost in an Audiobook: Stimulate your mind while stimulating blood flow? That is music to our ears. Whether you’re binging self-help episodes, catching up on the latest true crime, diving into Duolingo, or sweating through a steamy romance audiobook, the sauna is a perfect space to add a bit of audio. It can even encourage you not to cut sessions short. Can’t really be bothered doing the full 20-60 minutes one day? Finishing a chapter in full or committing to a one-hour episode is a great heat therapy timekeeper. And time flies when you’re entertained or learning something interesting. Of course use waterproof/sweat resistant headphones and leave your streaming device outside, just to avoid any residual water damage. 

• Gentle Skin Stimulation or Fascia Massage: Since your pores are already feeling the heat, stroke them while they’re hot! Light brushing, scratching, or tapping the skin on your face and body will help stimulate the pores even more and further boost circulation. Ready to take it one step further? Try fascia massage or the ever-popular “face gym” tools that have made the rounds in skincare circles over the past few years. 20-60 minutes is the perfect amount of time to squeeze in a massage, which is known to reduce puffiness, improve skin quality, increase definition, prevent wrinkles, and more.

• Activate your Aromatherapy: Adding a few drops of essential oils will intensify their effects in all the right ways. The steam acts as a natural diffuser by helping the oils become airborne, which increases their therapeutic effects with every inhale. Different oils claim different benefits, but we love a bit of peppermint for digestion and headache relief, or lavender for reducing stress/anxiety, improving sleep, and soothing skin irritations. Whatever your scent (or your concern), there is an oil for that!

• Experiment with Audiojournaling: Why not treat heat therapy like actual therapy? Writing down your reflections in daily journals has been a widely-regarded self-care tactic for decades, but have you ever thought about audiojournaling? Instead of keeping up with a pen and paper or spending more time on a digital device, recording your daily journals can help keep them more organised and encourage you to go back and re-listen to them as if they’re your own personal podcast episode. Even if you can’t stand the sound of your own voice (who can?!), an audiojournal is a great way to truly talk through whatever is on your mind, and the privacy of the solo Retreat Steam Sauna provides a safe space to do so. Just bring your waterproof headphones, pop your phone or iPad on ‘record’, and let it flow. 

• Brainstorm A Business or Book Idea: Have a big imagination or busy entrepreneurial brain? Been sitting on a side hustle idea or next best seller? Sauna time is ideal for brainstorming. The increased blood flow to your brain can help stimulate your thinking, and the forced focus time of sitting in one space (ideally, without distractions or devices) makes your sauna time a solid daily brainstorming window. Even better if you enter with a specific “brief” or task, which starts with breaking down the process into achievable, bite-sized brain prompts that can be realistically achieved in 20-60 minutes. Mental cues like “come up with a memorable first line for chapter two” or “develop five options for a brand tagline” are likely going to leave you feeling more accomplished and creatively fulfilled. 

• Practice Mindfulness and Meditation: You really can’t go wrong with mindfulness. And while this may seem like the easiest thing on the list, performance-minded people often find switching off their brain even more challenging than using it. Heat therapy is a natural time-slot to make your  meditation practice deeper and more consistent. The heat and steam combo allow you to relax into a flow state more naturally. So whether your preferred meditation method is guided by an app or you’ve developed your own mindfulness techniques, using this time to fully reset and unwind will always be recommended by us.  

Clearly, this list could go on. And it’s not linear. You may want to really lean in on brainstorming an idea for a few weeks, and then move onto face massage. Or, you can try alternating days by creating new mini rituals — i.e. Mindful Mondays, Face Mask Fridays, etc. This can help you change it up while still staying consistent. 

So which of these eight are you most intrigued to try first? Or do you have something else in mind? Either way, we want to hear from you! Share your thoughts with us on Instagram or shoot us a DM on TikTok or Facebook. And as always, feel free to explore all of our health and wellness collections here.

• Written by Michele Danno