How to Use a Sauna - A Beginner's Guide From Entry to Cooldown

Your first sauna session should not feel like a test. Walk in, sit low, breathe, get out before you’re uncomfortable, cool down properly, and repeat if you feel like it. That’s the whole shape of it. Everything below is just filling in the details so you’re not standing there guessing.

Before You Open the Door

Shower first. Not a splash, an actual shower with soap. Public saunas everywhere from Helsinki to your local gym expect it, and it’s not really about you: sweat, deodorant, and lotion residue on hot benches is unpleasant for the next person and can smell awful when it heats up. If you’re at home, this step still matters because clean skin sweats more evenly.

Take off jewelry. A ring or watch heats up fast on bare skin and can genuinely burn you. Same goes for anything metal you’re wearing that touches skin directly.

Skip lotion and skincare products right before you go in. They sit on your skin and block the pores you’re trying to open. Do your skincare routine after, not before.

Drink a glass of water beforehand if you haven’t had any in a while. You don’t need to load up like you’re prepping for a marathon. Just don’t walk in already dehydrated.

Bring a towel. You sit on it, you don’t sit directly on the bench. This is the closest thing sauna culture has to a universal rule, and it exists because hot, bare skin against wood benches is a hygiene issue as much as a comfort one.

Walking In

Open the door, step in, close it behind you quickly. Standing in the doorway with it open lets the heat pour out and makes everyone else in the room reheat the space on your behalf. It’s a small thing but it’s the fastest way to mark yourself as new.

Pick a bench, and if it’s your first time, pick a low one. Heat rises, so the gap between the lowest bench and the highest can be surprisingly large in the same room. Traditional saunas usually run somewhere in the 70 to 90°C range (roughly 155 to 195°F), and the difference between the bottom bench and the top can be the difference between a comfortable ten minutes and a session that ends in three. Sit low, see how it feels, move up on a future visit if you want more heat.

Lay your towel down before you sit. Sit however is comfortable: upright, leaning back, legs up if there’s room. There’s no posture requirement.

Settling In

The first couple of minutes are usually the strangest part for newcomers. Your skin prickles, your breathing feels different, and the air itself feels heavier than a regular hot room. That’s normal. Give it a minute before you decide whether it’s too much.

If someone in the room throws water on the stones, that’s löyly: the burst of steam that makes a dry sauna feel suddenly more intense and humid for a short stretch. If you want to do it yourself, ask first if you’re not alone in the room. Not everyone wants the extra blast of heat, and in a shared sauna it’s basic courtesy to check. A small ladleful is enough. You don’t need to soak the stones.

Keep the conversation quiet if you’re talking at all. Plenty of people use the sauna as a wind-down, not a chat room, and loud conversation is one of the more common etiquette complaints in shared saunas worldwide.

Know When to Leave

There’s no medal for staying the longest. Somewhere around ten minutes is a reasonable ceiling for a first session, and plenty of people find five or six minutes is plenty for their first few times. If you feel lightheaded, nauseous, get a headache, or just feel like something’s off, get up and go. You can always sit back down later. There’s nothing to prove by pushing through a bad signal from your body.

Cool Down (Don’t Skip This)

This is the part first-timers most often rush, and it’s arguably half the point. Step out, and let your body come back down before you decide what’s next. A cool shower works. So does sitting in fresh air. If you have access to a lake, a cold plunge, or even just cold water, this hot-cold contrast is a core part of the tradition, not an optional extra tacked on for effect. Finns who ice swim in winter are doing an extreme version of the exact same pattern: heat, then cold, then rest.

Drink water once you’re out. You’ve lost more fluid than you probably realize, even if you didn’t feel like you were sweating heavily. If you’re planning multiple rounds, a little salt (a cracker, a pretzel, an electrolyte drink) helps more than plain water alone, since you’re losing sodium along with fluid.

Second Round, or Not

The classic pattern is heat, cool, rest, repeat, and plenty of regular sauna-goers do two or three rounds in one sitting. There’s nothing wrong with stopping after one, especially on your first visit. Give it a few sessions before you start stacking rounds. Your tolerance builds with repetition, not with forcing it on day one.

Honest Caveats

A few things worth saying plainly instead of glossing over. Alcohol and sauna heat are a bad combination: drinking impairs how your body handles temperature and fluid loss, so save the beer for after, not during. If you’re pregnant, most medical guidance leans toward skipping the sauna altogether, especially in the first trimester, rather than just “checking first.” If you have a heart condition or any condition your doctor manages, talk to them before making sauna a regular habit rather than guessing from a blog post, including this one. And if a product tries to sell you on some special “detox” or gimmicky add-on for a better sweat, be skeptical. A hot room and your own sweat glands are doing the actual work; nothing you clip on or wear does much on top of that.

The Takeaway

Shower, undress if that’s the local norm (or don’t, if it’s not), sit low, stay until it’s enough and not a minute longer, cool down properly, hydrate, and go again if you want to. That’s genuinely most of what there is to know. The rest is preference, and you’ll figure out your own version of it after a handful of sessions.