The word “sauna” is Finnish, and Finnish people tend to prefer that this term is reserved for traditional Finnish sauna. Colloquially, however, sauna can mean a variety of forms of passive heat exposure, including ones from other cultures (e.g., Russian banya, Turkish hammam, Jewish shvitz, Korean jjimjilbang) and ones that have proliferated due to new technologies (e.g., electric/infrared saunas).
Practically speaking, saunas can vary in many notable ways:
- Temperature
- Relative humidity
- Heating method
- Duration of use
- Frequency of use
- Whether intervallic “cooling off” periods are employed and what they entail (e.g., cold plunge, rolling in snow, sitting in a cooler room)
- Design and construction of the structure itself
- Additional practices like the use of veniks (“bath brooms” made of birch) in Russian banya practice