When the Finns migrated to other areas of the globe they brought their sauna designs and traditions with them, introducing other cultures to the enjoyment and health benefits of sauna. My introduction to a finnish sauna was at the tender age of 18 and what was supposed to be a "meet-the-parents-for-lunch" event, turned into an all nudity event in a sauna (this included the 'vasta', where finns tie together small fresh birch branches and swat themselves and their fellow sauna bathers with it).

While meeting the family in full nudity was not pleasant, the sauna experience was and over the years I managed to have a sauna in every house I lived in.

I stumbled across a number of distributors in South Africa who nowadays sell sauna-kits. In essence a number of wooden panels (typically made of canadian hemlock) which are pre-wired and can easily be "clipped" together:

As technology has moved on, so have saunas. If you were used to hot rock saunas with heating elements, nowadays you get infrared saunas which come delivered with digital control panels, built-in hifi-system, chromotherapy (light therapy) and an oxygen ionizer.

The cool thing about infrared saunas is that they heat up quite quickly (in 8 minutes to 50 degrees celsius) and infrared beams warm objects without warming the air between them.

Although this sounds like you would microwave your body, Infrared light is absolutely safe as it is part of the Sun's invisible spectrum of light. The benefits of Far-infrared light are manifested in its ability to penetrate the human tissue. The Far-infrared heat (Far-infrared light waves) penetrates your skin, giving you that wonderful natural warmth. Unlike sunbathing, you can relax in a Far infrared sauna for hours and it will never cause your skin to burn. Infrared heater technology is completely healthy and safe for all living things.

There are a number of health benefits using a sauna such as lowering of blood pressure, weight loss (you will burn between 300-600 cal in a 30 minute session), lowering of blood sugar levels, increase in blood flow, lowering of cholesterol, pain relief, boosting of immune system and improving of skin tone and elasticity.

I purchased a 2 person sauna and received delivery of 6 boxes for self-installation. If you are reasonably strong, you will be able to assemble it yourself (the top- and rear-panels are the heaviest to lift). Installation goes fairly quick as everything is pre-wired. You place the back-panel onto the base, clip in the 2 side panels and then the curved panels and door. The top-cover contains all the electronics and connects to the heaters through cabling fed inside the side-panels via male-female kettle plugs. Once assembled, you just need to install the hi-fi (stereo speakers with MP3 CD radio), ionizer and towel- / magazine holder.

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]]> http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/13/infrared-sauna#comments http://www.naschenweng.info/?tempskin=_rss2&disp=comments&p=335 http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/13/infrared-sauna http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Naschenwenginfo/~3/py63b5NMu8c/the-friday-picture-fishing Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:07:46 +0000 gnaschenweng On the web 334@http://www.naschenweng.info/ <p><em><strong>The Friday Picture</strong> will provide you with inspirational and (de)motiviational guidance to make the approaching weekend so much more appealing:</em></p> <div class="image_block"><a href="http://www.naschenweng.info/media/blogs/a/lifestyle/humor/fridaypicture/fishing.jpg"><img src="http://www.naschenweng.info/media/blogs/a/lifestyle/humor/fridaypicture/fishing.jpg" alt="" title="" width="420" height="532" /></a></div> <div class="sharethis"> <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"> SHARETHIS.addEntry( { title : 'The Friday Picture: Fishing', url : 'http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/12/the-friday-picture-fishing'}, { button: true } ) ; </script></div> <br /> <script type='text/javascript'>digg_url = 'http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/12/the-friday-picture-fishing'; digg_url = digg_url.replace(/amp;/g, ''); digg_bgcolor = '#FFFFFF'; digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_title = 'The Friday Picture: Fishing'; digg_bodytext = 'The Friday Picture will provide you with inspirational and (de)motiviational guidance to make the approaching weekend so much more appealing: '; </script><script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'></script><div class="item_footer"><hr /> <table width="100%" border="0"><tr> <td valign="top" align="right"><p><small>Powered by <a href="http://www.naschenweng.info/">naschenweng.info</a>.</small></p></td> <td align="right" width="150"><img src="http://www.satopsites.com/button.php?u=</div> The Friday Picture will provide you with inspirational and (de)motiviational guidance to make the approaching weekend so much more appealing: Powered by naschenweng.info. ]]> http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/12/the-friday-picture-fishing#comments http://www.naschenweng.info/?tempskin=_rss2&disp=comments&p=334 http://www.naschenweng.info/2009/06/12/the-friday-picture-fishing http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Naschenwenginfo/~3/IbGcPvgzubU/duggThu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PDThttp://digg.com/users/GNaschenweng//dugg#2009-04-22<ul> <li><a href="http://digg.com/political_opinion/South_African_elections">South African elections</a><br/> It was an early start to the day for many to avoid long queues at voting stations. We wanted to get the voting out of the way, and joined a queue of 50 people at 6:30am in Pretoria. Nonetheless, the ANC managed to almost cross the electoral act by displaying party advertising in front of the voting station.</li> </ul><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Naschenwenginfo/~4/IbGcPvgzubU" height="1" width="1"/>http://digg.com/users/GNaschenweng//dugg#2009-04-22http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Naschenwenginfo/~3/D_MesXIMqfg/duggTue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 PDThttp://digg.com/users/GNaschenweng//dugg#2009-04-20<ul> <li><a href="http://digg.com/political_opinion/Live_the_high_life_viva_ANC">Live the high-life, viva ANC</a><br/> It is only 48 more hours till election day and South Africa is rallying to convince people to vote for their favorite party. 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