The procedure only Russians know, first we sweat beyond our limits, well certainly I did as they periodically poured water on the hot furnace. After exiting the sauna, you threw-off your covering and dip yourself in a small pool, individually and privately, this is the shock treatment from hot to cold. Next was a game of water polo in a hundred squ

I am on my way to experience the archetypal Finnish pastime. Actually, it is far more than a pastime—in Finland it is considered one of life’s necessities, intrinsic to, and indivisible from, elemental notions of Finnishness. This ungodly act is simply something that Finns do, like the British and their DIY, or the French and their adultery. I have

Over the next three days—which consisted of treatments and consistently superb food and an increasing sense of having left real life somewhere else—I was conscious of a change in my disposition. As a rule, I am terrible at vacations. I run out of books and boredom sets in, and then some faint, nagging echo of my Anglo-Saxon conscience tells me that

shut out the world by sinking into the tub. To my mind, baths are as necessary for spiritual replenishment and centring as is prayer and meditation.

In the changing room later, I experience a different kind of warmth: the nakedness of a dozen women, all unashamed. These aren’t the posing bodies you find on the beach, dieted beyond all joy to be bikini-ready, and tanned as an act of disguise. These are northern bodies, slack-bottomed and dimpling, with unruly pubic hair and the scars of hysterec

“There are as many ways to breathe as there are foods to eat,” said one female instructor who had held her breath for more than eight minutes and once dived below 300 feet. “And each way we breathe will affect our bodies in different ways.” Another diver told me that some methods of breathing will nourish our brains, while others will kill neurons;