Sauna and alcohol: why it's a bad idea
By the Find My Sauna team·
Updated ·
6 min read
A few drinks, then the sauna: it sounds relaxing, and in plenty of places it's a tradition. It's also a bad mix: in Finland, the country that knows saunas best, half of the people who died in saunas over a 13-year period had been drinking. This is what alcohol does to you in the heat.
The short answer
Don't use a sauna after drinking. Alcohol and heat both lower your blood pressure, and together they make fainting much more likely. Alcohol also dehydrates you, dulls your sense of when you're too hot, and makes falls and burns more likely. In a Finnish study of sauna deaths, half of the people who died had been drinking. You can't sweat out a hangover either: your liver breaks down alcohol, not your sweat glands. Wait until you're sober and rehydrated.
What the Finnish data show
Finland has about two million saunas for 5.2 million people, so if anyone has numbers on sauna deaths, it's the Finns. In a 2008 study in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, two Finnish researchers looked at deaths in saunas in Finland from 1990 to 2002, using police reports, post-mortems and toxicology tests.
Sauna deaths turned out to be rare, fewer than 2 per 100,000 people a year. About half were natural deaths and a quarter were caused by the heat itself. But 50% of the people who died had been drinking, and the researchers found that alcohol's role had been growing. Their advice was blunt: drink less, and never leave someone who's drunk alone in a sauna.
A 1988 Finnish review came to a similar conclusion, estimating that alcohol contributed to 20–25 sauna deaths a year in a country of under five million.
Blood pressure and fainting
In a sauna, blood rushes to your skin to help you cool down, and your blood pressure tends to drop. Alcohol widens blood vessels too. Put the two together and the effect adds up.
A small Finnish trial in 1992 measured exactly this. Ten healthy young men used a sauna sober and, on another day, after heavy drinking. Sober, their systolic blood pressure stayed about where it started. After drinking, it fell from an average of 136 to 113. That's the kind of drop that can make you faint when you stand up, and a faint in a sauna can mean hitting your head on a bench or lying unconscious in the heat.
Your heart
Your heart already works harder in the sauna: it can reach 120–150 beats a minute. In that same 1992 trial, the healthy young men didn't develop abnormal heart rhythms, even after drinking. But a review in the American Journal of Medicine lists alcohol in the sauna as a risk for low blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms and sudden death, and Finnish doctors have flagged the hangover the next day as a risky time too. If you have any heart condition, the combination is a bad idea.
Dehydration
Alcohol makes you pee more, which is a big part of why hangovers feel the way they do. A sauna makes you sweat, often half a litre or more in a session. Doing both at once, or a sauna while you're hungover, leaves you short of fluid in two ways. That's a fast route to a headache, dizziness and feeling sick. Our guide to staying hydrated in the sauna explains how much you lose.
Falls, burns and drowning
Saunas have hot stoves, wet floors, steps and, often, cold water nearby. Alcohol slows your reactions and blunts your judgement. A review of seven years of patients at the burns centre of Kuopio University Hospital in Finland found that about a quarter of all burns were sauna-related, mostly from touching the stove or from steam. 40% of those people had been drinking.
Finnish doctors also list sprains, head injuries, heatstroke after passing out, and drowning among the accidents linked to drinking at the sauna. Lakes and cold plunges are part of the fun sober. After a few drinks, they're a hazard.
Can you sweat out a hangover?
No. Most alcohol is broken down by your liver, and only a small amount leaves your body in sweat and breath. Sweating harder doesn't speed that up. What a sauna does to a hungover body is dry it out further and push its blood pressure down. The 1988 Finnish review singled out the hangover phase as a time when the risk of heart rhythm problems may be higher.
If you're hungover, drink water, eat something and wait it out. A lukewarm shower is fine. Save the sauna for the next day.
How long to wait
There's no research-backed number of hours. A sensible rule is to wait until you're completely sober and no longer hungover, which after a heavy night usually means the next day. If you've had a single drink with dinner, wait a few hours, drink some water and see how you feel. If you have to ask whether you've sobered up, you haven't.
And the beer after the sauna? It's a familiar habit in Finland and plenty of other places. Most of the research is about heavy drinking, not one beer once you're out and cooled down. Have water first, and stop at one.
Who should be careful
The risks are higher still if you have a heart condition, high or low blood pressure, diabetes or a history of fainting, or if you take medicine that affects blood pressure. Never leave someone who's been drinking alone in a sauna, and never let them swim or plunge. Our sauna safety rules cover the rest, and if you get headaches after the sauna even when sober, read why you get a headache after the sauna.
This guide is general information, not medical advice.
Where to go (sober)
Russian and Turkish-style bathhouses are some of the best places to spend a long, sober evening going between the heat and cold water. A few to try:
Dillon's Russian Steam Bath
Boston · Russian steam bath
Forest Hills Spa
New York · Banya with a pool
Russian & Turkish Baths Miami Beach
Miami · Banya, hammam and saunas
Frequently asked questions
Is it dangerous to go in a sauna after drinking?
Yes. Alcohol and heat both lower blood pressure, which makes fainting more likely, and alcohol dehydrates you. In Finland, half of the people who died in saunas between 1990 and 2002 had been drinking.
Can a sauna help a hangover?
No. Your liver breaks down alcohol, and sweating does not speed that up. A sauna adds more dehydration to a body that is already short of fluid.
How long after drinking can I use a sauna?
There is no set time. Wait until you are fully sober and no longer hungover, which after heavy drinking usually means the next day.
Is one beer in the sauna OK?
The research is mostly about heavy drinking, but even a small amount adds to the fluid you lose and dulls your judgement in the heat. Water is the better choice in the sauna. If you want a beer, have it afterwards once you have cooled down.
Can you sweat out alcohol?
Only a small amount of alcohol leaves the body in sweat. Almost all of it is broken down by the liver at its own pace.
