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Unique Venues Heat Up Sauna Scene in Sweden and Finland

In Sweden and Finland, some unusual saunas have been built in recent years. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
In Sweden and Finland, some unusual saunas have been built in recent years. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
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Unique Venues Heat Up Sauna Scene in Sweden and Finland

In Sweden and Finland, some unusual saunas have been built in recent years. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
In Sweden and Finland, some unusual saunas have been built in recent years. Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

Deep underground in a disused iron mine and under the bluish glow of a flashlight, a small crowd emerges from a sauna, steam rising off their bodies as they plunge into a crystal clear turquoise lake.
In Sweden and Finland, some unusual saunas have been built in recent years, offering truly singular experiences.
Nestled in the snowy forests of Bergslagen in central Sweden, hidden 90 meters (almost 300 feet) below ground in this region known for its mines, lies this very special sauna, AFP reported.
The old iron mine in the town of Borlange closed in 1968 before reopening in 2022, redesigned to welcome visitors looking for a unique -- and sweaty -- experience, Daniel Karlsson, the head of Adventure Mine, told AFP.
"If you look at saunas today, it's more like a luxury experience," he said.
But "down here it's not just a sauna. It's also the experience that you get with nature," he said, clad in a thick red parka to protect from the cold and a helmet with a headlamp.
The space offers visitors a moment of respite from the busy, connected world above.
"Because the sauna is down in the mine, there is nothing that disturbs you from enjoying the sauna."
"You don't have mobile phones, you don't have the sun, you don't have the wind," he said.
Heat on a high
Saunas are enjoyed around the world as a method of relaxation, claimed by some to provide health benefits.
They originated in Finland and Estonia, typically built as small wooden cabins where dry heat up to 100 degrees Celsius (212 F) with very low humidity is produced from a stove or hot rocks.
Having a sauna has been a social and hygiene tradition for more than 2,000 years.
Now, sauna enthusiasts who want to expand their horizons can reach new heights in Helsinki.
In the Finnish capital, a giant ferris wheel overlooking the city offers a sauna in one of its specially-built pods.
The sweat session could easily burn a hole in your wallet though, costing between 240 and 350 euros ($255 to $375).
"You can get a pretty good steam and heat here if you really want to," said shift manager Viivi Makelainen.
"Although it's pretty small, you can fit quite a few people in here, four or five. Also the views are more fun when you're in the sauna."
Saunas are an integral part of daily life for most Finns.
The country of 5.5 million inhabitants is home to 3.3 million saunas.
Traditionally considered a sacred space in Finland, 'a church of nature', the Finnish sauna culture was named a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020.
'Intimacy with the surroundings'
Saunas in the Nordic countries are typically small wooden cabins located near the shore (for a quick dip), deep in the forest (for a quick roll in the snow) or in a home (with a quick shower to refresh).
But one special sauna in the Stockholm archipelago is making waves -- sailing on the waters of the capital city.
The "Big Branzino", a luxury floating sauna measuring 30 square meters (322 square feet), was designed and built in 2022 at the request of a private person.
The structure resembles a square wooden cabin, featuring floor-to-ceiling glass windows and an open-air wheelhouse on the deck.
Inside, a custom-made wood stove with hot rocks is surrounded by wooden benches and chairs, while outside, a rooftop terrace features a large table and seating area to take in the view.
"A client came to the firm and he wanted a truly extraordinary sauna that he hadn't seen before," architect Johan Strandlund told AFP.
"So we came up with this shape in order to really maximize the intimacy with its surroundings, and we also wanted a truly breathtaking presence on the horizon," he said.
Strandlund said the floating sauna appealed to nature- and sauna-loving Swedes.
"I think it's the way that we really like to enjoy the beautiful nature that we have around here in Stockholm."
And "even when you're not using the sauna, the fire is a great source of heat, for example for cold summer nights."

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Varieties

UK Endures Second Big Storm of the Weekend, with the North Bearing the Brunt This Time

People walk through heavy rain in Liverpool, Britain, 24 October 2026. (EPA)
People walk through heavy rain in Liverpool, Britain, 24 October 2026. (EPA)
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UK Endures Second Big Storm of the Weekend, with the North Bearing the Brunt This Time

People walk through heavy rain in Liverpool, Britain, 24 October 2026. (EPA)
People walk through heavy rain in Liverpool, Britain, 24 October 2026. (EPA)

The second of two storms to hit the UK this weekend brought widespread travel disruptions and power outages to Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England on Sunday.

The Met Office, the UK's national forecaster, said Storm Boelo will bring a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves and people should stay indoors as much as possible.

Gusts above 80 mph (128 kph) have already been recorded in Scotland, including on the island of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides. Energy company SSEN had reported a total of 93 unplanned power cuts in Scotland by 10 a.m.

An amber wind warning, the Met Office’s second most severe, is active across Scotland and the north of England until late Sunday. Flood warnings are also in place, while airports, ferries, railways and roads have seen disruptions.

Boelo, pronounced “Boo-Loh”, has followed hard on the heels of Storm Austen, which battered southern England on Friday. The National Grid, which distributes electricity around the UK, said power had been restored to more than 130,000 properties impacted by Austen by 7 p.m. on Saturday.

The Met Office began naming major storms in 2015 as a way to keep the public informed about severe weather. Storms are named in alphabetical order throughout the season, from September to August.

Varieties

Ensnared Female Orangutan and Her Baby Rescued in Indonesia

A 20-year-old orangutan tries to escape as members of the BKSDA (Natural Resources Conservation Agency), the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia evacuate it due to forest and land fire, in Hampangen Village, Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan, on October 17, 2026. (AFP)
A 20-year-old orangutan tries to escape as members of the BKSDA (Natural Resources Conservation Agency), the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia evacuate it due to forest and land fire, in Hampangen Village, Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan, on October 17, 2026. (AFP)
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Ensnared Female Orangutan and Her Baby Rescued in Indonesia

A 20-year-old orangutan tries to escape as members of the BKSDA (Natural Resources Conservation Agency), the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia evacuate it due to forest and land fire, in Hampangen Village, Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan, on October 17, 2026. (AFP)
A 20-year-old orangutan tries to escape as members of the BKSDA (Natural Resources Conservation Agency), the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia evacuate it due to forest and land fire, in Hampangen Village, Katingan Regency, Central Kalimantan, on October 17, 2026. (AFP)

Indonesian conservation workers rescued an orangutan ensnared in rope and her baby on the island of Borneo where the critically endangered animals are at risk from boar traps and wildfires, an official said Sunday.

The female orangutan named Gadis, about 25 years old, and her son Garis, 10 months, were found snared in a suspected trap early Friday near a village in Central Kalimantan province on the Indonesian part of Borneo.

"Gadis was found with the ropes tied to her upper right arm and lower left arms, and the wounds were bad because the ropes had torn deep into her flesh," local conservation official Muriansyah told AFP by telephone on Sunday.

"It looked like the ropes were set up as a wild boar snare trap," added Muriansyah, who like many Indonesians has one name.

Both were receiving treatment at the Orangutan Foundation International clinic near the village of Pangkalan Bun.

Wild boar hunting using rope snares is legal and common in parts of Indonesia as a pest control measure to protect crops, but illegal inside protected forests or national parks.

Officials have repeatedly cautioned that careless placement of snares near wildlife areas could instead trap endangered sun bears or orangutans.

Dozens of orangutans have also been rescued in recent weeks from rampant wildfires burning across Indonesia that have cloaked the Southeast Asian region in a toxic haze.

Two more were released in Ketapang, West Kalimantan on Saturday after being rescued from an oil palm plantation.

Orangutans are critically endangered and only about 120,000 remain in the wild in Borneo and Sumatra -- about half the number from a century ago, according to conservation group WWF.

Last month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature said fires were burning in habitats containing 52 percent of Borneo's orangutan population.

Varieties

Cracking a Smile Regularly May be Good Not Just for Your Mood but for Your Health

FILE - A fan attends the performance by American singer Jon Batiste at the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)
FILE - A fan attends the performance by American singer Jon Batiste at the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)
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Cracking a Smile Regularly May be Good Not Just for Your Mood but for Your Health

FILE - A fan attends the performance by American singer Jon Batiste at the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)
FILE - A fan attends the performance by American singer Jon Batiste at the Rock in Rio music festival in Rio de Janeiro, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado, File)

Reminding yourself to smile often cannot only make more friendships but it can also make you feel better.

And rather than wait for a reason to smile, just making the physical change of literally turning that frown upside down could impact emotions, according to experts.

Research backs up the fact that smiling goes a long way.

Some older research has focused on this “facial feedback hypothesis,” according to Jeanne Tsai, a longtime psychology professor at Stanford University who runs the Culture and Emotion Lab. In one classic study in the late 1980s, researchers would have subjects put a pencil between their lips and adopt a smile or a frown while viewing a positive movie clip like a cartoon. Some subjects who smiled would feel the sensation of the smile more and be more amused.

“When we’ve done that demonstration in classes, it works,” Tsai said. “When you’re doing it in a room by yourself, you’re not doing it in a social interaction, maybe it’s making you remember, or it’s an effect of remembering some good thing that happened and that would put you in a better mood.”

At the Orange County Academy of Sciences and Arts in Southern California, the power of a smile is taken very seriously. An entire section on the charter school group’s website is dedicated to its philosophy that a smile can make a difference.

“Smiling creates a supportive classroom culture that makes students relaxed, active, and motivated,” according to the website. “It increases emotional well-being, lowers stress, and gives students confidence.”

How smiling can benefit health Dr. Judy Ho, a Los Angeles clinical and forensic neuropsychologist who also teaches at Pepperdine University, discusses smiling as a coping strategy with some patients suffering depression or anxiety.

“I'm not suggesting that that's the only way they can fix things,” Ho said. “It's just like another thing that you can add to your toolbox.”

Smiling can affect one's level of cortisol, a hormone the body releases partly to help regulate stress and mood, according to Ho. Smiling can affect brain chemicals that are associated with positive feelings including endorphins, dopamine and serotonin.

“People who smile during stressful tasks generally demonstrated lower heart rates during recovery than those maintaining neutral expressions,” Ho said. “Smiling also reduced aspects of the body's physiological stress response.”

The hope is if you smile enough, you will start feeling it emotionally.

“In some ways it's like a mediating effect,” she added.

The value of a smile varies culture to culture How smiling and even the openness of a smile are perceived are not universal. Tsai, the Stanford professor, has conducted research on how emotion in American culture puts value on trying to always feel positive and minimizing negativity and sadness. In East Asian cultures, emotion is more about balance.

“It’s like the positive and the negative emotions are braided together, and so you don’t want to feel too positive or too negative,” Tsai said. “You want more of a balance between the two.”

Her past studies also examined how European Americans and East Asians — including Taiwanese, South Koreans, Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese — look at a “neutral or a calm” smile versus a full-on grin. Subjects rated the differing facial expressions on warmth and trustworthiness. While some Americans saw the excited smiles as friendlier, some East Asians characterized those facial expressions as “emotionally unstable” or “unreliable."

“What kind of smile matters — whether it’s a calm, closed mouth smile more like the Dalai Lama or a big toothy excited smile like Julia Roberts,” Tsai said. “We’ve done some series of studies in Taiwan and other East Asian contexts. They don’t like the big, toothy, excited smile unless it’s really situationally appropriate.”

In Thailand — known as “The Land of Smiles” — smiling is embedded in the culture. There are nearly 30 Thai words for “smile.” Many teach-abroad programs where people can teach English as a foreign language in Thailand cite that smiling often with children and colleagues is key to showing respect, good manners and calmness.

At the OCASA charter schools, smiling is part of an effort to make children feel seen.

“I’ve always believed in wanting school to be a happy place for kids,” said RaNae Posey, principal of OCASA Capistrano Elementary School. “To actually help them form habits of looking at the bright side of things.”

Mandating smiles may lead to more frowns Women in recent years have smacked down the idea that they have to smile in the workplace while men do not. Smiling can feel like a Catch-22 for some women and sometimes for people of color who may be stereotyped as unapproachable or cold if they don’t smile enough.

Last year, retailer Target was ridiculed across social media for instituting a smiling policy. Workers had to smile and make eye contact if a customer was within 10 feet (3 meters) and personally greet them if they were within 4 feet (1.2 meters).

People do not like feeling like they have no “emotional autonomy,” according to Nicholas Coles, an assistant professor who runs the Social Science Collaboratory at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“In those scenarios, what we find is that it’s more that you’re smiling your way to misery,” Coles said. “It’s only when it feels authentic and voluntary that I think it’ll have any real effect.”

With the holidays approaching, more people may have to muster smiles with family if sensitive topics like politics and religion come up. Those could be good times to see if smiling helps.

“If we were able to just smile and be like ’Look, this is somebody that historically cares about you and loves you,' maybe that would change the way that we respond to them even in a moment of tough conversation,” Ho said.