Dynorphins, Heat Shock Proteins & The Healthiest, Hottest Sauna On The Planet, with Luke Chapman & Owen Buchanan

Ben Greenfield

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast, the...

Luke

Last year I was there, I got exposed to mold. Am I gonna die? Like, what's happening? That's what led me to get in the sauna every day and just start getting that stuff out of me.

Owen

That's actually one of my favorite parts about the sauna, is that...

Ben Greenfield

There's very great detox potential for a sauna.

Luke

It's the best reset.

Ben Greenfield

Welcome to Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond.

Ben Greenfield

So I don't think it's any secret that I am a huge fan of thermal stress. Hot, cold contrast, sauna, cold plunging, and the like have been an integral part of my own wellness and sanity protocol for years. I recently invested in a new sauna. It is a custom-built dry sauna that is tricked out to the max. Low VOC air that circulates throughout. The floors are grounded. Himalayan salt lining underneath the benches, the works, and the guys who built it are based out of Idaho. They have a very unique approach to saunas, and I thought it would be fun to talk about all things sauna, from custom saunas to prefab saunas, to what to look for in a sauna, to things you can do from the grounding to the salt to the tricked-out heaters. So it's all in this show, and as part of this show, I'm also going to put in the show notes my YouTube video with my personal sauna mobility protocol, which I do in the sauna we're talking about on the show, as well as the Western Soul website. Western Soul is the name of the company that built this sauna, owned by Luke and Owen, who I'm about to interview. So all the show notes are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast. That's bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast. Let's go talk to Luke and Owen. All right, guys, so first of all, welcome to the show. And second, when we were visiting after you built the sauna in my backyard, Luke, I think it was you who was telling me that you actually got into this whole thing in the first place because you were sick.

Luke

Totally, yeah, yeah. It was not a planned-out thing. I grew up in Idaho, but I was living in Hawaii.

Ben Greenfield

Wait, did you grow up in the good or the bad part of Idaho?

Luke

That's debatable. I don't know. I would say it was pretty good, a very well-rounded place.

Ben Greenfield

For those not familiar with the Idaho debate, I think Luke's south, I'm north, but I forgive you.

Luke

But yeah, so Idaho's home. I love all of Idaho, but Boise's a good area. And then I actually graduated high school in 2020. Had no clue what I was gonna do. Ended up traveling, going to Hawaii. I did this mission school with YWAM, and that's kind of what brought me to Hawaii. Met a bunch of cool people. Ended up staying out there, and then was on pen and paper living the dream for a while, surfing, working. But the last year I was there, I got exposed to mold and didn't figure it out for a while, but just wasn't getting better. Owen and I both have a background in construction, so in between construction jobs, I was like, all right, let's build one. The doctor said I should be in the sauna every day.

Ben Greenfield

And then, by the way, just backpedaling for a second, that's common in Florida too. Is it the humidity, do you think, that contributes to the mold issues?

Luke

Yeah, I mean, all of Idaho is pretty dry, right? So growing up here, I haven't really heard of that. If anything, it's super rare. I had no clue it could affect your health. I just thought, oh, you have to fix your home. But yeah, I think it's the humidity. I was living in like the jungle too in Hawaii, so super rainy out there.

Ben Greenfield

And so what were you feeling when you went to the doctor, as far as symptoms?

Luke

It was like anything and everything. Honestly, it was kind of a perfect storm too. I don't know if I had COVID or what, but my immune system was down. I was kind of sick. I flew back home for Christmas and was snowboarding. Ended up slamming pretty hard. I don't know if I got a concussion or not, but I took a spill, had to rest for a few days, was also run down and sick. And then when I flew straight back to Hawaii, I was already run down, and then went into that same moldy space, which I didn't know about yet. But then for months I was not getting better, and then eventually found the mold, got the air tested, got my blood and urine tested, and started to catch on to it. And I was like, "Oh, what am I getting into here? This is kind of scary." That's what led me to get in the sauna every day and just start getting that stuff out of me.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it's weird. That perfect storm is something you hear about a lot. A guy named Neil Nathan, I think that's his name, has a book called Toxic, and it talks about the cell danger response, and how if you're in a certain state of sympathetic nervous system stimulation, and your terrain, so to speak, is kind of set up to be on red alert, encountering a toxin or mold or something like that, that your body might not normally freak out against, can cause an overexaggerated sympathetic response if you're already in a scenario where you're compromised.

Luke

Totally, yeah, I felt that, and then it was like a phase where I felt like the fear didn't help at all. My body wasn't in a state to heal yet, because I was like, "Am I gonna die? What's happening?" And that made it worse for a while, until I got to a place, and the sauna was a huge part of that, where I had my safe spaces to detox. I was living in a clean house. All of those things allowed my body to actually detox and reset from there.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, all right, so get into the sauna piece. Where did the sauna fit in?

Luke

Yeah, so I mean, that's how it started. And then there's the background in building houses. Owen's dad, our grandpa, our uncle, they've all built custom homes, houses, apartments. So Owen and I did a lot of that, helping out growing up. And then after high school, we built a custom home each year, so it's kind of natural to build our own instead of trying to buy one, because it sounded like a fun project. And then Owen joined in shortly after. I moved back to Idaho just to reset, get better help with my health, and that's where I really built the first one. And Owen started helping me with that when he wasn't working, and then his work slowed down, and I wasn't ready to jump back into the family business or anything, kind of taking my time. And shortly from there, we just flipped one sauna on Facebook, and we were like, I think there's something here. It was 2023, so all the wellness stuff was just ramping up, and we were like, I think there's a market here. We're passionate about building, and I was now passionate about a non-toxic lifestyle and just being the best me. And right away, he was in. So...

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, you guys should probably be sending Rhonda Patrick and Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan royalty checks for helping this thing get popular over the past two years. So, yeah, we were talking before we started recording, and you guys just got back from Europe. You were in, what, freaking Estonia, Sweden, where else?

Luke

Portugal, and then I was in Italy.

Ben Greenfield

I think that's kind of a good illustration of what you're doing that's unique in the sauna space, because you guys weren't just over there messing around, you're actually doing research or sourcing materials or something like that. Exactly. Yeah.

Owen

Yeah, that's where we source all our materials from. So even in the very beginning stages, the very first sauna we ever built, that shop in Star, when Luke first moved back from Hawaii, we sourced all the wood from Idaho just because it was close, but that's where we started to run into problems with cedar wood, and we were like, okay, is there any other better option? We want to build the best sauna possible. So...

Ben Greenfield

What's the problem with cedar?

Owen

So cedar is just a weaker wood overall. It's great, it's the only wood that's naturally antibacterial, antimicrobial, antifungal, lasts outside very well. The thing is, once you get into year three, year four, especially with it being outside, cedar, when it expands and contracts, the sauna is getting hot and then it's cooling down, getting hot, cooling down, all that temperature change is going to cause the cedar to warp and bend over time. So that's where we found these guys in Estonia who thermo-press all their wood. And not only that, it's made with aspen and spruce, which is three times stronger than cedar wood. So that's what gives our wood that darker color too.

Ben Greenfield

Interesting. And what does that mean, for it to be thermo, you say thermo-pressed?

Luke

Yeah, absolutely. So it's just heat. It's just heat. So no chemicals whatsoever. It's an organic process where they're keeping the wood the wood, but the cool thing about it, and really why we switched, is that it's exposing it to a much higher heat than your sauna is ever going to experience. It's around 400 degrees. Your sauna can get up to 212, so it's already been in much harsher conditions. So when it hits that 212 mark, it's not going to start to warp, it's already been there. That's a pretty cool thing. And it would be awesome to stay in Idaho and source from there, which we do use, we use some lumber mills in Idaho for the exterior of your sauna, because it's a great exterior wood. Just with the high heat of the sauna, it actually resists the heat better too, so your benches aren't going to get as hot. All those little things added up to, well, we're going to use the best possible materials, the best heaters. And so that's why we've pivoted to that thermo wood.

Ben Greenfield

I'll put pictures, by the way, for people who are listening or watching. Just go to bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast.

Luke

Too, right here.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, go to bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast, and I'll put photos of the sauna that Luke and Owen built for me, also because they do prefabs and they do customs. I had a prefab before you guys built mine, and it wasn't a bad one as far as reviews and everything. I mean, we're talking like a $12,000 prefab sauna, but it was significantly warped within like two months of use. Made of...

Owen

Cedar.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, yeah, yep.

Luke

And everyone loves the smell, but yeah, the warping is the hardest part. When we built the first one, we milled all of it by hand, and it was cedar. But if the board's not perfectly straight, and you're stacking and stacking, it's gonna make it easier and easier to warp.

Ben Greenfield

So it's kind of a paradox, because people use the sauna to sweat stuff out. Obviously there's very great detox potential for a sauna. Not so much for microplastics, a lot of people think microplastics are almost too big for a lot of them to get through sweat pores. But for a lot of other stuff, metals, anything that's been conjugated in the liver, etc., the skin is a major detoxification portal. But then a lot of sauna wood, from what I understand, and I think this was actually the first thing that landed me on your guys's website, a lot of sauna wood is high VOC, high chemical.

Luke

For sure. Yeah, yeah, and that's a huge thing. We've seen with infrared, because you're using more of those plastic or glued components, since it's a much lighter, smaller sauna, they're like, okay, we can just glue this together. Everything we're using is bigger wood, it's heavier, it's more of a process to build. But in turn, we can just use screws and nails on the exterior to lock everything in, so the inside you're left with literally just wood and then your heating elements. And if we ever add any color, we're using waxes and things like that that are designed specifically for sauna. It's just wax and pigment to get the black colors or whatever.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, so even the paint, the treatment you do after the thermo-pressing and everything, that's all low VOC too?

Owen

Yeah, it's literally food grade. You could eat it if you wanted to.

Luke

Yeah, debatable.

Ben Greenfield

Good to know. I can go full Willy Wonka in my sauna, Willy Wonka walls.

Luke

When you don't have any color in yours, you don't have anything, but yeah...

Ben Greenfield

Just the black on the outside. I want to talk a little bit more about the engineering of the sauna, but before that, I know you guys, you're not scientists per se, but you know a little bit about the effects of heat. There were two things beyond just what people are probably familiar with, detoxification and sweating, and maybe some cardiovascular stuff, that I came across in some articles on your website, which are also linked in the show notes. One was heat shock proteins, and the other was dynorphins. I think people are maybe a little less aware of what those two things are, what they do. Do you guys feel like you could explain those?

Luke

Yeah, totally. And that's another one to shout out Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan for, because they've educated a lot of people on that as well. And like you said, we have a bunch of studies on our website, all the seminal pieces on saunas, and that was a huge reason for going to Europe and doing all that, just to go to the motherland of where all that research is done and where they've been around forever. Because traditional saunas have been around forever, the infrareds are a little newer, so the research is a little newer. So pretty much everything on our website is on traditional saunas, and that's really where you're going to get the heat shock proteins, in that high heat. I think the studies say above 179, 180 is a good zone. So that's basically controlled stress on your body, triggering your cells to create these proteins that can go and repair the misfolded proteins, help with recovery. There are endless benefits, and like you said, we're not doctors or scientists, but it's been pretty cool to read about it and hear about it, and also see it. When we sauna frequently and are on a good schedule and routine, you recover faster, you feel better. And then Owen can touch on dynorphins.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it is true. I think a lot of people think maybe that's just blood flow, right, with the sauna or with hot cold contrast, and that's why you recover faster. But you touched on it, the heat shock proteins actually assist with repair of DNA and cellular damage, due to their ability to support the natural folding that occurs with proteins in your body. It'd be like scrambling and then somehow unscrambling and reassembling an egg. That's kind of what a heat shock protein could do for you. And by the way, you mentioned infrared. I think you could take a lot of what's called the photobiomodulation research on PubMed and make a case that the light exposure you're getting in infrared has a host of benefits, but you are right, the lion's share of the studies out there have been done at like 175 Fahrenheit plus, in a dry sauna, European style.

Luke

And you know this better than anyone, but I think often a marketing thing that gets confused is there's two types of infrared. One is the infrared light, and the other is the infrared heat waves. And that's where there are also some studies showing that if you want the true red light, like all the red light panels, a lot of those absorption rates die off at a super high heat. At 175, that's where you want the heat shock proteins. So it's a super tough one to educate people on, but that's what we're definitely working on and trying to stay up to date on ourselves.

Ben Greenfield

I could put red lights in this sauna that you guys built for me, but I would only run them if I had it set at 175 or less. There's no reason somebody couldn't do that, but folks should just know, if you're going to outfit a dry sauna with red light, only use the red light when you're 175 or under. I guess I say that, but it's not going to hurt you. If you're just using it for aesthetic purposes or mood lighting, that's fine. But if you're trying to do the light for the physiological benefit, make sure the skin temp and the room temp aren't too hot. What about dynorphins? What are those?

Owen

Yeah, dynorphins, they're essentially a natural opioid peptide that occurs in your body, and they only get released during stressful situations. So when you're doing something you kind of don't want to do, something uncomfortable, like being in a super hot room, that's when these flood out. It sounds a lot like the word endorphins. Those are more associated with pleasure. Dynorphins are associated with uncomfortable things. That's actually one of my favorite parts about the sauna, the mental aspect of it, challenging yourself, where the only thought going on in your brain is "get me out of this place." But you stay in there, and that's where the true benefits come in, when you're in that controlled stress state. That's when a lot of these benefits come in. You're in the sauna at the beginning, and it's really nice and relaxing, but the benefits don't really come in until you feel like you're dying, and you're kind of in those beginning stages of heat stroke, where you're really pushing yourself.

Ben Greenfield

Some people talk about how you don't feel a shark bite during a shark attack, at first, because your body just floods with endorphins to help you feel good. Not to be gross, but basically in a sauna, your body has to figure out a way to feel good because it's so freaking hot. And if you're staying in there at the correct temperature, at a high enough temperature for a long enough period of time, that's when you get that dynorphin effect, and that's one of the reasons you feel so good afterward. I was telling my wife, besides our pickleball court, I think getting in your sauna and then getting out and swimming back and forth across our pond, which has been kind of my protocol for the past few weeks, is incredible. There's nothing else that makes my afternoon, and I do this at like four o'clock in the afternoon to get back to work. So yeah, it's great.

Luke

It's the best reset.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, I want to get back into the sauna engineering. We talked about the wood choice, so you use a thermopressed aspen, low VOC, low chemicals. What else are you doing, if anything, in the actual sauna itself, from a health standpoint, I guess?

Luke

Yeah, well, the cool thing is the heaters. You saw it, it's circulating all the air. So you want to have proper ventilation. We have vents in your sauna, but then also with the sauna heaters, it's actually increasing the oxygen, because it's pulling fresh air from ground level through vents. It has an air intake, which is a super cool thing. They have a patent on it, there's no other sauna that can do that. And when we came across it, we tried it at the manufacturing site, that's also who we were visiting in Estonia, and it's just a game changer. It's probably the one thing in sauna that's the number one thing that's changed, is now you can have it oxygen-rich.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it's moving hot air through the sauna. I have a friend who has little mini fans, like USB-C powered mini fans, in his sauna at the top to blow the hot air down. And I think the way you guys described it to me, there's nowhere to hide in the sauna. The whole thing has this hot air circulating through it?

Luke

Yeah, and so that's cool. I always tell people it feels more like a hot tub, your feet are hot and your head's hot. But also it's genuinely a healthier sauna, because in most saunas all that hot air just gets collected and trapped at the top, and this is cycling in fresh air. You have to change the air in the room like six times to keep the oxygen levels at the original state, so you're not breathing that CO2 and having a completely trapped room. It's circulating air the whole time, but it's circulating the same temperature air, so you're not losing the heat. Because you can open your door in a regular sauna and get some airflow, but then you lose all the heat. So it's just a super cool thing they do, and it also has the health benefits as well.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it is brutal though, because I exercise in the sauna sometimes, and I'll drop in front of that thing and do push-ups with the hot air circulating literally pouring over my body as I'm cranking out push-ups on the floor of the sauna, so it definitely warms things up.

Luke

And another thing, to your point about what we've done in the sauna for the health benefits, is the salt walls. The sauna heater actually has salt rocks in it, so it's going to catch that humid air and pick up the salt ions, put it in the air. And then we have nine feet of salt rock, three times over, in your sauna, which is super thick. So your whole room, you're getting some of that salt therapy, which can release those negative ions, give you that ocean-like environment.

Ben Greenfield

Talk to me a little more about that, what that means for people. People have probably seen salt caves or heard of salt therapy and this idea of negative ions, but get into that a little more for me.

Luke

Yeah, so it can help reduce inflammation. A lot of the research, I think, is newer, so hopefully we'll get more and more on that. But along with, you know, you go to the ocean and other places, it's kind of like the grounded floors, you just feel good being outside, it's one of those elements. Like the grounded floors, the salt, the big window with natural light, it's getting you into that calm state where you can actually heal and recover. And then also it can purify the air and help your lungs detox even further with that salt in the air.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, then the negative ions, those are the same things you get if you're walking on the beach or next to a waterfall or in a salt cave. Not a lot of people have a salt cave, so we just kind of built one. But basically the sauna is lined with these Himalayan salt blocks, and I could probably find a picture of this, or maybe you guys do, and I'll put it in the show notes. In the heater, where the air comes out from under the heater, there are all these little salt balls, so the air coming out from the heater is catching those too.

Luke

Yeah, and the humidity is cool too, because it really helps pick it up. It gives it something to attach to.

Ben Greenfield

Talk to me about the water on the rocks, because you go to a lot of gyms and they say don't pour the water on the rocks, that'll destroy the coils. I had one, kind of an older, cheaper one, one of the HUUM heaters, catch on fire, and some of the coils shattered. How do you pronounce the name of the heater? Saunum? Saunum?

Owen

Yeah.

Luke

It's sauna, but with "um," Saunum.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, Saunum. So with the water, whether it's the sauna or anything else, what is the rule, or what's the take, on putting water on the rocks?

Owen

Yeah, so that's part of the traditional Finnish sauna culture. I believe it's löyly. It's spelled L-O-Y-L-Y.

Ben Greenfield

Löyly, the spirit of the sauna. Yeah.

Owen

You can say it however, I say it the American way, but anyway, that's been part of the culture for the longest time, a perfect mixture of steam and heat and humidity. So we encourage it, and especially with the Saunum, and a lot of other saunas, when you pour water on the rocks, that steam immediately rises to the top by your head, and it's a really harsh steam. That's also what the Saunum does great, it filters that steam, so it's really mild on you, and it doesn't burn your nose when you're trying to breathe it in. So it's a really nice experience for your lungs as well, especially if you have the essential oils in there. We like to put some eucalyptus, maybe a little peppermint-type oil in there. So really it's nice to breathe for the aroma, and also I enjoy the humidity because it allows your body to heat up quicker. That's why it feels hotter when it's humid, it's a denser heat, and it allows your core body temperature to rise faster than if it was just dry.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, have you guys been in those saunas before, or at like a spa or whatever, where they whip you with the branches, like birch branches, to drive that humidified air even closer to your body?

Owen

Yeah.

Luke

Yeah, yeah, we just got them, in Estonia.

Owen

Yeah, yeah, in Estonia we found a traditional Finnish sauna house where the local people all come, and it's communal, there's a men's and a women's one, so obviously everyone's completely traditional, naked in there. And we walk into this sauna, and it's like six levels up, and it's one of the hottest saunas I've ever been in. It was hard to even sit down, the wood was so hot, when you put your feet on the ground it was so hot. And these guys in there are just whipping themselves with birch and eucalyptus leaves, and we're getting pelted with mixtures of their sweat and everything. We were just in the culture. It was amazing.

Ben Greenfield

That's right. Well, heat is antibacterial. With the rocks for this sauna, you told me, I think, that you could literally spray the thing down with a garden hose and it's still not gonna destroy the coils.

Owen

Yes, that's the safety rating on this one.

Luke

Yeah.

Owen

Yeah.

Luke

Yeah, this, some of the other heaters, they encourage you not to, or you've got to be super careful. Obviously if it's wood-fired, you're pretty safe with any brand. But this brand specifically, like Owen talked about with you, they test it by spraying every angle, so it's super safe. They claim it's the safest heater on the market, and they're UL listed, and they run their own tests as well. So yeah, it's a super safe heater. And actually when we built it for you, the packaging on it just says "made for steam," and you have to take that off before you put it on, which is pretty funny, like they're encouraging it too.

Owen

Yeah, so they go one step higher than the HUUM. You were saying you had the HUUM heater before, that one's safety standard passes with only like three directions, from the front, from the top, and from the side, is where they sprayed it. But the Saunum, their settings are a little higher, so theirs was literally every direction, underneath, behind, 360 degrees. They sprayed it with a hose and it didn't short out.

Ben Greenfield

That thing churns it out for sure. Speaking of shorting, this was something, kind of like, I forgot we talked about it, and then you guys showed me when I got back from being out of town and you were already well into building the sauna in my backyard. I don't think it's any secret for people who have seen my home tour that I got super into EMF, low EMF, hardwired Ethernet. When you guys stayed here, you were in the guest room, you know how it is. But I grounded the floors, every floor you're on is as though you're barefoot outside, and it turns out you guys actually can do that in a sauna.

Luke

Yeah, no, that was pretty cool, because we were obviously talking with you for a while, we'd seen the house videos and how you guys built it, and we're also builders and into wellness, so seeing how you guys constructed your home with every little detail, I was like, what can we do for Ben and his sauna to make it an extension of his house? And then it just dawned on me one day, I'm like, I think we could figure out a way to ground his floors and continue the theme, like every room in your house is grounded. So then we started playing around. Wood alone, like you talk about, it's kind of like wood chips, it's not the most conductive surface. But I started playing around with the grounds in our house, milling channels in the bottom of the wood with thick copper wires. And if you use a thick enough copper wire, which we used in your sauna, and mill it close enough to the surface of the wood, it's conductive. And we tested that for you, and you can see your voltage leave the body when you step on the sauna floor. That's what we noticed with the water. And then also, it being a humid environment, it creates that moisture in the whole room, and when wood is wet at all, it's almost like you're touching the copper wire, it gets super grounded. So that's another cool thing.

Ben Greenfield

Right, it makes it more conductive. Yeah, yeah, why you wouldn't want to touch a telephone pole next to a mud puddle, a downed telephone pole. So the idea then is that, because I'm technically the same as being barefoot outside, I'm basically absorbing even more of the negative ions and that natural frequency, what they call the Schumann resonance, that the earth produces, but I'm not even outside, I'm sitting in the sauna, and you guys figured out with the wiring how to pull that into the sauna.

Luke

Yeah, we had your electricians, when they were doing the heater, pull us an extra ground bar. I'm assuming, however you grounded the rest of your house, any time you ground an outlet or anything like that, they're pulling a ground bar. So they pulled a ground bar all the way out by the sauna, and then I fed it through the sauna walls. So under your benches we have a ground bar where each board is grounded, tied into that ground bar, and then we tested it, and we're grounded.

Ben Greenfield

The big picture window looks out over the pond, and again, I'll put pictures if you go to bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast. Do you guys do anything special with the glass or the windows or anything like that?

Owen

It just needs to be really thick.

Luke

Yeah, and it's tempered glass, like a shower door, and we did half-inch thick tempered glass for you, so it's pretty much the thickest glass you can get at that size. It's super strong, super durable, and having that thickness helps keep some of that heat in. And anytime you're in a shower, bathroom, anywhere like that, you have to have tempered glass so it doesn't break. And then it's framed completely with wood, so again you're not going to have any VOCs, no glues, it's just a wood frame that we sealed off on the outside.

Ben Greenfield

I want mine to look a little bit more like my house, so the sauna kind of looks like an extension of the house. But barrel saunas are a thing too. I thought you guys might know this, where did the idea for having a sauna in the shape of a barrel actually come from?

Luke

Unfortunately, it wasn't us. It is cool though. From my knowledge, I haven't done enough research on this, but people always compare it to wine barrels and how that construction was made. And I think, before the sauna was even around, having that barrel shape also disperses the heat pretty evenly, so it doesn't give you too many corners for heat to get trapped in. It's also fairly simple, easy construction, so it's a way to avoid using insulation, because you're just using the staves as the insulators and the finished wood.

Owen

Inside wall and the outside wood.

Luke

Yeah, all the same piece of wood, so you don't have to build two pieces of wood on each side all the way around. It works.

Ben Greenfield

Now, one of my complaints about a barrel sauna is a lot of times you hit your head against the ceiling when you're in there, because there's obviously the shorter ceiling parts. Don't you guys build a big, tall barrel sauna?

Owen

Yeah, cube shapes, we call them our cube saunas.

Luke

Cube and barrel, but they're both seven foot six, so the diameter is huge.

Ben Greenfield

So the actual ceiling on the barrel is seven six?

Owen

The diameter of the barrel is seven six, so when you're standing up in the middle it's seven six, and obviously as you move to the sides it gets a little shorter. But that's the biggest thing about us as well, there's no claustrophobia, way bigger diameters, and there are always big windows too, so you don't feel claustrophobic, you can always look outside and enjoy the scenery around you.

Luke

Yeah, even if you do no windows, all our doors are glass. We're pretty big on that, so we avoid the swelling and jamming, because wood on wood can absorb moisture. The glass, it's obviously not going to change size, and that also just allows for natural light.

Ben Greenfield

When you guys built it, you know, it was you two, Luke and Owen. My wife remembers your names, by the way, because of Luke and Owen Wilson.

Luke

Awesome actor.

Ben Greenfield

Brothers, the Wilsons, yeah, yeah. Looking on, and then you had a few other guys kind of coming and going. As far as logistics go, obviously you have the prefab option, we did a custom option, but walk me through what it takes for someone to actually build one of these. I have two main questions. If they get a prefab, do they need to hire their own builders, pour their own concrete, etc.? And then with the custom, what's the anticipated build time for something like that, if somebody just flew you out to their house to do a custom?

Owen

Yeah, absolutely. In Idaho, we like to offer a white glove service, that's actually what makes us stand out. A lot of other sauna companies will sell you a sauna, but they're not going to build it for you. They're going to leave you high and dry and make you find someone to build it. So if you're in Idaho, we'll come to your house, we'll build it for you, make sure everything's built the right way.

Ben Greenfield

Another perk of being in Idaho, but just for everybody listening, don't move here, we do not want more people in Idaho. But if you already live here, it's a bonus.

Owen

Only people who already live here. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Greenfield

Exactly.

Luke

But yeah, like Owen said, locally, if it's super far, sometimes we'll have to turn it down, or say we can do it at a certain date, things like that. Locally, we have a pretty good presence, there's not too many sauna companies here, so it's easy for us to go build one in a couple of days, and we can come home every night, we don't have to get a hotel. But really, it's more than just Idaho. As soon as we have to get lodging and travel, we still do that. We're doing one in California here shortly. Last year we did a bunch out of state. This year we've mostly stayed in Idaho, and we've worked around that, we can find hotels and cheap flights and make it happen. But we're also working on a new design right now, hopefully available for pre-order soon. We're still in the design process, but where the homeowner can actually build it themselves, super easily, like you and your wife could build it in an afternoon. That's what we're working on, while also...

Ben Greenfield

Oh, you mean like IKEA style?

Luke

Yes, but maintaining that super heavy-duty quality. It's going to be hardware like you'd see on beam trusses, things like that, to really keep the integrity and strength, but then make it so that, not everyone needs a twenty-person sauna like you have, so if they just want something smaller but still want that quality, no toxins, no VOCs, they can build it without having to fly us out.

Ben Greenfield

The reason I sprung for the bigger one was I contacted you guys right after I had come back from a trip in Germany and Austria, where I visited multiple super cool saunas, or I guess hot saunas, where I was with a group of people, and on any given evening, pretty much every evening of the trip, we'd have like 12 to 20 people in there hanging out, having fun, visiting, coming and going. So my vision was, well, I won't beat around the bush, I spent like 70 to 80 thousand dollars, in that ballpark, on this sauna, but I wanted it to be a place where I could hang out with my kids, my grandkids, have people over, and not have what had been the case for a little bit, where I'd get like six guys in the sauna and we're just maxed out, people shoulder to shoulder sweating on each other. So I've already hosted multiple parties and masterminds and groups at my house, and this sauna is the highlight, everybody goes out there and just hangs out in the sauna. I'd much rather do that than drink cocktails and wine in the living room. And then everybody jumps in the pond or the cold plunge. To me, it's like, you guys know the tie between longevity and community, it's a social investment.

Luke

Totally, yeah, the community aspect, we love it. We have people over all the time in our demo sauna almost every night, and there's something about the community and just enjoying it. But also, as guys, struggling together is pretty fun, like hitting a hard workout, or going to war, or playing sports, I think we all long for that, and it's a pretty cool place to do it. We're all bettering ourselves, but then we also have a reason to connect and have a really good conversation, so that's one of our favorite parts.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, the sauna is like my midlife equivalent of a fancy sports car, I'd rather have a nice sauna. For people who want to do a prefab, and maybe that figure I just named is just outside their budget, and they don't want to do a custom, but they still want the low VOC piece, maybe one of these nice heaters, about how much can somebody expect to spend?

Owen

Our saunas range from nine to twenty grand, so we have tiny little two-seater ones, all the way up to ones that seat eight. So it really just depends what you're looking for, but that's kind of the price range. We're definitely high end luxury, this is the best product on the market.

Ben Greenfield

So, question for you guys, and I'm happy to answer this too if it's helpful. Ideal world, no time limitations, you wake up in the morning, or you wait until the evening, or whatever, for your personal sauna practice. You can include cold, you can include something you might drink beforehand, something you might do in the sauna, what's your gold standard sauna protocol? Wave a magic wand.

Owen

That's a tough one. There's so many. Well, definitely the Kion, yeah, Kion electrolytes, I don't know if we're allowed to plug anything here, cleanest supplements on the market, guys from Boise, his stuff's really good. So definitely be hydrated before you get in. I like to just pound water if I know I'm getting in a sauna, the hour before I'm sitting there just chugging water.

Luke

Yeah, it's crazy how much better you feel going into the sauna hydrated versus not hydrated. That's a huge thing. We're obviously encouraging saunas, but if you go in there dehydrated, it sucks, it's not fun. But if you're super hydrated, drinking clean water, clean electrolytes, it's going to benefit you. So that's probably one thing we both share, being hydrated. We're not drinking beers in there.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, and by the way, just as we're exchanging practices here, I will throw in there, I would throw any pre-workout, like citrulline, beetroot, anything that vasodilates. You will just sweat buckets if you take a pre-workout along with your electrolytes, like 30 minutes before the sauna.

Luke

Yeah, when I was detoxing, I did a little bit of research on that, with beta-alanine and stuff. And like Owen's saying, bringing all the blood to your skin, where it can actually open the pores more and detox. It's a little weird when you get tingly, but I probably haven't done enough of it, though I tried it a little to detox more.

Ben Greenfield

Okay, so then once you're in there, talk to me about time, temperature, and whether you're going back and forth to something cold, or if you're just doing a long heat sit, or whatever your favorite protocol would be.

Owen

I mean, our classic, I guess I can do mine and speak for his too, they're probably a little similar because we sauna together a lot. I like to start out with a dry session, so you hop in, the sauna's already hot, and it's that dry heat, and when you're sitting there sweating, you're not sure if it's steam on your skin or sweat. So I like to start out with a dry session and literally see the sweat coming off my skin first, that's just a nice way to get into it. And then after about 15 minutes, that's when you start hitting the steam. We like to put essential oils in it as well, usually eucalyptus or some sort of mint oil that's nice on your lungs. And usually, people go by time and whatnot, but for me, I'm just more like I go with how my body feels. So I go to the point where I really, really want to get out, and I wait about five more minutes. You'll notice on the Saunum, the control you have in there shows the fan, it's like on a 15-minute timer. So that's usually a good one for me, I'm like, oh, the timer has seven minutes left on it, I really want to get out, but I'm not going to get out until that seven minutes is done. So it's nice to set a little goal that seems a little bit out of reach, but then you hit it and you're like, dang, I accomplished something, I really made it through.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, I agree that the timer on the heater kind of serves like one of those hourglasses, you just automatically know when it's at 15.

Luke

Yeah, yeah. For me, I'd say a normal routine, I'm probably hitting it in the evening. If I have a day off, I love doing the contrast therapy in the middle of the day, it's such a good reset. Very rarely I'll do it first thing in the morning, I love that sometimes, like in the winter, especially if it's dark and cold, sometimes the sauna will wake me up and get me going for the day. But I'd say my typical protocol is at night, probably a little bit after dinner, or sometimes before dinner if I'm trying to go to bed early. Get the body hot, and then it's starting to naturally cool down, it helps with your sleep a lot. That's what I do day to day. And then I don't like to end on cold at night, just because I feel like it wakes me up. I used to do cold plunges every morning and all that, but for now I feel better with the sauna. But if I have a day off in the middle of the day, I love a few rounds of cold plunge, sauna, back and forth. I feel like it just spikes your energy, which is pretty awesome.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, that's, I think I originally heard about that protocol from Jocko Willink, he talked about it on his podcast, I believe, the idea of going five hot, five cold, then four, four, three, three, two, two, one, one, and ladder back up. A lot of times I just want to do the heat and then do the cold and call it good. So that'd be most of the time, like 90% of the time, I'm doing that. And 90% of the time, I'm doing it somewhere between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, because I use the sauna to split my day in half. So I've been working all day.

Owen

It's a nice mental reset.

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, around two, two thirty, I'll take a quick siesta, but then turn on the sauna before that. I get up from a little nap or meditation session, go in the sauna, and I'll link to the video in the show notes, but I do a bunch of mobility. I'll do mobility for 15 to 20 minutes, you move, you kind of get the body a little hotter because you're moving in between each of the mobility exercises. I'll pour a little bit of extra water on the rocks, and if I've got a little extra time, I'll precede all of that by opening this app called Othership, and I've got a heat-resistant Bluetooth speaker, and I'll play a five to 10 minute breathwork session to really get the blood flowing and get the heart pumping. Then do the stretching, and for the longest time I was just jumping in the Morozko Forge afterward, because that's at about 34 degrees Fahrenheit. And now that my pond is clean, I get out of the sauna, I jump in the pond, I swim a few laps back and forth, I'm out there for like five to 10 minutes. So for me, it's about start to finish, like around 25 to 30 minutes, so typically around 20-ish in the sauna, and then around five to 10 of getting cold, toweling off. And, man, I finish that and I'm ready to go conquer another three hours before dinner of just phone calls and emails and everything else.

Luke

That's awesome. Yeah, Owen is asking how hot have you been using your sauna, what's yours? So we gave you those three modes.

Ben Greenfield

I crank it up to 212, I have to admit, if I thought farther ahead this probably wouldn't be the case, but I'm usually in there like 45 to 50 minutes after I turn it on. So by the time I get in, it's more like in the 185 to 190-ish range, which, considering I'm in there moving and pouring water on the rocks, is ample hot, for sure.

Luke

Yeah, that's when I like to do the breathwork movement, when it's not quite up to 210.

Owen

Yeah, you know...

Luke

Sometimes it's hard to do some breathwork exercises at 212, but if you're sitting there waiting for it to get hot...

Ben Greenfield

Yeah, it was just so random. I think Joshua, shout to Joshua, my property manager, he's the guy who knew I was looking for low VOC and a bigger sauna. He showed me your guys's website, and I was texting you like an hour later, Owen. And then you guys built the sauna in like three days up here at the house. And what I'll do is put in the show notes, for people who want to surf around the Western Soul website and check out what Luke and Owen can do, and also if you just want to see pictures of my sauna, walk through the mobility video, which I think is coming out pretty soon, of the mobility exercises I do in the sauna. If you watch that video, that's inside the sauna that Luke and Owen built, so you'll see that. I'll put all that in the show notes at bengreenfieldlife.com/saunapodcast. Luke and Owen, thanks so much for doing this, you guys. I think the world needed a good sauna outfit that makes techie, engineered stuff that's actually healthy.

Luke

For sure, right? Have you dragged that bike in there yet?

Ben Greenfield

No, not yet. I haven't gone full Laird Hamilton assault bike with the oven mitts, but it'll happen. I think that's going to be more of a winter thing.

Luke

Yeah, that's fair.

Ben Greenfield

All right, guys, thanks so much for doing this.

Owen

Thank you, appreciate it, Ben. Appreciate it.

Ben Greenfield

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