Just as England loves its tea and the Netherlands loves its bicycles, Finland loves its saunas — so much so, in fact, that 99% of Finns visit a sauna at least once a week. There are around 3.3 million saunas in the country of 5.5 million people, and they’re everywhere: homes, offices, even factories and underground mines. There are also Finnish proverbs about saunas, ranging from the egalitarian (“All people are created equal, but nowhere more so than in a sauna”) to the slightly dark (“If a sick person is not cured by tar, spirits, or sauna, then they will die”).
The second of these relates to the health benefits of saunas, which were once considered anecdotal but have more recently been backed by data showing that visiting the steamy sites is associated with a reduction in the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions. Reverence for the sauna is instilled in Finns from a young age, with Jarmo Lehtola of the Finnish Sauna Society explaining that traditionally, “children were taught to behave in a sauna as if they were in church.” Finland’s president even has their own official sauna, and saunas are regular features in Finnish embassies and consulates worldwide, where they have been used in important diplomatic talks.
Since 2012, the World Happiness Report has been published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, an initiative of the United Nations. In addition to being in the top 10 every year since the beginning, Finland ranked first in the 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 editions of the report — making it basically the happiest country in the world, at least by this ranking system. Using polling data from Gallup, the report is broken down into six categories: gross domestic product per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make your own life choices, generosity of the general population, and perceptions of corruption levels. Finland scored a 7.821 out of 10 in the most recent edition, and was once again joined near the top of the list by every other Nordic country: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. The U.S., meanwhile, wasn’t that far down the list — the nation ranked 16th, just below Canada and just above the United Kingdom.