Sweaty Gorilla Interview 1. Benefits of Sauna From Jersey
00:00[Music] Hi, I'm uh here today in Jersey with Cole Mlan who owns this sauna, hot rock sauna at St. Katherine Bay in Jersey. This is Cole. So, I'm going to do a quick uh informal interview with Cole with bad lighting. But look at that view about the benefits of sauna. So, first of all, Cole, I know we're going to be quick cuz Cole has to rush off and get some more firewood, I think, or some more water. Um uh tell us a little bit about Jersey first. You you were born here. >> Yes, I was born and raised here. Um been living here all my life. I went away um to the mainland to university in my 20ies and then did a bit of traveling. Lived in Australia for a bit. >> Where you at? >> Uh Sydney. >> Yeah, typical backpacker stuff. Um I then worked on the superyachts for two and a half years. Um kind of traveling around the world. And after that um my kind of itch for traveling and all that was done and then I my idea was to come back here and kind of start a business. Um, >> did you get to New Zealand on your travel? >> No, no, I didn't unfortunately. Yeah.
01:00Yeah. Yeah, I missed out. Um, but anyway, >> what about Jersey? Where is Jersey? >> Uh, so Jersey is situated um I think it's roughly 20 km off the the north coast um northeast coast of Fr uh sorry, northwest coast of France. Um by boat it's about France across the other side. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's just just behind us here. They actually have um their rib rib strips even from here as you can see down on the sipway down there and it takes about I think about 25 minutes if you want to go across for dinner >> and that's the break water there which stops the keeps this area the water bit smooth. >> Yeah. >> All right. And what's Jersey famous for? >> Cows obviously milk. >> Cows, milk, potatoes uh back then and I'd probably say the last 25 years I'd probably say it's international finance center. It's probably the main kind of earner um here for kind of offshore companies and and finance and >> it's got it's obviously it's got the terrible history of being occupied in 1940s and I went to the >> German tunnels yesterday which is a very moving experience. I think everybody should uh have a look >> when they come. Uh I just want to talk to you a little bit about the benefits of sauna. Um first of all, why did you
02:00set up a sauna? >> So I was always into my kind of health and fitness. Um, and then kind of from using gym sauners and and stuff like that, I always thought it aided my recovery massively and it wasn't just the the sports science kind of side of it. It was just the way that it used to make me feel that I liked it. And then um I actually saw some units a bit like similar to mine over in the mainland and um I was lucky enough to to reach out to some people and they put me in a WhatsApp group with 20 other operators in the UK and then from there I was kind of dead set. Um Jersey has a massive sea swimming community. Um obviously 48 miles all the rack all the way around and you can kind of get into the sea from all the beaches and stuff that we have here um pretty much every day of the year. Um so it was just kind of marrying two and two together. I thought it would work and I just kind of took the plunge really and then um yeah we've been open for two years now. Um, same as any business, started off a little slow and people were a bit um, apprehensive, I think, to start. Oh, why would I sit in a sauna with people that I don't know and stuff like that when they're not used to maybe like the Finnish culture and all of that of bathing and the onen in Japan and and and whatnot that goes back hundreds of years.
03:00>> Yeah, I love the history of the sauna. It's it's fascinating >> as like a communal thing and um, a way for people to meet and chat and and bring ideas together and stuff like that and bathe and relax. Um, and then yeah, so I kind of put two and two together. I managed to get a site down here. It's been quite difficult in order to try and we're getting planning permission and whatnot. Um but we've got a permanent space down here now for at least the next 18 months anyway. Okay. And um I'm just in the process now of actually opening a social wellness hub in S Helia. Um the planning application is going to be sorted for that this week with a decision which hopefully will get approved and then we're going to have a social wellness club with two 20man sauners. um six ice bath, seating area, music, coffee, and um I think everyone's kind of bought into the idea of what this kind of brings now and they're looking for different social spaces which don't involve food and alcohol. >> Okay, nice. Okay, so let's quickly run through some of the benefits we think we get from sauners. So, we'll just quickly mention them and I I'll mention them, you can tell me a little bit what you think. Can I kind of divide them up into the medical benefits and then the more traditional benefits? Because the sauna
04:00you've got here is my favorite sa type of sauna which is a fire sauna uh with hot rocks. There's one in Corumban at Eco Village as well uh where I go to all the time. So let's talk about some of the benefits. So there I divide them up into medical and traditional. The medical benefits uh one would be detoxification. You got anything you want to say about detoxification? Yeah, just I just think just sweating at least like once or one or two times a week. Anyway, if you're coming in, you're including this as part of your weekly routine is good with all the kind of heavy metals and stuff that you they're in kind of foods and plastics and Tupperwares and and other kind of BPAs and stuff. Now, I think it's just it's just healthy just to kind of sweat that stuff out of you. Um, and then also good for the skin. And >> I'm glad you mentioned plastics. It's kind of a it's a big campaign for me now. And I think I always shudder when I see people in and no judgment, but taking a plastic bottle full of water into the sauna and heating away in the sauna and drinking the liquid plastic while in the sauna trying to detox I think is a bad idea. >> Then we've got uh the vascular benefits with and we'll talk about cold water in
05:00a sec, but obviously you're getting a um do you want to talk about the ve you're getting dilation of the blood vessels? >> Yeah, dilation of the blood vessels when you're in there. Yeah. Um, I even think for for many of my customers now, I see like a wide range of people, but I'd say probably the most popular age range of customers are probably people in their like from the age of about 45 to their 60s where they're not actually looking to go to the kind of gym regularly and they don't want to do elevate their heart rate in that and by coming into the sauna here and um after they've come one time they they end up really enjoying it but they see the kind of benefits from it where like an elevated heart rate and they're able to get like a kind of like a zone 2 or maybe like a zone 3 workout from just their heart rate from from going up in there. So uh let's talk about heat shock proteins. >> Familiar with heat shock proteins? >> Uh yeah to to some extent. Yeah. >> Okay. All right. Well we I've made some videos about heat shock proteins. The main benefit of the heat shock proteins uh for your knowledge is that they're very ancient proteins in the body. And what they do is they construct our other proteins in our body that we use to uh
06:00for enzymes and structurally. So they put them together, but it's like putting towards a brick house together as a brick layer. And if you get them if the bricks are laid wrongly, you get a faulty house. And so not only heat proteins in benefit of putting other proteins together, they also refold them if they get them wrong. And if they can't if they're so badly damaged by toxins etc they can't be refolded. Heat shock proteins get rid of them. So you're kind of you're building but you're also cleaning as well at the same time. And the same thing with cold shock proteins. Okay let's talk about some of the quickly and finish it off because I need I know you need to go some more of the traditional benefits. Um I think uh one one of the ones I like um finesis which is traditional wisdom and we we we know about Wimhof now but what people don't know was about you know before that there was Pureri Ivanov before that there was um you know Native American sweat lodges and traditional Nordic Scandinavian culture. Talk about that a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this stuff's kind
07:00of been going on for hundreds of years. And I think as we've kind of like adapted as like a society to like the modern world, like these kind of things have been pushed out a little bit, but it's very nice to see them kind of coming back now. And um yeah, kind of like not like this is like such a massive sweat lodge. We can fit between six and eight people depending if it's communal or private session. But what I love about it, which is one of the main things I kind of say to people, is you kind of come in here, you're not going to have your phone in there and somewhere where even if you go out to dinner, your phone's still on the table and you're kind of apprehensive of checking it every 2 minutes. You go in there, you're completely present. You never forget the kind of conversations that you have in there. And it's just the ability just to I've had people come in here and do business deals that have never met before and then they've got they've gone away. I've had people that have come to Jersey who had just moved here, two different couples who'd came for their first time and then they've met here and they've become best friends and stuff like that. It's just the bringing together of people which is which is >> so yeah no I agree. I think community is a huge thing and there's a big thing about loneliness today particularly male loneliness and and male mental health and I think you know and I think you
08:00know I'm a fan of being naked in the sauna because you're in there with a naked people and I know that the Nordic cultures you know you don't really they think the in Japan as well you know the whole idea of wearing your dirty clothes while you're in a sauna plastics as well >> so I think being naked in a sauna is very equalizing kind of thing um and Yeah. Yeah. Uh so that was um finesis which was traditional wisdom and obviously community is a big part of that. Uh hormesis the idea of what doesn't kill you makes you healthier in small doses. Um how do you feel about that? >> Yeah. No, exactly. And I think it's good for people to come in here and actually kind of stress the body. Um when when you're in there sometimes when you put the water on and stuff like that is hard. But when you choose your hard and then in the winter here the sea gets down to about seven or eight degrees and at its coldest. So kind of adapting from the hot and then into the cold, you're able to kind of light up your Vegas
09:00nerve. Um, which is kind of your like your and your your fight or flight response. And just kind of giving that practice I think just equates to everyday life where you're able to adapt to situations where you're actually more calm um when when you're able to focus on your breathing through exercises such as the hot and cold from the sauna and the cold water swimming. >> Yeah. And luckily you've got amazing access to cold water. Uh not so much now. I just had a swim and it was beautiful. But in winter I'm amazing gets really cold. >> Yeah. So it's 19° at the moment in uh the coldest is probably around mid mid mid to late January time and goes down to about 7 and 8 degrees depending how cold it is outside. And so when you're going from hot to cold, you're getting that uh not only you're getting that hormetic contrast therapy benefit, but we're also getting the vasoddilation, the vasoc constriction, vasodation, vaso constriction because the endothelium is the biggest muscle in the body and we don't exercise it because we like to keep temperatures all the same. Same >> I was just thinking about the phone too that the great thing about a sauna is if you are brave enough to take your phone and it lasts about a minute before it switches off the business cooking. >> The entourage effect. The other benefit
10:00I think uh is the entourage effect which is kind of defined as you need everything in the recipe for the cake to come out properly. And I think people now uh you know taking small components of plants and you're missing out on the whole entourage effect of all the nutrients in the plants. It's like everything in the recipe has to be there in the proper amounts for it to come out together. And I think the benefits of the sauna, particularly the fire and the hot rock sauna. I mean, what I what blows my mind is the whole idea that fire is the energy of the sun being released. >> And I think you just can't do better than than uh than the entourage effect of natural light, natural heat >> in the sauna without any EMFs. >> Can you talk a little bit about why you made the big decision to to go with hot rocks and uh and chopping wood every day? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Top wood car. >> I think it's a lot more traditional. I
11:00think people are used to kind of electric sauners and stuff like that. And most of the ones you kind of get in gym in the gyms and stuff like that are a bit naff. I just I imagine the more those kind of heaters is more so like a plug-in heater which you put in your house in the winter when it's kind of cold and it's just not the same at all as like this is really taking it back to its roof to like the traditional Finnish kind of culture of of this and having the I think they have 130 kilos of stones surrounding the heater. So, it's just like the the intensity of the heat, especially when adding the water. Um or it's called the the loy um is um is Yeah, it's just completely different uh experience and yeah, a lot nicer. >> Is it is it how you pronounce it? Loyal. >> Loy. Yeah, >> Loy. I've always struggled with it. Have you been Have you done sauners in Finland? >> Uh not yet, but I'm planning to go this winter. Yeah. >> Right. I'm going to go and try go uh next year. Uh in fact, I was going to mention I was going to close up on that because I love the concept of uh the Finnish concept of sissu uh you know the the never giving up no matter >> the odds and uh I think I really admire that about the Finnish culture and often when
12:00I'm in sauners I talk about you know World War II and the effects of the Finnish sauners on uh you know the Russian invasion of Finland. So I think it's fascinating history. Uh all right fantastic. Uh uh right I know you have to go. Uh thank you so much uh Yeah, for the for it was so good. He's on Instagram uh >> sauna.co.uk and website saunaocciety.co.uk and you got a great uh Instagram page which is how I first got hold of you. So really appreciate uh you spending time with me today. Was a fantastic corner. Thanks so much. Heat. Heat.