The Ritual I Miss Most
I’ve been in Canada for the past three weeks doing R&D work on a new heater design, and honestly, I’m starting to feel it. Not the cold—I can handle that—but the absence of my daily sauna routine. It’s surprising how much something so simple can anchor your entire day. Like the day is missing a piece of its rhythm.
At home, I have a ritual—a quiet, predictable ritual in a world that isn’t. I’ve got two small kids, and they don’t care if I take a sauna daily—they care about breakfast, toys, and why the dog is eating their crackers. So I’ve learned to sneak it in. Early morning before they wake up, or late evening after they’re down. Sometimes both, if I’m lucky.
The routine itself isn’t elaborate—maybe 45 minutes total if you count the shower. I start with a steam session, sometimes in the steam shower, sometimes I’ll do a whole steam sauna if I have the time, and then I move straight into the infrared sauna while my body’s still warm and open. Heat, sweat, rinse, breathe. The transition from wet heat to dry, penetrating infrared works. It’s the one part of my day that’s just mine.
And the sleep. God, the sleep is so much better when I’m consistent with it. I fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and I wake up actually feeling rested instead of heavy. Without it, I’m back to tossing around at 2 a.m., mind running through heater specs and customer emails. It’s like the thermostat of my whole nervous system drifts out of range.
I think what I miss most isn’t even the heat itself—it’s the ritual of it. The intentional pause. The 45 minutes where I’m not answering emails, not troubleshooting a wiring issue, not thinking about production timelines, and not negotiating with a four-year-old about why we can’t have ice cream for dinner. A moment where the world goes quiet enough for me actually to hear myself think. It’s a form of bathing, really. A reset button I didn’t realize I needed until I started skipping it.
The irony isn’t lost on me. I spend my days building saunas for other people, talking about the health benefits, the infrared wavelengths, the EMF specs—and then I travel for work and can’t access one myself. We’ve got to fix that. I’m not sure how yet, but there’s got to be a way to bring this ritual on the road.
A portable unit for the R&D facility. Maybe I need to plan my travel better. Either way, I’m three weeks in, and I’m done pretending I don’t need this.
If you’ve ever had a daily practice that keeps you grounded—meditation, running, whatever it is—you know what I’m talking about. And if you’re a parent, you know how rare those 45 minutes of uninterrupted time actually are. When it’s gone, you feel it everywhere. I’ll be home in a few days, and that first session back will feel like coming up for air.
