Latest / DunkersPodcast / 🧖♀️ Steam, Sizzle and Sauna Science 🥵🥶
Transcript
- 0:11Today on The Dunker's podcast, we're turning up the heat.
- 0:14Literally. Joining us is Ben Wright,
- 0:18exercise Physiology lecturer from Oxford Brookes University
- 0:22and Tom Co, founder of Porthpoweth Sauna on Abersox
- 0:26Warren Beach. Ben brings the science behind
- 0:30hot and cold exposure, the recovery and why your body loves
- 0:34a little shock therapy. Tom and his partner Gabby, the
- 0:39serf loving duo behind the sauna, bring the commercial
- 0:43success to day is about warmth, Wellness and Welsh ingenuity all
- 0:49rolled into one steamy seaside story.
- 0:52It's the perfect mix of steam, science and sea spray, a chat
- 0:58that warms the soul, chills the skin, and maybe even just makes
- 1:02you book your next dunk and sauna before the episode's even
- 1:06over. Welcome Ben and Tom to Dunker's
- 1:09podcast. Thank you, Mark.
- 1:12OK, thanks, Mark. So, Ben, tell us just a little
- 1:15bit about why Oxford Brookes have actually taken this
- 1:20challenge on. Well, this came from the back of
- 1:24a piece I did for kind of our internal networks.
- 1:28And this was to look at the physiological responses to both
- 1:34heat and cold and to examine some of the purported health
- 1:38benefits for both modalities. They've definitely risen in
- 1:43popularity over the last few years in terms of how we can
- 1:48expose our bodies to both hot and cold, the different
- 1:51techniques, and also have an understanding of what we hear
- 1:56regarding the benefits and does the research and does the
- 2:01science actually match some of the purported claims for these
- 2:05different types of modalities in both kind of recovery and
- 2:09Wellness? Trends, OK.
- 2:12And presumably they did meet match.
- 2:15Or did they? Depends on what market you're
- 2:20looking for. Right.
- 2:21OK, Yeah. That's the classic scientific
- 2:24response is it depends. But yeah, some of the claims
- 2:27made do have evidence towards them, depending on the type of
- 2:32modality we're looking at and the purported claim.
- 2:36However, with any kind of research and study, there's
- 2:40always much more that needs to be done.
- 2:42Good, good science generally asks more questions and answers
- 2:45that you get, and that tends to be the case for both of these
- 2:48modes. But there is some quite good and
- 2:51quite strong evidence now to show some of the the
- 2:54improvements in health and and Wellness and also some of this
- 2:57more psychological aspects of these recovery methods or
- 3:02Wellness trends in in terms of improving affect and positive
- 3:05mood states. OK, So it's not totally
- 3:08transformational, but it is, it is moving, moving the pieces a
- 3:13bit. It's making people more aware
- 3:15presumably. And it's little things, I
- 3:19remember all of them way back, they always said that if you
- 3:22could use a sauna and hot and cold anyway, you could help cut
- 3:26inflammation and and outputs like that.
- 3:30So presumably those are quantifiable.
- 3:35Yes, yeah, using kind of like venous blood sampling, you can
- 3:39look at certain biomarkers within the body, both either pro
- 3:42inflammatory or anti-inflammatory.
- 3:45We can also measure things like Soto coins which are small
- 3:49chemical messages which can activate either pro or
- 3:52anti-inflammatory pathways. So so you can do that in
- 3:55controlled laboratories and you can examine pre and post
- 3:59differences in these measures depending on the experiment.
- 4:04Is this in cold water immersion or is this in more heat
- 4:07exposures like sauna use? Right.
- 4:10OK. So as you say more answers than
- 4:13more questions and answers that immediately come out.
- 4:16So I'm going to go on to something a wee bit more
- 4:18commercial because I'll certainly understand it a little
- 4:21bit clearer. And that's the commercial play
- 4:24for making saunas into a a business and a business that's
- 4:28based on the beach. Tom, what's it like to actually,
- 4:31we do it? We've all said, oh, wouldn't it
- 4:33be great, but you're doing it. Yeah, yeah, It's been really
- 4:38fun. It's all the new experience for
- 4:42me, but yeah, it's been great. When you think about getting
- 4:47down there nice and early, I suppose you get the same
- 4:50experience when you're doing your dunking.
- 4:52But getting there nice and early, lighting the fire, it's
- 4:57yeah, great down that beach as well.
- 5:00Yeah, it's nice when she when she's got because, but as an as
- 5:05an engineer, it's not the not a normal sort of day-to-day thing
- 5:08that you'd sort of take on board, is it?
- 5:11No, no. So I suppose it all came around,
- 5:16came about from, I tried an onset in Japan and this was a
- 5:24long time ago now in about 2017, a friend and I were over there
- 5:28and just fell in love with the experience.
- 5:31And I just thought, how do we not do this in the UK?
- 5:35How could you get something like this in the UK?
- 5:38And it sort of took a while before we started to get the
- 5:43ball rolling about actually implementing it because I didn't
- 5:46really think that I could do it and.
- 5:49What? Can I just stop you there?
- 5:51What? What was it called?
- 5:52A nonsen. An onsen on SO.
- 5:56It's. A Japanese back house and, and
- 6:00we went to one in Kyoto and the experience was like nothing that
- 6:05I'd ever done. It was something that I thought,
- 6:07this is what I'd like to do on a weekend when I've got some time
- 6:11to myself. And so that's kind of where I
- 6:14discovered it. And then, yeah, Fast forward a
- 6:18little bit. We'd moved to Crewe on Pendulum
- 6:22and I'd built a a workshop there and then we started running an
- 6:26Airbnb business up there as well.
- 6:28And I thought, well, a sauna would be a great offering to go
- 6:34with the Airbnb business as well as me being able to use it.
- 6:38And, but we were kind of thinking we might be moving
- 6:42house here. So just by chance, I went to
- 6:47Anglesey for the weekend and used the sauna of Sauna Bach on
- 6:52the beach, which was built on a trailer.
- 6:55And so I thought that's a brilliant idea.
- 6:58That's what I should do. And I thought, right, well, I
- 7:03can do this. I think I can do this.
- 7:05And so obviously with the engineering background, doing
- 7:08sort of materials research, that kind of thing, I had a, you
- 7:12know, a big interest in anyway. And yeah, it sort of became a
- 7:16passion project that I picked up last winter.
- 7:20And yeah, we we started, started the business in Easter this
- 7:28year. So it's still quite new and I'm
- 7:30still learning. But yeah, it's brilliant.
- 7:34So Ben, did you have you been exposed to literally and
- 7:38figuratively have been exposed to what the Japanese are up to?
- 7:41And did you know about these types of therapies or or?
- 7:46Not necessarily specifically in Japan.
- 7:49I'm guessing Tom, is that more like a steam room environment?
- 7:55Yeah, yeah, well, the option was there and they did also have
- 8:01saunas and they had really cold plunge pools and just a
- 8:05relaxation area. It was like something that I've
- 8:09never seen before. It was just so peaceful and like
- 8:15felt like a proper reset, which I suppose is the whole, a whole
- 8:20positive benefit of the experience.
- 8:23I guess all sort of ties into the actual physiological effect
- 8:28that you get from being exposed to the heating and the cold.
- 8:31Which is a great Segway because the thing it one, the thing
- 8:34about the dunking is that I remember from one of our very
- 8:37first episodes, the high that you get from dunking has been
- 8:42compared to that that you'd get from cocaine.
- 8:45So it's like a legal high. So everyday that we go dunking,
- 8:49people think that we're on something.
- 8:50Well, you might actually believe that we are.
- 8:52So what's actually happening inside your bed, inside your
- 8:55body, Ben, when, when this is going on?
- 8:58Just yeah. So physiologically, you're
- 9:01subjecting the body to a form of kind of mild hypothermia, so an
- 9:05increase in ambient temperature around you.
- 9:08You can invoke that in different ways.
- 9:11And I'm sure we'll discuss kind of the different types of sauna
- 9:14as we as we go through. But effectively this kind of
- 9:17heat stress or this stressor on the body starts the process of
- 9:21helping and maintaining your thermoregulation.
- 9:24We're quite tropical mammals. We like a core temperature
- 9:27around 37° or so. So anything outside of that or
- 9:32any kind of exposure to heat, we then have this kind of
- 9:34neuroendocrine cardiovascular response that aims to keep our
- 9:39body within homeostasis. So in terms of its normal
- 9:43operating temperature point, what's happening generally is
- 9:47the body's trying to cool down South.
- 9:49First and foremost, the skin, there's the thermoreceptors
- 9:52within the skin will heat up and these will, you know, go to
- 9:55around 40° or so. And then exposure to heat for a
- 10:00period of time. This could be through water,
- 10:02through air. This will then increase your
- 10:05core temperature. So this can rise to about 39°
- 10:08and then potentially up to 40° or so as well.
- 10:12At this point, the body's going to try and cool down and you're
- 10:16going to get a redistribution of cardiac output.
- 10:19So the amount of volume of blood that has been sent around the
- 10:22body per minute, and this is controlled by the heart rate,
- 10:25how often your heart's beating per minute or stroke volume, the
- 10:29amount of blood ejected out the left ventricle per beat.
- 10:32So that's the product of cardiac output.
- 10:34And what we know is that subject to heat, you can have increases
- 10:39of cardiac output to 5060% or so.
- 10:42So significantly more blood is being ejected around the body.
- 10:46You have redistribution of your blood, so certain areas of your
- 10:49body where it isn't a necessary requirement to have blood flow
- 10:53that can be shunted. So this is through the blood
- 10:56vessels having the capacity to both vasodilate, so increasing
- 11:00their diameter and vasoconstrict and effectively the body is
- 11:05going to try and shunt blood to the skin and try to dissipate
- 11:09heat through evaporation that way.
- 11:11So the body is the body's working to balance itself all
- 11:15the time. Whatever.
- 11:17Whatever, whatever you're exposing it to, it's sort of
- 11:20kicking back and saying, you know, I'm too hot, I'm too cold
- 11:23and these are the. Absolutely, yes, yeah.
- 11:25And that's kind of we, we refer to that as homeostasis.
- 11:28So the normal, I think of it like the normal optimal
- 11:31functioning of the body and the organs.
- 11:33It's been happy in regulating all the processes that it should
- 11:36be OK. And does that, does that
- 11:40particularly affect your mood or is that metabolic?
- 11:44And that is that, is that just physical or is it?
- 11:47Is it, is it emotional as well? In terms of home, maintaining
- 11:52homeostasis or? Yeah, yeah, in, in terms of
- 11:55whether people crave more of, of the same, you know, can it
- 12:01become a sort of a craving rather than just a nice to do?
- 12:06Yeah. In terms of sorely use and
- 12:08exposure to heat, there is some evidence to show these changes
- 12:12in kind of positive feel and affect potential rewarding
- 12:17exposures like dopamine release. So having that reward, and I
- 12:21guess you might have discussed this when you look at cold water
- 12:24immersion as well, that sense of kind of a reward that you've,
- 12:27you've achieved something and overcome a challenge and that
- 12:30can then become potentially addictive.
- 12:33I'm not too well versed in kind of addictive.
- 12:38Well. Reset an addiction.
- 12:40That's that's another podcast. We'll do that again.
- 12:43I think so, yeah. But I would assume that the the
- 12:46benefit that you feel somewhat deliberation that you feel of of
- 12:50taking your body through this small exposure to a stressor and
- 12:54then not necessarily crave, but can make you be tempted to to
- 13:01experience it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 13:04Don't cold repeat. Yeah, yeah.
- 13:06And Tom, I guess you've seen that yourself, have you?
- 13:09People come out of the, the sauna and sort of thing.
- 13:13I'm, you know, just I'm, I'm going to stay here for the rest
- 13:16of the day. Yeah, yeah, I think, as you
- 13:20probably well know. But it's so exhilarating when
- 13:23you're in the cold water, isn't it?
- 13:25It makes you. It does pump you up again.
- 13:29That's how I feel when I'm doing it anyway.
- 13:31But yeah, the feedback from everyone has been great because
- 13:36everybody, I think that's come down is already of a health and
- 13:41Wellness mindset. And so when they're on their
- 13:45holidays or whether they're local or holiday and they've
- 13:49come out and they've had this great experience, you know, it's
- 13:53just been really nice to be around.
- 13:55And tell me from, I don't know who who to ask this to, but it
- 14:00are different types of sauna. Do they elicit different types
- 14:04of response? For example, obviously smoked
- 14:08wood fired saunas and you've got infrared saunas.
- 14:12I guess there's other sorts. I mean, tell me about them.
- 14:16Tell me about them. Yeah.
- 14:19Well, again, I think the infrared ones do they just heat
- 14:23up your. Skin.
- 14:26I think that's how that works. How that works then?
- 14:29Yes, yeah. That's infrared light that kind
- 14:32of directly goes within onto the skin rather than heating the
- 14:36ambient air around you. So these these typically can
- 14:40operate at lower temperatures in 4060° or so and don't really
- 14:46necessary or, or necessitate any humidity.
- 14:49So I think often you'll see these referred to as like dry
- 14:51saunas and using that infrared to heat the skin.
- 14:54Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think the kind of feedback
- 14:59that you get from seeing the wood fired burning and the smell
- 15:03of the wood when it's reacting to the of the steam in the room,
- 15:09because I get so many people saying that they love the smell
- 15:12of it. We don't tend to use any oils.
- 15:14We try. I try to just keep it as natural
- 15:16as possible. So yeah, it's yeah, that's.
- 15:20That's quite evocative in itself, isn't it?
- 15:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
- 15:25Yeah. And and from from a health
- 15:29perspective, do does that do the smells and in fact the
- 15:34environment, does that have a different impact on the body,
- 15:38Ben, is that or is it all just down to the the extreme heat?
- 15:43If we're talking about like the cardiovascular response you're
- 15:47going to, you're going to have these kind of counter regulatory
- 15:51processes irrespective of how the body's been heated.
- 15:55Now there are other challenges. So if you are using like a steam
- 16:00sauna, so temperatures compared to your traditional Finnish
- 16:04saunas are going to be a little bit lower.
- 16:07But because you're using steam to, to fill the ambient air
- 16:11around you, this, this results in a really high percentage of
- 16:14humidity. And that can evoke quite stress
- 16:18on the body and, and maybe a mechanism to really ramp up core
- 16:22temp. And this is because, you know,
- 16:24one of our major ways in which we cool down is through
- 16:26evaporation. So that's sending blood to the
- 16:29surface, to the skin. We go nice and pink and we
- 16:31sweat. And as that sweat evaporates, we
- 16:33dissipate that heat. Now, if the conditions around us
- 16:37are very humid, we're not going to be able to dissipate that
- 16:41heat and evaporate that heat in the conditions around us.
- 16:43And you know, this can be or can be quite dangerous in certain
- 16:47circumstances where we would come into a, a condition called
- 16:53uncompensatable heat stress where we cannot actually call
- 16:57the core temperature down because our surrounding
- 16:59environment is too warm. That can be dangerous.
- 17:03But in terms of the responses that you're going to get from
- 17:05the body, irrespective of the heat source, the body's going to
- 17:08try and maintain core temp and skin temp through vasodilation,
- 17:13sweating and and redistribution of blood flow.
- 17:15So do I take from what you've just said that if you're going
- 17:18to go into a steam room or a steam sauna or a steam bath, I
- 17:22guess then you've really, it would be ideal to do that as a
- 17:27second stage rather than the first stage.
- 17:29Get used to sort of the the the cold, hot and cold through a dry
- 17:33sauna before you go into steam. Is it?
- 17:37I think that might be more tolerable if you're new to it.
- 17:40Again, individual preference is going to be huge.
- 17:42Some people may really like the kind of humid conditions that
- 17:47you feel around you, kind of the air being feeling relatively
- 17:49thick compared to your infrared soreness.
- 17:52But yeah, that might be a useful starting point because some
- 17:55people may not tolerate the ambient conditions being warm
- 17:58around them better than your infrared or even your
- 18:03traditional finished saunas. But again, the individual
- 18:05preference will be be important as well.
- 18:08You're using labels to to to obviously put water onto the the
- 18:13sauna to increase that steam, aren't you, Tom?
- 18:17Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
- 18:18It's interesting what you were saying there, Ben, because I get
- 18:22asked to quite often. Is it better to go in the sea
- 18:26first and then come in start from a cold position or do you
- 18:30get in the sauna? And I've always preferred to be
- 18:33nice and warm to then get in the sea, so I don't know if is there
- 18:37any sort of research around that.
- 18:40That's a really good point. And to be honest, what what you
- 18:45discussed there is, is kind of a concept called contrast therapy
- 18:48and that's going from these contrasting temperatures.
- 18:52And in terms of it for health markers, longevity, Wellness, we
- 18:58don't have tons of literature at the moment regarding this.
- 19:02And from what we do have, there is some positive aspects.
- 19:05And you're right in that most studies and that may be down to
- 19:08preference of the individual is having the heating component
- 19:13first. So having the sauna use first
- 19:16and then going into the bout of cold water immersion.
- 19:19There have been one or two studies as well that have done
- 19:22repeat closures. So contrasting between the two
- 19:25for for a series of repetitions. I think one thing we need to be
- 19:29mindful of is that what what's happening between or what's
- 19:33happening physiologically is that obviously when we heat up,
- 19:35we get an increase in heart rate, we get an increase in this
- 19:38cardiac output, we get in this vasodilatory response.
- 19:44And then from the moment we go into the cold, so the the blood
- 19:48vessels will be dilated because we're trying to redistribute the
- 19:51blood to the skin and lose heat that way.
- 19:53When we go into the cold, the opposite tends to occur.
- 19:56We still get the increase in heart rate, we still get the
- 19:59increase in blood pressure and peripheral resistance will go
- 20:02up. This is the the resistance of
- 20:04blood flow into your peripheral vasculature.
- 20:07This is one of a key concept of blood pressure.
- 20:10But we get a redistribution of blood rather to the extremities
- 20:14that we get in the heat, we get it to the core because the cold
- 20:19shock response is, is a stress of that.
- 20:21It's a survival mechanism. We, we want to make sure that
- 20:25our, our central organs, our heart, lungs, kidneys, they're
- 20:28all receiving adequate blood supply.
- 20:30So what you, what you tend to find is from a dilated
- 20:33perspective of the arteries, they go from dilation to then
- 20:37constriction. And I guess one of the arguments
- 20:40for this is a therapy and as a, as a modality for recovery is
- 20:45you kind of stimulate almost like a pumping priming mechanism
- 20:48of the vasculature. So you go from constriction to
- 20:51dilation, constriction to dilation and that may have some
- 20:56positive adaptations to the vasculature itself.
- 20:59This is a, these are cells that line the inner wall of your
- 21:02vasculature called epithelial cells, endothelial cells, sorry.
- 21:06And they can respond to a range of different stimuli.
- 21:09And one of those stimuli, yeah, one of those stimuli is the the
- 21:13blood flow. So what we call sheer stress
- 21:15patterns. So if you think of going from a
- 21:18constricted artery to then a dilated, the blood flow is going
- 21:21to redistribute in that area and you're going to have a
- 21:23heightened sheer stress response on the walls of those arteries.
- 21:27And that can be a signal for adaptation.
- 21:30So is this this, this is obviously this is quite sort of
- 21:34deep and it's it could be a solution for people with with a
- 21:39number of different conditions. I guess from a commercially.
- 21:43I'm going to sort of put this back and ask it rather bluntly.
- 21:46Is this well-being revolution a fad, do you think, Tom?
- 21:51Or is it that it's been around for so long that it's not a fad
- 21:55and we've just got the guy? The people that don't know about
- 21:59saunas just need to wake up and smell the roses, as it were.
- 22:04I know, I think generally people that sort of more aware of their
- 22:11health these days than than they were.
- 22:14And but this all kind of ties into the recovery like Ben has
- 22:23has touched on. And I feel like, yeah, people
- 22:29are just starting to catch on to the Ben health benefits.
- 22:34Yeah. And do you, you find, I mean for
- 22:37the work that you do, Ben, you find there's no shortage of
- 22:40volunteers, I guess. Yeah, for things such as heat
- 22:47and any kind of sauna use, people are more prone to to, to
- 22:51recruit and to participate. When it gets the cold, it's a
- 22:55little bit trickier, more charging.
- 22:59But yeah. And I think one thing to be
- 23:01mindful of always being relatively critical is that when
- 23:05we do look at the literature for these different modes, we have
- 23:09to be mindful of the the sample that they're they're recruiting
- 23:13and different baseline characteristics.
- 23:15And we need to be mindful of having an inclusion of like a
- 23:19control group as well, and which can be quite challenging with
- 23:23research as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 23:26The contrast area is it's been quite wide used in sport.
- 23:30I know in football having these large, because they have the
- 23:34facilities of these large tanks which they can heat and cold and
- 23:37go in between the two as a as a method of kind of, as I
- 23:40mentioned that kind of vascular pumping to try to mitigate
- 23:44swelling and to improve function as well.
- 23:47So it is being used as recovery modality.
- 23:53In terms of Wellness, I think you'll you'll get in ideally,
- 23:57but but most both, both benefits of each method.
- 24:02But I think if you look at the literature more from a
- 24:04cardiovascular standpoint, sauna used to have some really good
- 24:10evidence towards it for kind of health, longevity reduction of
- 24:14disease risk. So and and I don't know if you
- 24:19saw there was a recent article, I think a couple of months ago,
- 24:22you know, purporting that Sony use can be just as effective as
- 24:25in a bout of exercise. And there have been one or two
- 24:28studies that have done that. Yeah.
- 24:29So it's quite interesting and it doesn't seem to be really
- 24:31favourable for for health and longevity.
- 24:34As you as you say, it's, it's sort of health, it's recovery
- 24:37and and it's also pleasure because let's face it, we
- 24:39mustn't forget the fact that you know, it is saunas are very
- 24:43pleasurable and if if only because they give you half an
- 24:47hour or an hour away from everybody else.
- 24:49If you if that's that's the case and you're on your own, it's.
- 24:54Inquired. Absolutely.
- 24:55So if there was a take away that you would say and ask Ben first,
- 25:00Ben, if there was a take away that you would say to people
- 25:03who, who aren't familiar with saunas, but like The Who are
- 25:07dunkers, but who like the idea of sort of thinking, well, maybe
- 25:11we ought to have a go at this. Is there something that you
- 25:13would say, well, look at that first and see how how you're
- 25:17changing with that. Is there is there a take away
- 25:19that you could share with with our our listener?
- 25:24From more like an academic standpoint, I guess I'd say that
- 25:27there's really strong, really strong evidence for the health
- 25:30benefits of sauna and and it's forever adapting.
- 25:34A lot of the research does come from Finland and there's there's
- 25:38an ongoing, I don't know if you've heard of the my
- 25:40pronunciation might be incorrect here, but the QPIO ischemic
- 25:44heart disease risk factor study. So the KIHD and this is, this is
- 25:49an ongoing longitudinal study which is measuring sauna use and
- 25:53health parameters and markers. And some of the really
- 25:57interesting modelling they did was looking at kind of risk of
- 26:01mortality in sauna use compared to those that weren't.
- 26:05And some of the really interesting findings were using
- 26:08the sauna 2 to three times a week, there was a reduction in
- 26:11cardiovascular mortality of about 27% and arguably there may
- 26:17be a dose response. So the improvement in longevity
- 26:21or the reduction in mortality associated with the frequency as
- 26:26they found that there was about 50% reduction for those that use
- 26:30the sauna 4 to 7 * a week. And one key thing was this, that
- 26:35they could actually control for whether biases like socio
- 26:38economic status, your physical activity, your cardio
- 26:42respiratory fitness. So irrespective of these
- 26:45influencing factors, we've seen that actually frequency of Sony
- 26:49use can have really good impact on reducing the risk of
- 26:55mortality. So and yeah, you know,
- 26:59physiologically there's some useful evidence on the response
- 27:02of heat and so on, you know, like heat shock proteins, quite
- 27:07an emerging biomolecule molecule as well, so.
- 27:10It's def. It's definitely not a fad, as
- 27:12far as you're concerned, I mean. It's back loads.
- 27:15And loads of evidence. So Tom is strange.
- 27:18To them for ages. Absolutely.
- 27:21They've been around a long time. Tom is a take away that you've
- 27:25got that you would say. Yeah, I think just being out in
- 27:31nature is probably uplifting on its own.
- 27:37Just being down on the beach on an early morning, you kind of
- 27:41can't compare it. It's the same, you know, whether
- 27:44or not you're getting in the sauna and you're and you're
- 27:47chatting to people and getting to know like minded people.
- 27:52Yeah, or or dunking. I, I think all of it is if it
- 27:57makes you feel good, then it it must be good for you.
- 28:00That's how I. If it makes you feel good,
- 28:02you've got to do it. Yeah.
- 28:04Yeah. OK, so I'm going to, but just
- 28:06before we wrap, I'm going to ask you both a secret question
- 28:10because there's always a secret question.
- 28:11The thing about the Dunkers podcast is somebody who's been
- 28:14before leaves a question for the person who's coming after.
- 28:18So. So I've got one for both of you
- 28:21and Ben, I'll ask you yours. So if you could dunk anywhere
- 28:27with anyone and then have a sauna, where would it be and
- 28:31who? Brilliant.
- 28:35That's a very good question. Could this be alive or could it
- 28:40have to be alive? Or can we bring up the dead it?
- 28:44Doesn't matter. You just go with it.
- 28:46Yeah, No, it could be anybody. Anybody.
- 28:49I'm going to say if anywhere I would love somewhere off the
- 28:55Orla, Sicily, somewhere, somewhere, OK, all right.
- 28:57It would be lovely. It's on my bucket list for
- 28:59places I want to visit. I'm a big God for the fan.
- 29:02So a lot of it was filmed there and the guest, I would go
- 29:09probably a little bit of an unusual pic, but I'd probably
- 29:12say Rick James obviously from if we could revive him back from
- 29:15the dead. And the reason for that is I
- 29:18think going for a sauna and then maybe a couple of drinks after,
- 29:22he'd be very, very entertaining. Obviously that that look if that
- 29:27if that ever can happen, just include me in on the invite.
- 29:31You'll be there. And Tom, your secret question
- 29:36is, who inspires you? Oh, who inspires me?
- 29:46Well, in terms of the sauna, I think Alex definitely inspired
- 29:52me. Alex from Sauna Bath and my dad,
- 30:00definitely a big inspiration. He joined the Navy when he was
- 30:05young and his teen, you know, early teens and travelled all
- 30:08around the world and kind of definitely gave me a taste of to
- 30:14go and explore. To go and explore, yeah.
- 30:19So yeah, I think and for me for the question that you asked Ben,
- 30:25I mean I'm going to jump in on as well.
- 30:28Yeah, well, why not? Yeah, go.
- 30:30Tasmania and one of the beaches there, one of the wild beaches
- 30:35there and probably with my dad's and be able to go for a couple
- 30:39of beers afterwards, something like that.
- 30:42Beers are definitely on the agenda for both of.
- 30:45You. Yeah, bit of rehydration.
- 30:47Yeah. You just don't.
- 30:48Just make sure we're hydrated before the sauna.
- 30:51Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
- 30:54Ever the scientist, ever the, he's looking, he's looking after
- 30:59us even when we're going for a beer.
- 31:01Well, gentlemen, thank you very much indeed.
- 31:04I've really, really enjoyed this and thank you both for your
- 31:07time. And as I say with every
- 31:10everything that that to do with the dunkers all I would leave
- 31:15you with this thought and that is may the dunkers spirit go
- 31:18with you. Thank you for being with me.
- 31:21Cheers. Brilliant.
- 31:22Thank you, Mark. Thanks.
- 31:23Tom.