VOL. 8 · JUNE 27, 2026

Last Saturday of June. Time to close the month out clean. Coffee first — five things.

THE RESEARCH — The Sauna Habit Linked to Far Fewer Deaths

Researchers in eastern Finland followed 2,315 middle-aged men for two decades (Laukkanen et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2015), sorting them by how often they used a sauna. The men who went 4 to 7 times a week had roughly 40% lower all-cause mortality than the once-a-week crowd — and more than 60% lower risk of sudden cardiac death. Longer sessions beat shorter ones.

Now the honest caveat, because it matters. This was an observational study, and the men sweating it out four times a week weren't a random slice of Finland — they tended to be more affluent, more active, and healthier to begin with. You can't hand the sauna full credit when the guys using it most were also the guys most likely to train and eat well. Correlation is doing some of the lifting here.

But it isn't all correlation — and that's what keeps the sauna honest. Controlled studies show heat genuinely moves the numbers that matter: a single 30-minute session lowers blood pressure and arterial stiffness on the spot, and a 2022 randomized trial found that adding post-workout sauna to an exercise program dropped systolic pressure about 8 points beyond exercise alone. Heat dilates your vessels and lifts your heart rate a lot like mild cardio does. It's not a replacement for training — it's a real multiplier stacked on top of it.

A note on the three kinds, because they're not equal. The longevity research was done almost entirely in traditional Finnish saunas: dry air, roughly 175–195°F. That's where the strong evidence lives. Infrared heats your body directly rather than superheating the air, so it runs cooler — usually 110–150°F, though some units climb higher — which makes it far easier to sit in. There's early promise for recovery and pain, but nobody has collected twenty-year mortality data on it, so assuming the same 40% applies is a leap. Steam rooms run cooler still at near-total humidity — good for the sinuses and skin, but not the type tied to the heart numbers. If you want what the studies actually found, it's dry heat at real temperature.

The takeaway: Don't use a sauna as a shortcut around the gym and the kitchen — the men in that study were likely already doing the hard stuff. But stacked on top of training, the cardiovascular case is genuinely strong.

Laukkanen et al., 2015 (JAMA Internal Medicine, 175(4), 542–548)

WORTH REMEMBERING

It's the Sibyl's command to Aeneas at the mouth of the underworld — tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. Don't shrink from what's hard. Walk into it with your chin up and your stride longer. That's the posture a man is meant to take toward difficulty: not around it, not away from it — straight in, and bolder for the resistance.

And it isn't only Aeneas who carried himself this way. The men under his command displayed this same mix of gravitas and fortitude. Following the destruction of their ships, the elderly Nautes says to Aeneas, "Son of the Goddess, let us follow wherever fate ebbs and flows / Whatever comes, every fortune may be conquered by endurance." Notice he isn't telling Aeneas to fight fate — he says accept what you cannot change, wherever it leads. The point is that whatever befalls you along the way can be conquered through endurance. Your job is to persist. That is virtus in action — the old Roman idea of a man's courage and steadiness under pressure.

TRY THIS WEEK — The After-Action Review

The military runs one after every operation and so does every football program (at least the good ones): What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why the gap? What do we change?

Sit down before July starts and run it on your own June. Grab a pen and paper and block off twenty minutes. The three columns work great: what went right, what went wrong, what changes next month. Be specific. Celebrate the wins out loud — but be just as honest about where you came up short.

Contrary to our ego's belief: this doesn't have to be done alone. It can be — but the real power is doing it with someone. Walk through it with your wife. Read it to your kids. Send it to the buddies who'll actually tell you the truth. Accountability isn't weakness; it's the whole point. A goal spoken out loud to someone who'll check on you is ten times better than the goal you kept in your head.

Then ask the only question that matters at the end of a month: am I better than I was on June 1? If the honest answer is no — buckle up buttercup, because that's a problem and you already know it. Your first rep must be done now. If you made real progress — good. Now the train must go on. Momentum is the most fragile thing you own. Don't set it down.

FROM THE BOOKSHELF — The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

Easter's argument is that we've engineered every discomfort out of modern life — heat, cold, hunger, effort, boredom, real risk — and quietly gotten weaker, softer, and more anxious for having done it. The cure is to deliberately put some of it back.

This one helped shape my thinking enough that it helped guide the Volitional Suffering chapter in The Heroic Man, so here's the short version of the argument. Nothing worthwhile is ever forged without pressure. For most of human history that pressure was simply built into life — you worked hard or you didn't eat, you endured cold or extreme heat because there was no thermostat. Now it's all optional, and a man can go years without ever being truly uncomfortable.

So you have to go find it on purpose. Cold water. Hard conditioning. Sitting down with a real book instead of a screen. Sitting alone with your own thoughts and no distraction. Having the conversation you've been avoiding. Whatever it is, you must choose the hard thing — you must volitionally suffer — because the man you're trying to become is on the other side of it, and nowhere else.

CLOSING THOUGHT

Before I close out this week's Standard, I need to say thank you. Thank you for reading, week after week. The feedback and the kind words this month have meant more than you know — they make the work worth it. Though I'll tell you most important truth I want you to carry forward: the sitting down to write would be worth it even if no one read a word. The doing is the reward. Working towards a goal is amazing, but doing the work is where your character is built.

I'll leave you with this. Reading this letter is a place to start — it is not the point. The point is what you do after you close it. Take what I put in front of you and apply it. Reading about discipline and daydreaming about being a gladiator will never make you one. The training ground crowns nobody. Only the arena can make you the man you're meant to become. Just try not to get mauled by the lion.

So get to it. Onto July.

If this meant something to you — or you know a man who'd benefit from it — please share this with them or give them the following link: The Saturday Standard​