A guide to sauna etiquette for Londoners... here's how not to embarrass yourself

Great news! London has just gained two new public saunas in Camberwell and Walthamstow. For the princely sum of £9.50 an hour you can now sweat it out in Ruskin Park or Sutherland Road following a night at Corsica or Drumsheds.

It’s the hot and healthy hangover cure for the quarter-century. Hair of the dog? Never heard of her.

Many have already booked their spot in the bathhouse via a pre-sale – among which were annual membership packages priced at £800. Community Sauna Baths, who operate the outposts, already have two sites in Stratford and Hackney Wick.

Back in January, Londoners lined up to try the sweat rooms and cold plunges of Slow Motion Saunas, another operator, installed temporarily at King’s Cross amid subzero temperatures. Expect these to appear on Nicky Haslam’s tea towel next Christmas alongside intermittent fasting and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.

But like all good things, saunas have rules: ignore them at your peril. The community sauna is its own special minefield: no one wants to see their neighbour as anything more than a name on an Amazon parcel that occasionally comes to your flat by mistake, much less as a real-life person sitting opposite you half-naked. But even your basic gym or health club sauna is a danger zone waiting to happen: a place of tacit, unwritten codes you’d do well to memorise before entering the fray.

If, like me, your approach to the gym involves a little jog, the occasional pilates class and a lot of time sweating it out in a cedar hut, you might also have wondered what exactly constitutes good sauna etiquette. Fortunately, I have done the hard work for us both and come up with a list of dos and don'ts.

The first and most important question:

Should you be naked? The answer is quite simply no, we are not in Sweden or in East Sussex. Please wear a towel.

What’s an appropriate distance, at peak times, between you and the next person? The answer is one foot, minimum, ideally two.

What to do if the sauna is full? Good question. Waiting outside is tricky, and especially if the sauna is near the showers it could give people the wrong impression. Best to avoid the fray altogether and try to go when things are quieter. If not possible, forego the sauna on that day. I know there are a great many health benefits to going seven times a week, but consider the impact which stress and embarrassment have on the body. Looking like a lurker while you wait for a spot is demeaning and a biohazard. Don’t do it.

Do not stare. If I can keep my eyes off the Adonises (Adones?) who share the sauna with me at the ThirdSpace gym, so can you.

Keep the chit chat to a minimum. This is not the place for you to discuss work, holidays, your health regimen or your latest sexual conquests. Do not be fooled by the effect of the men’s locker room: no one cares about you pulling Laura from Accounts, nor do we believe you. In fact, the sauna isn’t the place for you to discuss anything at all. Unless you and a friend are the only two people there, you should not be speaking full stop. Use the time instead to meditate and reflect – on your place in the universe, or the glorious injustice of Sir Philip Green’s knighthood. (I stole that from Tom Hollander, but I’ve tried many times and it works).

Heavy breathing is annoying. Please stop. If you have asthma, keep your sessions short.

Do not raise concerns with anyone flouting sauna etiquette. If someone has decided to speak or to stare, ignore them. It is by far the quickest way to restore ecological balance. I once witnessed a very angry man take issue with someone for wearing flip flops in the sauna on account that bringing in dirt from the locker room floor was unacceptable. I received a mouthful after pointing out that dirt on the locker room floor could just as easily be picked up by bare feet and enter the sauna regardless. To avoid this kind of a squeamish situation, airpods are your safest option. Plug into a podcast, whale song, even Charli XCX – I don’t care so long as I can’t hear it. Setting your volume above midrange will not be tolerated.

Anything more cumbersome than airpods should be avoided at all costs. Wired headphones are fiddly and imply the mutual presence of a device inside the sauna. This is dangerous, distracting for others, and should be banned.

Finally, timings: do not be selfish. The sauna is a shared space and spending any longer than 20 minutes at peak time is a recipe for a riot. I don’t care if your doctor said you should spend half an hour minimum, if you’re meditating or listening to a particularly juicy episode of the Louis Theroux Podcast. It’s not that interesting and Germaine Greer has said far worse on Twitter anyway.

Abide by these rules, and good things will come: eternal youth, cardiovascular health and whatever else it is saunas are supposed to bring you. Inner peace, I suppose. If you see me in the sauna, please do not disturb mine.