Alex Tyson // Saunas, cold plunges and how he Found Space

and then come over whatever. But I just knew where I needed to be and what I need to be doing.

will bear all the facets of seizing your yay. I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer turned fu entrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co found match Maid and matcha Milkbar. Cca is a series of conversations on finding a life you love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment along the way. Hello, lovely neighborhood, and welcome back to our third guest episode

in a row. As we were unexpectedly able to squeeze in more recordings than we had originally planned, it's turned out to be quite an efficient December, which, somehow, in amongst all the chaos of silly season, is not what usually happens to me in this month of the year, but it's meant that we did squeeze in another guest for you before we wrap up. Then we will be back next week for our final episode of the year, which will be the last yeays of our lives for

twenty twenty three. And I'm sure as chaotic as ever when and and I do finally get back on the mic together. We have so loved answering your submitted questions across a couple of Q and A episodes on different themes. They're always so interesting and considered, So we open up the floor to your last questions for the year in

that episode. That is the next coming episode to see if you've got any remaining questions about friendship, about the pregnancy, our twenty twenty three reflections, our twenty twenty four plans, and everything in between. The questions have been amazing so far, and there's still time to submit yours, so we cannot wait for next week and I'll pop another question box up on socials in case you missed it. If you have more to submit, then we will take a short

break for the holidays and be back in January. As for this week's guest, you know I love an interesting pathya, but especially one that we haven't seen before, or haven't seen perhaps as often. We've seen many people start their own businesses or make their way to CEO, but I believe Alex Tyson is our first who dropped out of his original pathya to not only take over a family business,

but to completely revolutionize it. You may have seen that Nick and I recently installed an incredible of found space sauna in our new home as part of the Brenos that has us literally pinching ourselves every day, having both been avid sauna users for many years now. Me when I first experienced chronic fatigue back gosh more than a decade ago, and was completely overhauling my health and wellbeing and learning about the things that would really help me recover.

And Nick as a professional athlete who was seeking optimum recovery for his muscles and his body. And Alex is the CEO of found Space formerly ie Health Saunas, having taken over from his parents who were years ahead of the curve, and his story is just absolutely fascinating. I'll let him tell you the rest himself, and about the immeasurable benefits of hormetic treatments like saunas and cold plunge therapy, which ties into one of our earlier episodes, Gosh a

couple of years ago. Now with the iceman Wimhoff, and Alex just really articulately explains the science behind why both of these therapies are so beneficial for you your body. So I hope you guys enjoy and learn as much as I did. Alex, Welcome to CZA.

the weird stuff and outing you so love that. Before we get started, I love to start with a little icebreaker for everyone, an icebreaker being even more relevant for someone who loves cold plunges, but just to ask what the most down to earth thing is about you? Because you're a CEO, you run an incredibly successful business. It sounds very fancy and glamorous on the outside, and I'm sure there are some very normal, you know, just down to earth things that everyone can relate to about you.

So what's the most like normal random thing you do?

team's growing amazing. It's like yeah, but like ninety percent of the time, it feels like stuff's going wrong, you know, or making mistakes, things are breaking, you know, Like that's just that's just the journey. And so I like being able to just go and stare at some trees for a little bit and it's kind of downregulate the nervousystem a little bit. Oh.

not having Christmases and whatever. And I thought that was really interesting because so many people were like, oh, like, Dana White opens up about the hardships of running business, and I thought, man, every business owner who sees that must be thinking yeah, no shit, Dana, of course, mate, there's no surprises here.

your working structure. And I think for me, the flexibility and dynamic pace is worth more than the structure of a corporate environment. But for others it might be different. I don't think. I think we glamorize it a lot, thinking everyone will be happier if they run their own business. Some people would hate it.

you know, found Space is like over thirty employees. Now we've got more than double that in contractors around two countries looking to be in three countries soon. Like there's a lot and you have to evolve with that. But

then also yeah, like be very structured. And it's a bit of a topic of contention, I would say between my partner and I because I literally have like times in my diary as to when I have our son and like even her and I we have like a weekly connect or it's just us, but that's in the diary, like everything is in there, because without structure, I'm not going to be able to, you know, look after my team as best as I want to in this kind

of role. So you get the freedom and you fly around and you get to do really fun stuff, but also like, at least for me, there has to be that discipline there otherwise it's probably not going to go so well my experience.

success or ful film or whatever. It's not meant to look like anyone else's and it takes most of us a really really long time to figure out what that is. And it's going to suit different people's strengths and weaknesses, but it takes kind of a lifetime to figure that out. So I really like to spend the first part of the episode going back to how you got to where you are, before we even get into how far Found Spaces come by itself. How you even got into this

role or into this company. I think is also fascinating because we all started as kids who had no idea, were a blank slate. We all had like first jobs at fourteen or nine months, and big dreams of what we wanted to become. I mean, you came from a mechanical engineering background, and like, how did you choose that? So can you start by taking us back to Mini Alex.

I know you're not from the sunny coast. So where did you grow up, what did you think you'd be and how did you start to figure out who you were?

apart putting them back together. Found that really interesting and went to UNI started doing engineering because that's what I felt like I could do and I thought I would have an interest in it. Kind of in parallel with that, probably from around fourteen fifteen, my mum was really into natural health and well being. So I'm the kid going to high school in like year eight, year nine, year ten, bringing like beautiful, elaborate salads that my mum had made.

And like I remember in year twelve, I was walking around with like a two liter bottle and people like, why are drinking so much water? I'm like, because it hydrates me and it's brain apparently.

I eat, YadA yadda. You know. I move out with my now fiance at the time, and we moved into an apartment, brand new apartment, and I remember turning the water on and it's stunk, like it was bad, Like it smelt like fresh pipe of glue. You know, it was not good. Yeah, And in that moment, I was like, Oh, that water filter thing that my mum's been banging on about. I think I should get one of those. So I rang her up. I think it was like the best day, one of the best days of her life. Like finally

alex is seeing a light. She looks me up with the water filter. Great, And that was kind of the start of me starting to, I guess prioritize my well being in a way. You know, I could have just kept drinking the crap water. But something that had been planted in my brain years earlier from my mum was like, filtering water is important. Otherwise you become the filter.

first year of UNI, I didn't graduate. By the way of my first year, I worked full time in my parents business, which at the time was called Ie Health Saunas. Up until that point i'd kind of helped them out on the weekends for some extra cash whatever. But I never wanted to be involved in the parents' business because all I saw was like arguments at nine pm on

a Wednesday. I didn't really want that in my life. Yeah, but I worked full time over that first summer break at UNI, and I had to send out by post like a questionnaire to a customers who had bought her an infrared sauna off my parents, and then they would write their testimonials in hand and then send them back.

that you need to pursue. And like a few weeks later, I go back to UNI for the year two, and I remember looking around the office, the office, the library. I just remember, if I end up like working in this space and I'm going to work with the kind of people that I'm studying with, like I'm going to be deeply unhappy. And in contrast to that, there was something telling me like I need to go and do this sauna thing. So I rang my parents up. I'm

half Italian. So I think I'm a bit dramatic. Sometimes I ring my parents, like, I want to meet with you guys in the office. So I go into the office and I say I want to leave UNI and I want to come and work here full time. And there was obviously some heated conversations as to why we shouldn't do that. Anyway, after a few days it was decided I'm leaving. I'm going to come work there full time.

And so that was when my sauna journey began. Yeah, I think I was twenty or twenty one at the time, and I started getting involved, and at the same time time I'm starting to prioritize my health and wellbeing and doing lots of fasting and going from eating very badly to eating very cleanly, and you know, started doing morning walks and all this kind of stuff which is now just baked into my life. Started doing with my partner,

and things kind of progress from there, I guess. So that's kind of I guess how it all started.

And I think one of the things we get so preoccupied with in our society, in this hustle culture is like what's successful, what's prestigious, what's like for some reason, and the hierarchy often puts like academically challenging things high up, like mechanical engineering would be considered a very successful career to go into. Did you face like was it a no brainer for you when you decided to walk away

from something? And there's also like an idea of if you don't finish something like did you fail or was that a step backward? So how did you navigate that big kind of choice in life to not abandon but close one pathway to take on a completely different one.

And in terms of it's a good question around the getting a degree or masters or whatever, and that whole space in my experience and what I've seen is that it can hinder people living the life they want to live or doing the things that they want to do because they think they need a piece of paper to make them worthy of doing the thing that they want to do. Although there's some professions like yeah, you need a degree to go and do that. Absolutely, I want

my doctor to have graduated. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I hope they did, you know. But for me, what I've seen and seen work is like that passion and that drive is somewhat more critical because I do believe pretty much anything is possible in this life. So even now, like where we'll get to where we are, I guess it's a company later, But we have this year launched three products that we designed in house from the ground up.

We created our own computer system control system. You can turn your sauna on from your phone anywhere in the world, this kind of stuff. And I think there's one person on our team that has a degree, you know whoa yeah, but there are a lot of people who give a shit about what we're doing, you know, Like I've got a sauna just over here, which started out as a sketch on my notepad. Right, Maybe that first three months of university helped me learn how to sketch. But at

the end of the day, like we created it. It now exists. We've created something from nothing. So yeah, at the time, I think, and certainly my dad was like, you're doing it. It was a double degree of engineering and business, Like you're going to walk away from that, like, I don't know if that's a good thing, Maybe you should do it and then come over whatever. But I just was like, I just knew where I needed to be and what I need to be doing.

to everyone else. But I love that from very early people were also telling you maybe don't do that, and you still were just like, nah, I can feel this is for me, And that's quite unusual to be tuned into that so early.

all that kind of stuff. And I just felt like, this is what I need to be doing, you know,

and I got really inspired. Like there were a couple people that I looked up to at the time, like Tyler Tolman was a really big influence on me and just helped me realize, like, if I want to achieve what I want to achieve in life, the vehicle with which I do that being my body needs to be clean, it needs to be efficient, and that really kind of got us going down that health and well being path, and that was where the passion was.

you to value your health. I love that you got there without that, because I believe that's possible, but I just don't see it very often.

being for thirty five, forty or fifty years. So I kind of started to join the dots, like if I don't do that myself, I'm going to end up like these, like these people. Further to that, and kind of a little bit later in life, I had to go through the experience of witnessing my dad be diagnosed with Alzheimer's and then go through that process. Now, my mom was always the health and wellbeing guru, and my dad was

very much the not health and life guru. So I've had to, I guess, in some ways be lucky, but it's also been really challenging, Like to witness my dad go from this vibrant, energetic, funny, high functioning, like smart dude to go to like like he can't speak anymore, you know, and he recently just stopped being able to walk. So I witnessed that. And in my book, I talk about this in the opening chapter. The links between chronic

alcohol consumption and Alzheimer's are kind of indisputable now. The links between chronic poor sleep and not getting into the deeper sleep cycles of deep sleep and rem sleep, links between that and Alzheimer's is really clear. The links between chronic stress and Alzheimer's is really clear now. Yeah, it's like it's written in the science. And my dad lived that life. He drank regularly, he was very stressed, especially in the last five to seven years of his life,

and those things affected his He rarely slept well. In fact, he didn't sleep well for most of his life, and in the early years he was taking a lot of sleeping pills, which we now know are also not good. And he never exercised in never ate well like lifestyle factors, you know, And I got to witness what happens when you just continue doing that. So for me, like I often ask people like, where does drive come from? And what is it that makes some people have more drive

than others? Because I've certainly noticed that some people seem to be more driven than other people, and like, why

is that? I'm really curious about that. For me, I'm driven because I've witnessed many sick people in those like between like as you're fifteen and twenty, and I now know the science thinking how those people were living and what is likely going to happen to them, and that is shorter health span, last ten years of their life are pretty average, and then they die from heart disease or diabetes or our Simon's the main kind of three.

And then I got to witness that in my dad and see exactly that thing happen and witness him all of a sudden not be the man that he was. So when I get up most mornings and do some sort of workout and then jump in the sauna and then finish on a cold plunge or start like whatever the morning ritual is that morning stereo run or like find time to go for a bike ride when it's dark, whatever that is like for me, that's what's driving me. People say like Alex, like why do you need to

open the business in America? It's like, because we're helping people and a part of me needs that and there's also the shadow side where it can get too extreme sometimes, But for me, that drive is really it's deep, and it's on the back of those two big kind of life events.

building something for someone else, and that you're balls deep in something you've been surrounded with, you know, as a kid all the way until now and translating that into something that's translatable to generations to come generations now. And I think one of the coolest things is so I came to Saunas through chronic fatigue. That was the first time that I sort of had my own what is health and well being? How do you you know? You have to earn it, It's not just something that you get.

I was trying everything and very much realized it wasn't just treating something medically from a chemical perspective, the Western medicine kind of side, but also, yeah, lifestyle factors. There are so many complimentary things you can do. But I never really understood the science. I just someone was like, go and get saunas, and I kind of did them. And then my husband, he's an athlete, he was the same. It was like he was told like, this is good

for recovery, go and do it. He did it. He did ice bars, but without really engaging in the science. And it seems like you're the opposite. You're like, I need to know, like all the science, all the facts, and understand why this is important. But what's really cool is that from a family business that onsold other saunas called ie Health, which is very functional, very trustworthy, but very functional, to now this all encompassing lifestyle brand that's

beautifully branded. The storytelling is immaculate. The industrial design of the saunas is beautiful, Like you've totally transformed this whole business. But also like an industry that isn't traditionally really sexy. It's like a medical device kind of world, and you've made it so cool. And we are so excited, like so excited and proud to be customers, But I know that your passion really is like why it works? So can you just explain to us, like what is it's

homedic homeitic? Is that the right word? Medic tech?

to do now sell the contrast therapy kind of vibe. Now, hormetic tech comes from the concept of hormesis, which hormesis by definition, is a stress that in short doses has a net positive outcome on the physiology of the body. So the a hormetic stress that we're very familiar with is exercise, right, So by definition, exercise in small doses has a positive influence on our physiology and our cellular health. Now, if you exercise NonStop, you'll die, right, So exercise is

a form of hormetic stress on the body. Fasting is a form of hormetic stress. Right, you fast for a period of twelve hours, twenty four hours, three days, five days. That's a stress on the body, but the net positive outcome is incredible cellular health and detoxification. These kind of things. Sauna is a form of hormetic stress right when the body gets hot. It does certain physiological processes which have a positive outcome on our physiology and our cellular health.

One of the big ones is activating heat shock proteins, which the short of it is helps our cells repair or kill off cells that are no longer working, and even create more mitochondria within our cells, which is called mitochondrial biogenesis. So when we get hot, that's what's happening in our body on a cellular level. We also then have an input into the cardiovascular system, so we start

to increase our heart rate, increase our breath rate. The reason I love infrared sauna so much is because you can really adjust the temperature of the product, which means

you can also then play with the nervous system. You can stimulate the nervous system and really go hot and push hard get all those benefits of heat shock protein release in the body, or you can go a much lower session, maybe like forty seven degrees for a little longer and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is what I need more of in my life because my life is full. I need to slow down, right, No, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The infrared is very good for that, and you don't you can't really do that in traditional sauna because they're always just really bloody hot. So there's the heat side of it, and then there's the cold side of it, which is cold plunge or ice bars or even cold showers have some benefits. Or there's the name escapes and we got the cold rooms that have the cold air. It's like minus two hundred and thirty or something. Yeah, yeah, it'll come to me anyway. The cold is very similar.

It's a form of hormesis. So in small doses it has a positive influence on our physiology and our cellular health, but in long doses not good. Like if you going three degree water for like two days, probably going to do it.

new neurons. So there's some cool science out there linking cold plunge as a way to reduce the onset of things like Alzheimer's and dementia, which is obviously very potent for myself. And then there's the benefits to the skin, and sauna is also great for building chullagen in the skin if using near infrared and red light therapy as part of that. So there's all these kind of ancilliary things. But both cold and hot are great for cardiovascular work

and BDNF in the brain. Cold shot proteins, heat shock proteins great for cellular health and building more mitochondria in our cells, which leads to more ATP ATP DNIZEE triphosphate is more energy and great. We come out of cold plunge, wild feel great. Come out of the sauna, We feel good. Some neurotransmitters are doing their things. Don't put me no

opreneffer and we feel alert. But we feel calm, vigilant, having any good time, and then if we're doing a cold plunge, we're instagramming it and telling all of our friends that we did a cold plunge, because that's.

around and I was on. It was like drugs, Like I was on a different level for I reckon twenty four hours afterwards and it was only I mean, the water was like one degree, so we could only be in there for a tiny amount of time and none of us have trained to do it, but it was amazing.

But what I think is so cool is that your family, and by default you have obviously been shouting from the rooftops about this really amazing science technology that makes accessible in homes now for so long, and the problem with being ahead of the curve on a lot of things like now it's quite ubiquitous. You can a lot of gyms have saunas. It's not as expensive. Like when I had chronic fatigue, it was like one hundred dollars a session.

You had to drive a really long way to find anywhere that had an infrared sawna that was actually like a creditor you know that you knew wasn't just a sort of a random box with a door. Microwave, Yeah, like a microwave. You know, it was very technical and inaccessible. But when you're kind of leading that charge, not only do you have the doubt of I'm not qualified for this. I didn't graduate. I've come CEO kind of randomly, and there's no guidebook for becoming that, but also the industry

is the same. The industry is a baby you're kind of pushing it uphill with Like, people don't know this science yet, it's not as necessarily easy a sell as it is now. How did you go about packaging. The information that you know is so powerful and now a lot more of us know. But in the early days where you were building your own products, so you were not just on selling other sorn as, you were actually starting to develop new products, did you have any moments

of self doubt and freak out? Was it a really hard kind of challenge to be the first to market or one of the first to market. It's an enormously difficult role to occupy.

their homes. But what we find is people get one of these products and then it's like a catalyst for them to want to do other things in their well being, and then educating on that. You know, hey, let's talk about nutrition and some of the things you can look at there. Let's talk about the nervous system, you know, whatever it might be. So I think education will always be part of it. But yeah, back in the day, there just wasn't a real It just wasn't part of culture in the way that it is now.

they kind of already know all about coal plunge. We just need to show them that we also know and then we can talk about, you know, the product and the extra stuff that we do at found Space on top of just the product itself and the kind of service side of it. But yeah, people are now coming very aware of the benefits and how they work, which is amazing. And I still think that it's a very early days for the industry, I would say, compared to

a lot of the bigger industries out there. So see how it to unfault.

go about? Like I think sometimes it seems almost easier to start a new business than to just evolve something that exists. But obviously you've done such a wonderful job. How do you even go about that? Like, that's a huge undertaking.

I knew we're onto something amazing. And I said, right from the start, we don't sell fucking saunas. We help people with their health and wellbeing. Sauna is just one of the ways that we do that. But I knew I knewed people on the team who also believed that, of which out of those nine, only eight did, so I had to go through this whole process of switching the team out. You know, some people had been on

the team for years at that time. Some people were family friends from like back in the day with my parents, so that was a real kind of challenge. But I knew that if I had the people on the team who believed what I believed, we could do amazing things. So those first couple of years were really challenging. You know. I had some ideas about the business model and that kind of thing, but was kind of ignorant to what

was involved. And then yeah, we just kind of started making some good moves, and twenty twenty we rebranded to found Space again because from the start it wasn't about the Saunas, so Ihealth Saunas as a brand wasn't going to work long term and globally, so we made that change.

And it was also I think twenty twenty when we really started to say, okay, up until that point, our products were they were ours, but they were kind of like off the shelf products that we'd made a few tweaks too to make the mouths if you will, and then sell them on with our brand, and then all of the education and everything that we do on top of that, and we started to say, well, if we're like really taking this seriously, we need to develop our

own products right down to the screw, like everything needs to be ourip. So we started the process of we hired some designers and all of a sudden we had a product team and we started designing our products. So this year we launched the Newer collection. That was the first actual sauna we started designing back in twenty twenty, and it was also twenty twenty when we started the project to create our own control system so you can turn it on remotely and these kind of things. So

in August this year we launched that. So it was like many years of slogging away and learning and fucking things up and everything. And then since then we've launched another collection which is called the Nissa, and we also launched our coal plunge this year which is called the Yerie and all of those are designed in house that found space in Melbourne, which is really cool, and every product we'll roll out from here is our design. So

we knew we kind of need to do that. If we wanted to be taken seriously on a global stage, then that was Yeah. We kind of went down that process and so yeah, now we're a product development company, which is really exciting and there's lots of cool stuff in the world. Cool. Yeah, it's fun.

We have these big visions, and there's something about just like taking it one step at a time, like the name, then the vision, then one product, then two products. You know, no one launches everything at once, And I think that's

a good takeaway. But also the idea that you said that you were kind of ignorant, and I think sometimes the naivety is a benefit to you, it's a benefit that maybe you didn't do an MBA and that you didn't know exactly what you were getting into, because a none of us would start if we knew what we were actually in for, because water shoot show, and it means you're not colored by the way it's been done before.

But it does mean that I think one of the really interesting parts of listening to stories like yours is like how the fuck did you figure out what to do? Like you get given this company and then you want product designers? Like where do you find them? How do you change a business model? How do you even know what a business model is? How do you address profitability? Like the how when you haven't gone to business school is sort of like where did you learn to be

a CEO? Like did you have a brains trust? Did you google shit? Did you? Like? How do you even learn how to hire and fire? Like all that stuff that's really fundamental at twenty four? As well, like how did you become capable of all this stuff?

definitely freak out moments. To answer your question, I had a mentor in Stephan Kasakas from Business Benchmark Group. He was great with the numbers. He's like Alex. He has this line is like words are good, stories are great, but the numbers never lie. And yeah, so he was really good at like how many leads you're getting, what's your sales process, what's your conversion rate on that conversion rate, what's your average sale price, what's your GP that like

break the numbers out. Cool, Like you've got to understand that stuff if you're going to have a business that's profitable long term. So he was really good in that kind of phase of the business. I needed that. I also worked with the guys at Dent Glenn Carson. The guys at Dent they do like a forty week key Person of Influence accelerator. I did that. That was really

really potent. So those were the two kind of people in the early first few years of me running the business that I kind of worked with to help because I realized very early on, like I don't really have a clue what I'm doing here. I've learned some good things from my dad who was running the business before me, and I've also learned a lot of bad things from

my dad who was running the business before me. So I felt like I needed some like a brains trust, I guess, to kind of keep moving through that early phase.

It's not me, you know. I just felt like I need to acknowledge the team there because they're amazing, and oh yeah to your point, like, yeah, it can feel alone, but you know, you get good people on the team who believe in what you believe, you can make it happen. And it's yeah. I said to someone this morning, like team is a top priority. Always looking after the team and having their needs met and having them feel challenged.

And the other thing I was going to say was is like through the journey, like I didn't know what I was doing in the early days, sure, or I had thought I kind of had a bit of an idea, but as things grow, like for me as a person,

I feel like I need to be challenged constantly. You know, we're opening in America next year, That to me feels like a challenged right, And so I'm actually kind of constantly at a point where there's I'm doing something that I haven't done before and I don't know how to do it, you know, and I'm better at finding out what I need to do. But as you scale a business, you kind of as the CEO or the business owner, whatever your title is, you're constantly in that space. I'm like, cool,

now I've got to figure out this thing. Now you got to figure out this thing, you know, and the stuff that you've done then becomes easier. I'm very unconsciously confident about lots of stuff in the business, more than anyone, but there's constantly something that I'm kind of learning and trying to figure out.

what I love. And the like related to that. When people are like, how do you know when it's time for a new market or how do you know when it's time for something new, it's usually when you are a bit comfortable and you haven't had that like complete I am in the deep end. If you haven't thrown yourself in it in a why well, like you start to get itchy, it's like okay, it's time, like we need to do something else. But what I love about your approach to Found Space is that it isn't just

selling saunas. And we very much had that approach to Matcha made and it's tea, Like you know, it's not that fancy, But the business got so big because it wasn't about tea. It was about tea helping people feel really good about what they were doing and connecting with them over that moment, which was a community and that

was so much fun. But the products are actually important somewhere along the way, and we have just I think it's been a month now that we've had the premium and I sadly was pregnant by the time it arrived and unable to get in it for the last four weeks, which is absolutely devastating. I'm counting down. But Nick's been

in it no shit every day. So for those who have listened, and like we've had so many people sort of say they've been sitting on the fence or like it's really overwhelming if you don't know the technology or you don't know the brands, you don't know the reviews and the price points are all so different. Like even when we first started looking, before we found you, guys, I was like, if I gave someone money to blow, still couldn't have found what I wanted because I didn't know.

So can you talk through like maybe the most entry level option in the light range and what that offers versus going up to the premium, then the outdoor, the nissa, the newer, Like what are the differences and like is the light enough for someone who's a complete newbie?

looking into. The second thing you want to look into is you want to actually ask them for a wavelength report of their heaters to show that they actually are infrared. Right now, if you're looking at a more typical sauna, is a far infrared sauna. You want to see that the wavelength is between seven and ten thousand nanometers in wavelength.

It can also be written as seven to ten microns seven to ten m. So you want to make sure that the heater is actually omitting that because there is a lot of unfortunately cheap crap coming out of China which isn't and it's not verified. So you want to look for that second thing you want to look for is you want to look for a company. Now this is going to be bias towards us, but you want to look for a company that has been around for a long time and has a lot of reviews. Now

why is that important? Because a mistake that people often make when they use sauna is they think buying a sauna is like buying a printer, that you just buy it and then it's just going to work and that's whatever, exactly, Whereas in reality, buying a sauna because you want to look after your health and well being, you want to

do that for more than a couple of years. You want to do that for at least a decade, So the sauna has to be good quality, and you need to have you need to be buying it from a company who has a track record of doing this for a long time. It is very easy to go on Ali Baba and find a supplier of saunas from various countries and buy a twenty foot container, bring it in, get them to chuck your logo on there, do an Instagram ad, and all of a sudden you're an infrared

sauna seller. Right. But what those companies don't have is a network of people around the country and more importantly, where you live, that will actually be able to service that product. It's like when you buy a car, like you kind of you read up on or at least I do, get to know what the service from that company's like because you know you're going to have to service it once a year. Right. Some companies have a much better track record than other companies, And it's the

same with sauna. You're going to need to get it serviced at some point, right, And I guarantee that if you can't get a service quickly, you'll be pissed because you're going to fall in love with. You're in cred sauna and you want to working. I hear it time in time again. So make sure it's a reputable company. They've got the reviews and they have the people near you, They've got the warehouse with the parts near you, so if something does go wrong, which inevitably will over that

ten year period, it can be supported. That's really important. There's a lot of companies, especially in the cold plunge space right now, who are all popping up. I feel like every second day it's like, oh, there's another cold plunge. There's another one.

you through how to use it. Right, This is the screen press. This here is where the USB goes. Right. But you know how to drive a car, right, And yet they still do that. And the thing is that people don't really know how to use infrared sauna. And a common mistake people make is they assume that I've got a sauna, it's got to be really hot. I got to go forty minutes. You know. It's kind of like that energy happens, and I see it in both men and women. It's not just the men who go crazy, right, yeah,

And they say I've heard these are great for sleep. Great, and they'll do like seventy degrees for forty minutes three hours, am right? And then they bring up and they go, I'm not sleeping well. Right. And this happens to us sometimes because although we explain it to people who doesn't go in, we give them a book saying, hey, this is how to use it for sleep, this is how to use it for recovery, this is how to use

it for inflammation. Sometimes people don't read that and then they go, oh, I've heard this is good for sleep, but I'm not sleeping good at all, And how are you using it and they tell us and they're not using it correctly. Hey, read the Sauna Sessions Guide, check it out, and then they go A man that helped like a lot. I'm sleeping good. Great. So the education piece is really important too, because yeah, sauna isn't just sauna,

and cold plunge isn't just cold plunge. We've been putting a lot of content out about cold plunch recently and I'm kind of having fun in the cold plunge, jumping around whatever, and I want to put out a couple new pieces kind of talking to the serious nature of it. Cold plunge should be treated with respect. You're going in there in ours at a minimum, at a low of three degrees, also known as really eff and cold. Right, it's full on for the body in the first thirty

to sixty seconds. It's activating the sympathetic nervous system fight or flight. Your body is trying to survive, so you don't. And that's got to be treated with respect. And there's sometimes that that would be counter productive to what the person's trying to achieve. So that education piece is really important. So I think that's probably my hot tips to come back to your question light sauna, empty level, You're going to have a great sweat. We'll install it for you.

You're gonna love it. Really simple, basic light in the roof done, Bluetooth sound system. Awesome. We have an outdoor barrel sauna. You can go outside completely not protected, gets rain, hail shine. It's fine, beautiful, full spectrum in for Reread's sauna. We then have the newer which is kind of our top of the line. Lots of glass. There's no sauna on the market that has much glass as this. It feels very open. You can choose between clear and tint,

which is really cool. It has more full spectrum heaters than any infrared sauna in the world, which means you're getting more full spectrum red near and far in for red light than any other sauna, which means kind of more light means more benefits quicker, which is really cool. And therefore that sauna is really eff and hot, and all the saunas we're releasing at the moment are super hot, like almost too hot. We love that the idea. And yeah, then we have the Nissa, which is more like private.

Lots of really thick timbers, nine mil timbers used on both sides of the wall. No one else is doing that using that much material, laminated glass, sound insulation, really private, really kind of inward space where you can have a sweat like a cocoon. Yeah, a bit of a cocoon. So yeah, we have various saunas depending on what you want, what your budget is. Obviously, our saunas range from five thousand to sixteen thousand, depending on the size, the model, the technology you want.

the other was found Space, which is also you. And when we realized You're like, oh, it's the same company, Like well, like one's heritage, like got a really long history and the other one's newer, but like, look at all the specs and the research. And then I think when we eventually spoke to Molly, because she knew we were looking for one She's like, you know, it's the same company, right. I was like, oh my god, well that solves the problem because we were tossing up literally

between these two businesses. And then Mike, they're the same thing. So it's funny that the same thing stood out about both of them and that Yeah, it's obviously just an evolution of the same journey, which has been so fascinating to learn about. And like, I just I can't even tell you nicause having the time of his life, Like he has the disco lights on, like I know they're not actually disco lights, but he uses them as disco

lights like every night. Yeah. Oh, I'm glad it wasn't just asked the coin that because he's living his best life and he I mean, he trains so hard and is you know, like we're getting older, like he needs. He didn't used to do recovery at all. He just kind of train and lie down. And now, like you do, you have to put so much into your well being to earn you know, it is the vehicle through which you experience your life, and to have the best experience

it requires an investment. So it's been we have loved having it. I cannot wait until April and to hear more about the story. So thank you so much for your time. It's been wonderful to get to know.

cold plunge. You know, it's not just like a supplement which does one thing. These things work cardiobatsculist system, the nervous system, the endocrine system, ther gut, microbiome, the quality of your skin. You know, it's thirty minutes of just peace and quiet in life.

time for himself in between. Alex, thank you so much for joining and I hope you're seizing your yea such an interesting story and I love finishing an episode feeling like I understand a new area of science or a new area of life. You guys know, I love a niche community, particularly when that's a niche community of knowledge

or wisdom. I've included the links to found Space and Alex's website in the show notes as usual, And if you have any other questions about the range, about our sauna, or anything else that we chatted about, don't hesitate to send us a DM and I can pass it on to Alex as well. As mentioned, we'll be back next week for our final episode of the year. Gosh, this year has flown by, Oh my gosh. I feel like we should play a drinking game every time I say time is flowing, so fuch, you will have to do

a shot. And that will include an update on our surprise CCA activities from this week. I think I mentioned that Ange and I have been planning surprise activities for each other across three different days, with kind of doing a CZA Christmas party, but spread across different days, and that promises to be full of yay. So we'll update you then. I hope this silly season is treating you all kindly in the meantime and that you're seizing your yay