Nate Daubert is the kind of person who makes friends fast. He’s chatty, quick to smile and looks like he spends most of his free time at the gym. He also has a unique role in Chicago spa culture: He’s the city’s only official “saunamaster.”

In fact, he’s one of the few Americas to earn the title. Last year, the Elgin native became the first American to earn full certification as a “saunamaster” from a respected academy in Germany.

Getting to that point took Daubert five years. He watched 80 hours of online lectures, studied from a 600-page textbook and attended five days of on-site training on sauna science and first aid.

Today, Daubert, who is 32, works as the saunamaster at Eastend, an ultra-sleek wellness center in the Fulton Market District. “People are looking for ways to reconnect to nature, especially since the pandemic really digitized our entire lives,” he said. “There’s an increasing need for people to remove themselves from technology, and sauna is a really great way to do that, on top of the science and health benefits.”

Research by the Mayo Clinic shows that the use of sauna — a Finnish tradition of high heat and low humidity in a small, wood-paneled room — offers health benefits like reducing the risk of vascular disease (such as high blood pressure); alleviating headaches, arthritis and the flu; and increasing skin health.

Heat therapy has existed for centuries among various cultures. The temazcal, a sweat lodge in Mesoamerican cultures, is used as a purification, healing and spiritual ritual. Jjimjilbangs are popular in South Korea, where the bathhouses offer dry and wet saunas and are common for socializing. Hammam , or steam baths, are associated with Middle Eastern cultures.

According to Daubert, the Midwest’s choice of heat therapy is sauna bathing: a heat therapy practice where rooms are heated to 150 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, with a humidity level of 5% to 7% — an approach closely associated with Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian communities. That should come as no surprise, since migration patterns show Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota as the places where Scandinavian immigrants settled.

People seem to be swapping weekend brunches and happy hours for sauna.

The makings of a saunamaster

You could argue Daubert has waited all his life for this moment — or at least half of it.

His first contact with sauna happened during a school trip to Germany at age 15. The three-week trip abroad stemmed from his “obsession” with the country, which grew out of German class at Larkin High School in Elgin. He later became a U.S. Youth Ambassador living in Germany, as part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange , an immersive program offered through a partnership between the U.S. and German governments.

During his first three months there, Daubert experienced culture shock in a small, rural town where he said he felt like an outcast. The town’s community sauna, he recalls, provided “solace during a period of deep personal struggle.”

“I found myself skipping class and going to the local sauna three, four times a week,” Daubert said. “It was my place of escape. It was so warm, comfortable.”

Daubert thinks that saunas will pop up everywhere from library parking lots to community centers in the coming years.

He eventually transferred his residency to another family and began to thrive. His new family had a sauna in their home, and it became a familiar ritual for Daubert and his host mom to sauna bathe together. But, he said, “there was no real [career] path for it. I didn’t really know what to do.”

Daubert, who works by day for S&P Global as a UX designer, dedicated the next four and a half years to visiting saunas and taking notes. He crashed with friends and family in Hungary, the Netherlands, Denmark, Mexico and Brazil to research a career that he could envision but which didn’t quite exist. Then, last year, a local gym reached out to him, saying they were interested in building a European spa and wanted to tap his expertise.

“I was like, ‘I knew it. I freaking knew it, I had a feeling that this was gonna be a thing,’” he remembers.

The plans for the gym fizzled. Then Eastend came along.

The future of the industry

Located in the West Loop, Eastend bills itself as a “modern wellness club.” With treatments such as “ammortal (bio-energentic therapy),” one might expect a science lab–like experience. Not so: The staff is welcoming and chatty, and the space is warm and cozy.

“Nate has an entrepreneurial spirit and an eye for creativity,” said Suman Chagarlamudi, the co-founder of Eastend. Inspired by her immigrant Indian mom, she launched the spa in January and named it after the Canadian city where she met her business partner Amanda Mizen, who is also her best friend of 25 years.

Chagarlamudi launched Eastend in January. The spa was named after the Canadian city where she met business partner Amanda Mizen.

At Eastend, the custom 40-person Finnish sauna is co-ed, and bathing suits are required — a common practice in the U.S. The spa offers five “classes”: meditation, a sound bath, stretching, self-massage and a monthly social, complete with a nonalcoholic happy hour. Eastend also offers self-guided contrast therapy that consists of sauna and cold plunge — an homage to the Scandinavian tradition of jumping into a cold lake afterward.

A single visit begins at $45, and unlimited access memberships run up to $350 per month.

In a touch-and-go moment for inflation , self-care splurges may feel unwise. But Chagarlamudi believes the expense should be weighed against the long-term health benefits.

“Wellness is often the first thing people cut when money is tight, but it’s also so important for managing stress,” Chagarlamudi said. She’s found that the busiest times are Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday afternoons. People seem to be swapping happy hour and brunch for sauna.

For his part, Daubert predicts a shift in how Americans view sauna in the next five years. He thinks they will pop up everywhere from library parking lots to community centers: “[Sauna is] going to be the new community center, regardless of what shape you are or how fit you are.”