6 ms·

Iceland's Water Cure

124 points by wallflower 11y ago

shin_lao 11y ago
Can the secret to the country’s happiness be found in its communal pools? If you use suicide rate as an indicator, Iceland doesn't seem to be so happy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
- viraptor 11y ago
  Iceland gets next to no sun November-February, leading people to depression, drinking, etc. It would likely affect you much more than the winter you know from other countries. If anything, the social aspect of going to a hot pool in the winter is likely to keep people from committing more suicides.
  - Ressuder 11y ago
    Should be remembered too that cultural taboos have a big impact on whether suicides will actually be reported as such.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Exactly. It also affects how people commit suicide too. If there is a big cultural taboo against suicide then people will choose ways that look like accidents - say driving under a truck.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    This explanation of little sun => suicides doesn't work, at least as directly as most would think: Research on seasonal effects on suicide rates suggests that the prevalence of suicide is greatest during the late spring and early summer months, despite the common belief that suicide rates peak during the cold and dark months of the winter season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_ra...
    - reacweb 11y ago
      Lack of sun causes more people to be depressive. Non depressive people are happier during late spring and early summer. Seeing other people happy increases the tendency to suicide in depressive people.
    - nabla9 11y ago
      People with some level seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and people with depression react to change differently. For people suffering from SAD symptoms typically start in the fall and stay during winter months. For people with clinical depression it's the springtime that throws them off. I live in Finland and I have clear SAD symptoms in the fall and winter (very tired and low energy). Using Philips light therapy lamp completely fixes it for me as does trip to Spain in the winter.
    - Raphmedia 11y ago
      As somebody that lives somewhere where SAD is a real thing, I can perhaps offer a glimpse into this. During the winter, it's so dark and cold, you get depressed. You stop going out, and you stop socializing. It's not that bad, at least you don't feel so worthless for not going outside since everything is awful outside. Then spring comes along and everyone starts going outside. The weather is very good now. Everyone is having fun. Everyone but you. You are still stuck inside, afraid to come out, all depressed. That's the point where suicide start to seem like an option.
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    If that was true, Iceland's neighbors Norway and Sweden would have similar rates, but they're actually significantly lower and closer to countries like the USA. Iceland also has the highest percentage of people on anti-depressants in Europe. Nearly twice the rate of the EU average to be exact! I think a lot of these "Isn't Iceland wonderful" articles are poorly sourced pop-science junk designed to get ad impressions. Iceland has a lot of problems and is a much more complex country than many give it credit for. Its not a bunch of elf worshippers living in the forest. They're a complex modern people with all the problems modernity brings. I also believe a lot of people with leftist political beliefs don't want to discuss the downsides of the Scandinavian welfare state as these criticism are, of course, critical of their own personal politics. So narratives that are critical of these politics don't get upvoted on sites like HN and Reddit which are largely left-leaning. Its also worth mentioning that national happiness is tied very closely with income inequality, not pools. Even then, you can have a high level of general happiness and still have a relatively high suicide rate for reasons not fully understood, but I imagine self reporting of how 'happy' you are isn't granular enough to really tell us very much. There's an ugly "noble savage" narrative to Icelandic people that I personally find offensive. I wish the media would stop pushing that narrative but I can understand that it gets ad impressions the same way Native American "noble savage" stories were so popular a hundred years ago in the USA. The reality is that both are reductionist and inaccurate and gloss over the very significant negative aspects of both their cultures. Cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/index.html;jsessionid=3r1a233qn9oih.x-oecd-live-02?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/9789264183896-38-en&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2F9789264183896-38-en&accessItemIds=/content/book/9789264183896-en&mimeType=text/html%29?&_csp_=45f4df11dc99cd2019aa9aa30865f74f http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/in... http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-states-have-the-highest-suicide-rates/ http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-state...
    - ajmurmann 11y ago
      Can people who are down voting this please explain edgy? I find the comparison to neighboring counties very ingesting and would like to hear why people disagree.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- luxpir 11y ago
  It's likely that countries that experience the most depression have also developed and iterated through a range of cultural cures. We can all learn something from them.
- tikumo 11y ago
  more suicides means less depressed people walking around, so that could make a happier society.. (suicide boots from Futurama anyone?)
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    Suicide and suicidal ideation seem to act as a transmittable disease. At least that's what indigenous populations in the US are facing, an epidemic of suicides brought on by the loss of loved ones to earlier suicides. The flippant comment about a cartoon show is unwelcome from my perspective.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  On the other hand, it seems that suicide rates correlate poorly with results in research on happiness. For instance, compare the results of Happiness Research Institute to the suicide rates. Some of the countries with highest suicide rates are also the happiest! http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/02/finland-tops-european-countries-in-latest-happiness-survey/ http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/02/finland-tops-european-cou...
  - bramen 11y ago
    You can imagine an odd pattern might develop where countries that have high suicide rates seem happier because their most depressed people irreversibly exclude themselves from the surveys. I wonder how strong the statistical effect is though.
    - ptaipale 11y ago
      In the developed countries where suicides are more common, the suicide rate is about 1-2 % of total mortality. I don't think that's enough to have any significant Darwinian impact.
  - Retric 11y ago
    There is a band where people commit more suicides. To depressed and you can't really think or plan. To happy and you don't feel the need. So, oddly enough suicide is worse at the happy end of the depressed spectrum. Especially when someone goes from a deep to a more moderate depression.
gardarh 11y ago
I'm an Icelander and I quite like this article, it is one of the better written pieces I have seen on a cultural phenomenon I relate with - and it is no exaggeration, swimming pools are quite central to our culture. I have two young kids and I take them to an outdoors swimming pool nearly every week, also in the wintertime. Since I live in the capital area we have a few swimming pools to choose from and we rotate between them. The title hints that this is the reason for the country's high score in happiness surveys such is this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-happiest-country-for-third-time-united-nations-report-a6934196.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-happi... . While I don't think it's that simple I can forgive the author, the title "A survey on Icelandic swimming pool culture" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Usually when I see these surveys the first question that pops up is "How do they measure that?" and it seems journalists generally are not to keen on pursuing that question. My point is that isolating one thing from a culture and pinning that down as a "cause for happiness" seems a bit silly to me. But apart from that the article is pretty accurate.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  I did car trip around Iceland few years ago in may, having most of inner part still unreachable due to metres of snow. Running tiny Chevrolet Spark in places like Western fjords on their dirt roads with meeting car overy 1-2 hour, good memories. Communal pools could be found in most small villages around, I recall a big one in Akureyri, second largest city (population 18,000). Definitely part of the culture and considering overall ridiculous prices there, pretty cheap. But all pools are standard treated clean water although whole island has natural hot springs with bluish hot water coming straight form he ground all over it (it's basically like a big volcano all over). Very few places to enjoy those. I guess tourists want to have different experiences than those living there.
  - vezycash 11y ago
    >second largest city (population 18,000) Could a SMALL population increase bonding / a sense of belonging amongst countrymen thereby creating happiness?
StavrosK 11y ago
I've been to Iceland and tried the pool, and it was one of my favorite experiences (well, pretty much the whole trip was a favorite experience, Iceland is amazing). It was very invigorating to stand up from the 35 C water into the 2 C air and back. If you haven't tried it, you need to.
Huhuh 11y ago
I cycled around Iceland in may of last year. Slipping into a hotpool after a day of pedaling against the wind in barely above freezing temperature was simply amazing.
michael_h 11y ago
Where exactly is my 'undercarriage'?
turaw 11y ago
Augh. Almost 100% unrelated to the article, but: "There are ramshackle _cement_ rectangles squatting under rain clouds..." It's concrete [1] not cement. Even the word cementing can mean "settle or establish firmly", which is what happens to the aggregate in concrete. Augh. [1]: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/the-difference-between-cement-and-concrete/ http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/the-differen...
- pdabbadabba 11y ago
  +1 for the information, but I don't think all the "Augh"s are warranted. One of the widely accepted, dictionary definitions of "cement" is simply "concrete." (In fact, Merriam Webster has this listed as definition #1.) I understand that the terms have different technical meanings, but in common English they are simply synonyms. E.g., http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cement http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cement There may be an opportunity for a Battle of the Dictionaries here, but I think this skirmish in the language wars may be over.
  - turaw 11y ago
    Fair enough :/ it just feels like 'misusing' words is disrespectful to their source, as though a lack of effort was taken to use it 'properly' (air quotes since those are highly subjective terms). In a detached sense, I suppose seeing semantic change [1] in action is neat, but it is still just the tiniest bit depressing. edit: Ah! Also cool is dental cement [2] which is, as the name would imply, used in dentistry (but without any aggregate equivalent!). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_cement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_cement
    - pdabbadabba 11y ago
      Totally agree. Even if "concrete" and "cement" can "properly" be used interchangeably, I myself prefer to use words in a way that recognizes these sorts of distinctions. It keeps language more information rich and historically connected. (And keeps me from being looked down upon by well-educated people who, like myself, incline towards language snobbery :))
orbitingpluto 11y ago
Saturday in Icelandic is laugardagur - literally 'pool day'. Gives you an idea how central this is to the culture.
- wtbob 11y ago
  I thought it meant 'washing day' originally …
known 11y ago
A type of Japanese communal bath house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent%C5%8D
im_asl 11y ago
Geothermically heated water often contains lithium. This could contribute to the good vibes coming from the water.
yason 11y ago
A very interesting article. It made me look up some facts, actually. In Finland, there are 218 public swimming halls. There are 313 administrative districts (communes, towns or cities) in the country. Thus, practically even the smallest of the communes with population of only a few thousand have a swimming hall; big cities have several. Lacking geothermal heat, the pools are indoors and explicitly heated obviously. This isn't generally talked about much. I didn't realize it myself before reading this article: Finland probably isn't famous for its swimming and swimming hall culture, but it's everywhere. Except for people who don't specifically like water practically grow into a culture of swimming at halls. Nobody really thinks much about it. Everyone knows how to behave there. Old people gather at swimming halls for bathing, swimming and aquajogging. Physical education classes at school swim at the local hall, kids are brought to swimming halls in the first year, regular people go to swimming halls to exercise... There's nothing much special about it. We swim outdoors, in lakes and the sea, mostly for fun but swimming halls are the place for a more focused physical exercise. I would assume Sweden and Denmark are similar, roughly. I've had subpar experiences trying to find an abundance of swimming options when travelling abroad. My culture might not be that common after all.

124 points by wallflower 11y ago

Can the secret to the country’s happiness be found in its communal pools? If you use suicide rate as an indicator, Iceland doesn't seem to be so happy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...

viraptor 11y ago
Iceland gets next to no sun November-February, leading people to depression, drinking, etc. It would likely affect you much more than the winter you know from other countries. If anything, the social aspect of going to a hot pool in the winter is likely to keep people from committing more suicides.
- Ressuder 11y ago
  Should be remembered too that cultural taboos have a big impact on whether suicides will actually be reported as such.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    Exactly. It also affects how people commit suicide too. If there is a big cultural taboo against suicide then people will choose ways that look like accidents - say driving under a truck.
- ptaipale 11y ago
  This explanation of little sun => suicides doesn't work, at least as directly as most would think: Research on seasonal effects on suicide rates suggests that the prevalence of suicide is greatest during the late spring and early summer months, despite the common belief that suicide rates peak during the cold and dark months of the winter season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasonal_effects_on_suicide_ra...
  - reacweb 11y ago
    Lack of sun causes more people to be depressive. Non depressive people are happier during late spring and early summer. Seeing other people happy increases the tendency to suicide in depressive people.
  - nabla9 11y ago
    People with some level seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and people with depression react to change differently. For people suffering from SAD symptoms typically start in the fall and stay during winter months. For people with clinical depression it's the springtime that throws them off. I live in Finland and I have clear SAD symptoms in the fall and winter (very tired and low energy). Using Philips light therapy lamp completely fixes it for me as does trip to Spain in the winter.
  - Raphmedia 11y ago
    As somebody that lives somewhere where SAD is a real thing, I can perhaps offer a glimpse into this. During the winter, it's so dark and cold, you get depressed. You stop going out, and you stop socializing. It's not that bad, at least you don't feel so worthless for not going outside since everything is awful outside. Then spring comes along and everyone starts going outside. The weather is very good now. Everyone is having fun. Everyone but you. You are still stuck inside, afraid to come out, all depressed. That's the point where suicide start to seem like an option.
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  If that was true, Iceland's neighbors Norway and Sweden would have similar rates, but they're actually significantly lower and closer to countries like the USA. Iceland also has the highest percentage of people on anti-depressants in Europe. Nearly twice the rate of the EU average to be exact! I think a lot of these "Isn't Iceland wonderful" articles are poorly sourced pop-science junk designed to get ad impressions. Iceland has a lot of problems and is a much more complex country than many give it credit for. Its not a bunch of elf worshippers living in the forest. They're a complex modern people with all the problems modernity brings. I also believe a lot of people with leftist political beliefs don't want to discuss the downsides of the Scandinavian welfare state as these criticism are, of course, critical of their own personal politics. So narratives that are critical of these politics don't get upvoted on sites like HN and Reddit which are largely left-leaning. Its also worth mentioning that national happiness is tied very closely with income inequality, not pools. Even then, you can have a high level of general happiness and still have a relatively high suicide rate for reasons not fully understood, but I imagine self reporting of how 'happy' you are isn't granular enough to really tell us very much. There's an ugly "noble savage" narrative to Icelandic people that I personally find offensive. I wish the media would stop pushing that narrative but I can understand that it gets ad impressions the same way Native American "noble savage" stories were so popular a hundred years ago in the USA. The reality is that both are reductionist and inaccurate and gloss over the very significant negative aspects of both their cultures. Cites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/index.html;jsessionid=3r1a233qn9oih.x-oecd-live-02?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/9789264183896-38-en&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2F9789264183896-38-en&accessItemIds=/content/book/9789264183896-en&mimeType=text/html%29?&_csp_=45f4df11dc99cd2019aa9aa30865f74f http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/9789264183896-en/03/11/in... http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-states-have-the-highest-suicide-rates/ http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-the-happiest-state...
  - ajmurmann 11y ago
    Can people who are down voting this please explain edgy? I find the comparison to neighboring counties very ingesting and would like to hear why people disagree.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
luxpir 11y ago
It's likely that countries that experience the most depression have also developed and iterated through a range of cultural cures. We can all learn something from them.
tikumo 11y ago
more suicides means less depressed people walking around, so that could make a happier society.. (suicide boots from Futurama anyone?)
- wavefunction 11y ago
  Suicide and suicidal ideation seem to act as a transmittable disease. At least that's what indigenous populations in the US are facing, an epidemic of suicides brought on by the loss of loved ones to earlier suicides. The flippant comment about a cartoon show is unwelcome from my perspective.
ptaipale 11y ago
On the other hand, it seems that suicide rates correlate poorly with results in research on happiness. For instance, compare the results of Happiness Research Institute to the suicide rates. Some of the countries with highest suicide rates are also the happiest! http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/02/finland-tops-european-countries-in-latest-happiness-survey/ http://www.euronews.com/2015/07/02/finland-tops-european-cou...
- bramen 11y ago
  You can imagine an odd pattern might develop where countries that have high suicide rates seem happier because their most depressed people irreversibly exclude themselves from the surveys. I wonder how strong the statistical effect is though.
  - ptaipale 11y ago
    In the developed countries where suicides are more common, the suicide rate is about 1-2 % of total mortality. I don't think that's enough to have any significant Darwinian impact.
- Retric 11y ago
  There is a band where people commit more suicides. To depressed and you can't really think or plan. To happy and you don't feel the need. So, oddly enough suicide is worse at the happy end of the depressed spectrum. Especially when someone goes from a deep to a more moderate depression.

gardarh 11y ago

I'm an Icelander and I quite like this article, it is one of the better written pieces I have seen on a cultural phenomenon I relate with - and it is no exaggeration, swimming pools are quite central to our culture. I have two young kids and I take them to an outdoors swimming pool nearly every week, also in the wintertime. Since I live in the capital area we have a few swimming pools to choose from and we rotate between them. The title hints that this is the reason for the country's high score in happiness surveys such is this one: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-happiest-country-for-third-time-united-nations-report-a6934196.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/denmark-happi... . While I don't think it's that simple I can forgive the author, the title "A survey on Icelandic swimming pool culture" just doesn't have the same ring to it. Usually when I see these surveys the first question that pops up is "How do they measure that?" and it seems journalists generally are not to keen on pursuing that question. My point is that isolating one thing from a culture and pinning that down as a "cause for happiness" seems a bit silly to me. But apart from that the article is pretty accurate.

saiya-jin 11y ago
I did car trip around Iceland few years ago in may, having most of inner part still unreachable due to metres of snow. Running tiny Chevrolet Spark in places like Western fjords on their dirt roads with meeting car overy 1-2 hour, good memories. Communal pools could be found in most small villages around, I recall a big one in Akureyri, second largest city (population 18,000). Definitely part of the culture and considering overall ridiculous prices there, pretty cheap. But all pools are standard treated clean water although whole island has natural hot springs with bluish hot water coming straight form he ground all over it (it's basically like a big volcano all over). Very few places to enjoy those. I guess tourists want to have different experiences than those living there.
- vezycash 11y ago
  >second largest city (population 18,000) Could a SMALL population increase bonding / a sense of belonging amongst countrymen thereby creating happiness?

StavrosK 11y ago

I've been to Iceland and tried the pool, and it was one of my favorite experiences (well, pretty much the whole trip was a favorite experience, Iceland is amazing). It was very invigorating to stand up from the 35 C water into the 2 C air and back. If you haven't tried it, you need to.

Huhuh 11y ago

I cycled around Iceland in may of last year. Slipping into a hotpool after a day of pedaling against the wind in barely above freezing temperature was simply amazing.

michael_h 11y ago

Where exactly is my 'undercarriage'?

turaw 11y ago

Augh. Almost 100% unrelated to the article, but: "There are ramshackle _cement_ rectangles squatting under rain clouds..." It's concrete [1] not cement. Even the word cementing can mean "settle or establish firmly", which is what happens to the aggregate in concrete. Augh. [1]: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/the-difference-between-cement-and-concrete/ http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2011/12/the-differen...

pdabbadabba 11y ago
+1 for the information, but I don't think all the "Augh"s are warranted. One of the widely accepted, dictionary definitions of "cement" is simply "concrete." (In fact, Merriam Webster has this listed as definition #1.) I understand that the terms have different technical meanings, but in common English they are simply synonyms. E.g., http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cement http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cement There may be an opportunity for a Battle of the Dictionaries here, but I think this skirmish in the language wars may be over.
- turaw 11y ago
  Fair enough :/ it just feels like 'misusing' words is disrespectful to their source, as though a lack of effort was taken to use it 'properly' (air quotes since those are highly subjective terms). In a detached sense, I suppose seeing semantic change [1] in action is neat, but it is still just the tiniest bit depressing. edit: Ah! Also cool is dental cement [2] which is, as the name would imply, used in dentistry (but without any aggregate equivalent!). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_cement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_cement
  - pdabbadabba 11y ago
    Totally agree. Even if "concrete" and "cement" can "properly" be used interchangeably, I myself prefer to use words in a way that recognizes these sorts of distinctions. It keeps language more information rich and historically connected. (And keeps me from being looked down upon by well-educated people who, like myself, incline towards language snobbery :))

orbitingpluto 11y ago

Saturday in Icelandic is laugardagur - literally 'pool day'. Gives you an idea how central this is to the culture.

wtbob 11y ago
I thought it meant 'washing day' originally …

known 11y ago

A type of Japanese communal bath house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent%C5%8D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sent%C5%8D

im_asl 11y ago

Geothermically heated water often contains lithium. This could contribute to the good vibes coming from the water.

yason 11y ago

A very interesting article. It made me look up some facts, actually. In Finland, there are 218 public swimming halls. There are 313 administrative districts (communes, towns or cities) in the country. Thus, practically even the smallest of the communes with population of only a few thousand have a swimming hall; big cities have several. Lacking geothermal heat, the pools are indoors and explicitly heated obviously. This isn't generally talked about much. I didn't realize it myself before reading this article: Finland probably isn't famous for its swimming and swimming hall culture, but it's everywhere. Except for people who don't specifically like water practically grow into a culture of swimming at halls. Nobody really thinks much about it. Everyone knows how to behave there. Old people gather at swimming halls for bathing, swimming and aquajogging. Physical education classes at school swim at the local hall, kids are brought to swimming halls in the first year, regular people go to swimming halls to exercise... There's nothing much special about it. We swim outdoors, in lakes and the sea, mostly for fun but swimming halls are the place for a more focused physical exercise. I would assume Sweden and Denmark are similar, roughly. I've had subpar experiences trying to find an abundance of swimming options when travelling abroad. My culture might not be that common after all.