The Bathers: Vol. 01 - Chris Don
- Iggy Van Reesema
- Oct 21
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 22
The Bathers: Vol. 01
Chris Don — The Sauna Project
The Bathers explores the personal connection to one’s daily bathing or sauna rituals - uncovering the quiet moments of transition, reflection, and release that exist within these restorative practices. In each volume, we step inside the routines of those who have made warmth a part of their daily rhythm.
From the coastal edges of Sydney, Chris Don, the Sydney lead for The Sauna Project, has built a space where community, stillness, and fire meet. Originally founded in New Zealand, The Sauna Project began as a way to reconnect people with the restorative power of heat and nature. After discovering the benefits of sauna therapy for both physical recovery and mental health, Chris partnered with the New Zealand team to bring the ritual to Sydney’s shores. What began as an athletic recovery habit has evolved into a daily grounding ritual - a space where heat becomes medicine, and conversation flows as freely as the steam itself.
For Chris, sauna is both solitary and social; an act of reset and reconnection. His practice takes place most afternoons, when the day softens and energy dips. A deliberate pause that revives the body and steadies the mind.
“I like to sauna between two or three times a week. The ritual kind of starts around lunchtime when I start looking forward to it. I’ll usually go mid-afternoon when your body temperature naturally drops and energy dips. Sauna-ing then feels like reigniting myself. Getting hot again when the day wants to slow down.”
Inside the cedar warmth, Chris’s sessions follow a familiar rhythm: three rounds of fifteen minutes, with time to cool off between. Sometimes silent and meditative, sometimes shared. The experience shifts depending on what he needs most.
Sometimes I crave total silence, just time to think and be off my phone. Other times, I’ll end up having these really wholesome conversations with people I’ve met in the sauna before. It’s that sense of community that keeps you coming back.
Originally drawn to sauna through sport and recovery, Chris has since found its deeper impact in the mind rather than the muscles.
It started with athletic recovery, but that’s secondary now to the mental health benefits. I can walk in feeling anxious, stressed about work or life, and leave feeling completely renewed - connected to people, to nature, and to myself.
“You don’t need alcohol or stimulants to feel that high — just heat, breath, and good company.”
After years of experimenting with contrast - cold plunges, outdoor heat, and natural elements - Chris has built a personal language of ritual. One shaped by texture, sound, and memory.
Chris’s connection to heat runs deep, rooted in childhood play and curiosity.
"Even as a kid, I loved testing heat and cold - jumping between freezing pools and warm baths. It’s funny, I think I was always chasing that feeling of contrast. That sense of coming alive."
In the rhythm of fire and water, Chris has found more than recovery - he’s found restoration.
“Sauna is maintenance of the inner terrain,” he says. “If I don’t put something like this first, I’m not good at anything else.”
