About HeatLore
What HeatLore Is
HeatLore is a thermal wellness platform built on a simple premise: the conversation around saunas, cold exposure, and thermal practice deserves better than what currently exists. Most of what you find online falls into two categories - oversimplified lifestyle content that treats sauna use as an accessory to a morning routine, or dense academic literature that never makes it to the people who would benefit from it.
We sit in the gap between those two. Every protocol on this site is grounded in peer-reviewed research, tested in practice, and written so you can actually use it. We track our own biometrics, build structured programs, and report what we find - including when something does not work the way the studies suggest it should.
Who Is Behind This
HeatLore was founded by a Bulgarian-based writer and researcher with a background in cybersecurity and a lifelong relationship with thermal bathing culture. Growing up in Bulgaria - a country with over 500 mineral springs and a thermal tradition that predates the Roman Empire - heat-based wellness was never a trend. It was just Tuesday.
The cybersecurity background matters more than you might expect. It means we approach health claims the same way you approach a network: verify everything, trust nothing by default, and document your methodology so others can reproduce your results. It also means we take data privacy seriously and understand the technology inside the wearables and connected devices we review.
Three Things That Make HeatLore Different
We bridge clinical research and real practice. We read the papers, understand the methodology, and translate the findings into protocols you can follow this week. When the evidence is strong, we say so. When it is weak or preliminary, we say that too.
We bring a quantified self-tracking approach. Subjective feelings are useful. Data is better. We show you how to track your thermal practice with HRV, sleep metrics, and recovery scores - and how to interpret what that data is telling you. Every protocol includes tracking recommendations because a protocol without measurement is just a suggestion.
We draw on global thermal traditions. Sauna culture did not start in a Silicon Valley biohacking lab. Finnish sauna, Russian banya, Japanese onsen, Korean jjimjilbang, Bulgarian mineral baths, Mesoamerican temazcal - these traditions represent centuries of accumulated practical knowledge about how heat affects the body. We research, visit, and document these traditions because they contain insights that clinical studies are only beginning to validate.
What We Do Not Do
We do not sell saunas. We do not accept payment for positive reviews. We do not present preliminary research as established fact. We do not pretend that thermal exposure is a cure-all - it is a powerful tool with specific, well-documented benefits and real limitations.
When we recommend a product, we tell you why, and we disclose any affiliate relationship that exists. When we do not know the answer, we say so. The thermal wellness space has enough hype. HeatLore is here to provide clarity.