The International Sauna Congress convened in Norway on October 3, 2026, drawing scientists, operators and advocates for several days of talks on sauna health benefits and sauna culture, with heat treatments in floating sauna villages. Coverage framed the gathering around the broader field of heat therapy and noted that the science remains limited. One scientist at the congress counted more than a hundred different heat-therapy protocols across studies, a figure that puts the field's fragmentation on the record. What the congress settled, if anything, on standardizing those protocols is not yet clear.