Stop Playing Small with Kiin Sauna Founder Ginger Richardson | Ep. 12
Listen in as Hannah and Amy sit down with Ginger Richardson, certified sauna and cold plunge coach, health coach, and founder of Kiin, a contrast therapy business based in Westport, Connecticut. Ginger runs a wood-burning Nordic style mobile sauna and cold plunge operation that pops up at beaches, wellness retreats, and private events across the area, and Hannah has personally experienced it firsthand, breaking a lantern on the way in and staying in the cold plunge for two full minutes despite having Raynaud's.
Liking our show? Leave us a tip to say thanks!
Ginger's story is one of the most honest and inspiring the show has featured. Divorce after 12 years out of the workforce, a mother's stroke, a lost friendship, a relationship ending, a rental sold out from under her, all within five months. Instead of playing small, she woke up one morning and put her savings into a mobile sauna business she designed herself. Less than a year later she has investors, two employees, and a permanent location. But the real heart of the conversation is not the business success. It is what Ginger learned along the way about discomfort, the central nervous system, community, and what happiness actually requires.
Ginger's definition of happiness is a calm central nervous system, and everything she does, contrast therapy, breathwork, grounding, movement, community, filtering relationships through how they make her feel in her core, is in service of that. She talks about the tools she has built, how she uses humming to regulate in the middle of the night, how breathwork in the cold plunge translated into getting air into closing airways during an anaphylactic episode, and why she believes all the hard things in her life led her exactly where she needed to be.
In this episode: contrast therapy and its benefits, the physiological effects of heat and cold, breathwork as a life skill, building your toolbox before you need it, cognitive flexibility and metacognition, the central nervous system and happiness, filtering relationships, doing the inside work first, why you just have to start, and why life being hard is actually the best part.
Find Ginger
Kiinsauna.com for booking, private events, corporate events, and wellness partnerships.
Instagram: @kiinsauna Kiin is based in Westport, Connecticut with mobile pop-ups throughout the area.
MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE
The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal: Hannah references the episode they did on this book and McGonigal's finding that people who believe stress is harmful have a significantly higher mortality rate than those who see stress as something useful. Listen to that episode here.
The Happiness Lab with Laurie Santos: Hannah references Santos on the idea that we don't expect to get fit from one exercise class and never work out again, yet we somehow expect happiness to work that way. Listen here.
Contrast therapy research: Ginger references research that suggests regular sauna use may be associated with reduced cardiovascular risk. Read it here.
Reach out to us! Email us at hello@icanbehappier.com or visit icanbehappier.com. Find us on Instagram at icanbehappier.podcast, and on Facebook and LinkedIn. This podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health support. Please reach out to a qualified licensed provider if you need help.
As an Amazon affiliate, we get a small percentage of the sale of any books you purchase through our links. It's an easy way to support us! Thank you!
