Although the trend seems like something straight out of the Millennial playbook, “floating” or “flotation therapy” has been around since the 1950s.
Today, the stigma once associated with alternative health practices has evaporated as more and more people have experienced incredibly positive results through flotation therapy and other non-traditional health and wellness techniques.
Is Flotation Therapy Popular?
Flotation therapy is practiced by a number of well-known athletes, businesspeople, and thinkers. It should come as no surprise that the “elites” in many industries have already adopted floating in mass.
New health and wellness trends often hit the upper “spheres” of society years and even sometimes decades before breaking through to the masses.
What Is Flotation Therapy?
Despite being “on the rise,” many have still never heard of “flotation therapy.” It’s almost exactly what it sounds like: You lie down in a tank (like an oversized bathtub) filled with enough salt water to make your body float and feel completely weightless. The tank goes dark…And that’s it. You simply lay there, doing nothing in complete silence.
Some people pair flotation therapy with meditation or mindfulness, or other ways of calming your mind. This is likely why the practice of floating is proving popular among young business people and entrepreneurs, many of whom live in a world of constant noise and notifications—a world to which float tanks are the antidote.
How Does Flotation Therapy Work?
Over the past decade, an increasing amount of empirical research has been done on the topic of flotation therapy. Even before scientists began looking at “floating,” they were interested in practices like daily meditation—an Eastern import which also claimed to calm the mind and reduce anxieties. It turns out that not only has flotation therapy been shown effective, but so too has meditation. Our ancestors, it turns out, may have been onto something…
Why Do People Do Flotation Therapy?
Today, flotation therapy is more and more commonly used and prescribed by doctors all across the Western world and throughout the United States.
An understanding of how flotation therapy works is much simpler if you understanding how the average American adult woman (for example) spends her day:
She starts her day with an electronic alarm ringing him awake. She either “snoozes” the alarm or, like some, immediately picks it up and begins scrolling through his social media feed. Even before that first sip of water, many jump to fulfill a need that logic tells us must be greater than thirst—and that need for distraction. Distraction pervades the average day. At work, she is distracted by screens, at the gym by earphones, at night by the TV, even in the car on his radio.
With all this input, it’s no wonder anxiety, nervousness, high blood pressure, trouble sleeping, and more have become so prevalent.
Flotation tanks help break the vicious circle of anxiety then short-term relief, which only creates more anxiety that leads to greater short-term relief and more anxiety. A flotation tank is an antidote to the modern world.
What To Expect With Flotation Therapy
Flotation therapy sessions occur in highly sanitary environments where you go into a body-temperature tank filled with warm water (usually about 94 degrees) and Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate).
The Epsom salt solution is what makes your body float and gives you the sensation of weightlessness.
Health Benefits of Flotation Therapy
Aside from the widely discussed mental benefits of flotation therapy, there are also a number of physical benefits experienced by many regular practitioners…These include:
● Reduced Pain: Back pain, neck pain, arthritis, joint pain, and other types of pain associated with sports or athletic activities. In and of themselves, Epsom salt baths are known to be helpful in alleviating these sorts of ailments. However, when you add the sensory-deprivation aspects of floating in addition to the natural benefits of Epsom salt, you get synergistic (additionally positive) effects.
● Mood Improvement: It is believed that floating reduces endorphins in the brain. These endorphins are the same ones that fire off when we eat something delicious or when we experience the pleasurable side of physical exercise. The difference between sugar-related endorphins, and those that come from practices like floating, is that floatation therapy is actually good for you!
● Memory and Cognitive Function: When your brain has less to process and a significantly reduced amount of input, it is able to operate more effectively. Think about your brain in the modern world as a computer with too much software running. Flotation tanks shut down some of that excess software and give your brain the ability to focus and concentrate in a way you may not have done in years.
● Internal Injury Healing: Floating has been shown to increase the circulation of blood in the arms and legs. Effective blood circulation is a tremendous source of better health and wellness that cannot be overstated. With better circulation to your organs, muscles, and tissues, your whole body functions better – or, rather, in the way it is supposed to.
● Mineral Absorption: Another highly beneficial aspect of flotation therapy is the fact that you are doing your floating in Epsom salt. In itself, Epsom salt baths (even those done in your own bath at home) are highly medicinal in a number of well-documented ways, including reduced muscle soreness, healthier muscles and skin, constipation relief, better sleep, and more. Many of these Epsom-salt-related benefits are ascribed to the substance’s chemical composition, which is part magnesium and part sulfate. The magnesium, in particular, is the most likely cause.
● Mental Strength and or Control: The meditative benefits of flotation therapy can be practiced by anyone interested in using flotation therapy to improve their mental strength. What this means is not only greater focus and ability to concentrate but also an increased ability to control emotions that can negatively impinge on your life. These can include anger, anxiety, sadness, and more.
● Relaxation: The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for relaxation, which is one of the most important things when you are concerned with overall health and wellness. The inability to relax can come from a number of different causes, including too much caffeine, too much sugar, too much electronic stimulation, and the like. Proper relaxation – not sleep, but wakeful relaxation is an incredibly important part of overall wellness.
● Strengthened Immune System: Flotation therapy has an indirect yet positive impact on the immune system. Anxiety and stress have been shown to have a significant negative impact on the strength of the immune system – and because floating reduces stress, the result is a more prepared and stronger overall body.
● Better Sleep: Many advocates of floatation therapy claim that just an hour or less in the tank can give you the restfulness of multiple hours of sleep. You will leave the floatation tanks feeling relaxed, rested, and ready to take on the day. Another result is that once night comes, you will also be more prepared for sleep. A natural sleep cycle in which you get between 6-8 hours of sleep is, most researchers believe, an ideal amount of time. But although the number of hours you spend in bed matters, perhaps what matters more is the quality of those hours. REM or “deep” sleep is by far the most important part of your sleep cycle. But the thing is, in order to transition from shallow to “deep” sleep, your body has to naturally wind down at the end of the day and then gradually slip into sleep. This transition can only occur if the sleeper is free of anxiety and as un-stressed as possible…This, of course, is where floating comes in.
Schedule your float session today
More than just a flash in the pan, flotation therapy is a trend that’s here to stay. If you are interested in less anxiety, better performance, and improved overall wellness, give floating a try and fall in love with the results!
Ready to float?
Call us now at 317-449-2030 to reserve an appointment, email us, or purchase your session online.