The Flow Spa Summer Giveaway

Summer is the perfect season for relaxation, and at Flow Spa, we're making your chill-out time even more special! We are thrilled to announce the Flow Spa Summer Giveaway - your chance to win the ultimate relaxation experience with 3 x 60-minute Float Sessions.

What's Up for Grabs?

Float therapy is renowned for its mental and physical benefits, and we're offering you a chance to enjoy these at no cost.

The grand prize is 3 Float Sessions - a $237 value - for free!

How Do You Enter?

Entering the Flow Spa Summer Giveaway is as easy as a summer breeze. Follow these steps to participate and boost your chances of winning:

1. Confirm your participation: Register for the giveaway either through the link in our confirmation email or by visiting the giveaway page on our website. This earns you your first entry.

2. Refer and earn: For each new person you refer to the giveaway using your Secret URL link, you earn three additional entries.

3. Stay social: Follow us on Facebook and Instagram from the giveaway page for an extra entry.

Sweeten the Deal with Referral Prizes

Our giveaway doesn't stop at the grand prize! Refer your friends to our giveaway and you can earn some exciting rewards:

• 1 referral = A coupon for 30% off your next visit.

• 3 referrals = 40% off services at Flow Spa on your next visit.

• 5 referrals = A coupon for a whopping 50% off your next visit.

The best part? These referral prizes stack, so referring five friends means you will earn all three rewards!

Time's Ticking

The Flow Spa Summer Giveaway ends on August 9th at 11:59 pm EST, so there's no time to waste! Get sharing, referring, and following to maximize your chances. The Grand Prize and referral prizes will be distributed on August 10th.

The Flow Spa Summer Giveaway is not just an opportunity to win some fantastic float sessions, but it's also a chance to share the relaxation experience with friends and family. So go ahead and start sharing your secret URL link right away. Remember, the more entries you have, the better your chances of winning!

Your Secret URL can be found in your confirmation email or on the giveaway page once you have entered the giveaway. You can track your total number of entries from the giveaway page.

Happy summer, and may the best floater win!

Black Friday Specials 2021

Black Friday Frenzy is upon us (although it seems like it's now a race to whoever can launch their sale earlier in November).

However, I see a lot of us fighting back against the craze and looking to be more thoughtful with supporting small businesses with our spending and gift-giving.

And what we all want most this year is not a shiny new object but is to de-stress.

What we all want most this year is to de-stress.

I see it every day.

This year give them what they need the most, and you've got early access to this special deal. (The links down below are private so don't share them before they go live.)

Friday-Monday only, we've got the following specials on float memberships:

Gift One Month of Basic Membership - $55 (One float credit)

Gift Their First Two Months of a Biweekly Membership - $175 (Four float credits)

For the avid floater or flexible membership, 12 floats for $500 (12 float credits)

Even though there's no expiry on these float credits, you already know that regular floats are one of the best ways to include recovery time in your schedule.

So whether you want to gift yourself with some floats, or spread the joy of floating this holiday season, now's the time.

View all the offers here:

Why Wellness Matters Now More Than Ever

We all need wellness now more than ever.

Our mind and body and are tightly connected and we’ve watched as a see-saw of turmoil has tilted us back and forth this year.

It’s no wonder that our health and wellness is on the brink of disaster. Cold and flu season is still the same old story but we’re also seeing much higher rates of stress and anxiety. As we go into the darkest and coldest season, everyone is feeling the effects of being downtrodden.

This isn’t to say that it’s all doom and gloom.

This is a wake-up call.

Our wellness is essential for our own life satisfaction and for our ability to thrive as part of our family and our communities.

What are you doing to be well right now?

Practicing wellness isn’t about fads, it’s rooted in what our bodies and our minds inherently need for flourishing.

We’ve got to water our Life Garden.

Take some time to think about what practices you have done that led you to feel your best. Write a list of them and put it up somewhere that you will see it every day. Then try to do something on that list every day if possible, or as frequently as you can.

The more balance that we create each week for ourselves, the better we will feel over time.

The start of your journey to greater wellness doesn’t have to wait until some arbitrary start date or until the pandemic dies down.

We need it now more than ever, so start today.

---

Since the start of the first wave of COVID, I’ve been working hard with my friend Telsi to create a comprehensive wellness course that will help you weather the current storm that is the pandemic but live with greater health and vitality.

If you want early access to the course and special bonuses, click here to go to the special landing page for it over on our online learning platform at The Flow Academy.

A Yuletide Poem From RJ Claus

'Twas the week before Christmas and all through Flow Spa, 

Not a creature was stirring, just floating in awe. 

Buoyantly nestled on a bed of Epsom salt solution, 

As visions of sugar plums danced amongst New Year’s resolutions.

Listen up now as I sing out with elation, 

Come one, come all, and save at our holiday celebration!

🎄Merry Christmas to all from RJ Claus and the Flow Spa Elves!🎄

Calyx CBD Summer Sale 2019

Save 15% off all CBD purchases now until July 13.

The full catalog of products and prices are available here: https://www.flowspa.ca/calyx-cbd

Most products are still in stock but as long as you contact us and place an order before July 13 at 11:59 pm we will get the product in stock and you can pick it up or we’ll ship it to you within a few days.

Calyx CBD is an excellent brand, creating top-quality products and all of our customers using the products have seen noticeable pain relief and anxiety reduction from taking the correct dose for their needs.

Does an hour of floating actually equal six hours of sleep?

Whenever something new meets Pop Media headlines, there’s a tendency for whatever tasty nugget might be included in this new thing to be sensationalized to attract greater readership. This “clickbait” opportunity has not been missed even on float therapy and sensory deprivation tanks.

While the comparisons to a portal to “Upside Down” from Stranger Things is often no longer included in the lexicon, the quote that is continuously blown out of proportion is in regards to the restorative effects of floating and sleep. Depending on which news source you’re reading, you’ll often see it stated that an hour of floating is equivalent to anywhere from four to six hours of sleep.

The most recent news blast that has likely proliferated this claim again was when Josh McDaniels from the New England Patriots said that 45 minutes in the tank was equal to four hours of sleep - extrapolate this and I think that is why people are now pushing the claim that an hour of floating is equal to six hours of sleep.

Is this really the case?

Let’s break down the components of this claim and decipher the reality from what is exaggerated.

What We Know About Floating as it Relates to Relaxation

Floating is a powerful way to combat stress and anxiety and multiple clinical studies have validated this claim. The absence of any external stimuli often allows your brain to sort things out on its own and realize that everything we stress about on a day-to-day basis doesn’t have to be such a big issue.

Because the brain doesn’t have all five senses providing input during a float session, our brain wave frequencies are able to settle down into a deeper state of relaxation. This relaxed state is called theta brainwaves and is the same state that expert meditators reach and we all achieve during REM sleep and dreaming.

Figure 1. This chart from my Oura ring shows the different sleep stages that I was in throughout the night. You can see that most deep sleep comes in the earlier half of your nightly slumber and REM comes during the latter part.

It sounds then very much like floating is pretty much the same as sleeping, right?

REM sleep is only one component of our total nightly sleep cycle. It often comes in the later stages of sleep and is associated with creativity and memory consolidation. REM sleep also plays an important role in re-energizing your mind and body. Reaching a theta brainwave state while floating is, therefore, one of the reasons why people love floating for the boost in creativity and energy that they get.

Most of the later hours of sleep are dedicated to REM (see Figure 1).

Sleep is a fascinating component of our lives and has a multitude of aspects that are necessary for good health, REM being just one of them. Another very important part of sleep is the deep sleep stage which is when our bodies release a beneficial cascade of hormones to help repair and grow muscle, making it the most restorative sleep segment.

There is no evidence thus far that floating can induce a deep sleep state and the associated release of healing hormones (that is unless you sleep in a float tank).

This is where making claims like sleep replacing 6 hours of sleep can cross the line from benefit to simply being misleading because people who only get about 6 hours of sleep each night might think that they can get away with replacing that with an hour float. (6 hours of sleep is simply not enough, for more on this read the excellent book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker)

Perhaps an even bigger issue with people making claims like this is that it puts floating at risk of being converted from a trend into a fad and lumped into the likes of fidget spinners and pogs.

Floating has strong scientific support that is growing every day but if we keep having people trying to sensationalize it for a quick buck or clickbait then it’s going to start being that much harder to get further research taken seriously if floating is just seen as quackery.

Peterborough Float Centre Progress Update

The slow, autumnal creep of the progress to opening Flow Spa over that last few months has transformed into a turbo-charged rocket blast forward. In terms of visible progress, this last month has been nothing less than spectacular. After getting city building permit approval at the very beginning of the month, it was all hands on deck to make progress before the Christmas and New Years breaks impeded the momentum.

Removing the concrete.

The floor was cut to make way for the shower drains - the crucial first step when it comes to constructing float rooms as private showers are part of the experience.

With the floor cut, the plumber was able to put the first piece of the puzzle together in terms of room requirements.

Next were the frames for the walls. While the plumber was still plumbing away, we started to see most of the walls being framed in. This has been the most visibly dramatic change thus far.

Out With The Old...

In With The New!

Then the intermediate permits started to fall into place. The frames were inspected, followed by the underground plumbing. With those permits in place, we were able to pour the cement back down to close up those trenches for the shower drains. All like a beautiful symphony of construction.

With the holidays closing in on us we still had some time to continue the framing of the walls and start on the electrical work. A few days later the wiring was in place and like Jordan in the fourth quarter, the electrical inspector came in to approve the work and put the finishing touches on a successful month of building out the float centre.

Now we see the changing of the guard as the next trade comes into the scene to modify the HVAC system to suit each of the new rooms we are building.

The First Tank Arrives!

In the background with all of the renovations going on, there was still much to do this past month to see that our timeline for opening remained true. All of our equipment is in the final stages of production, if not already shipped and delivered to us, like our Float Pod which arrived from the U.S.

Our new sign.

Holiday pre-sales were a blast and a radio ad plus overhead signage helped to spread awareness of our burgeoning existence.

And now we move into the second half of renovations. With everything in its place, it will be time to put together the final package and present Flow Spa to the world. If all goes according to plan and we don’t face any hold ups we will be open sometime in February.

Peterborough Float Tanks Update

This past month took a lot of overcoming inertia to get the ball rolling but now that we’ve got things going speed is picking up. 

A lot of detail and planning must go into the commercial building permit process and now that’s squared away and we can start to make more dramatic progress towards opening. 

The most exciting news though in this progress update is that the tanks have been ordered and our timeline to opening is starting to close in!

Most float tank manufacturers build to order their products and so getting these tanks ordered as soon as we possibly could was important for keeping on track with our goal to getting open as soon as possible. 

Here’s a little bit of information on each type of float tank that we are going to have a Flow Spa so that you can start to think about which one you’ll want to have your first float in:

---

Pure Flow by Float Pod

This futuristic looking float pod has the aesthetic to make it inviting to all types of floaters, including those who are new to floating. 

This Pod provides a more cozy sensory deprivation experience but has all the features included for if you prefer to start out with some lights or audio keeping you company. The lid may also remain open if you start out feeling claustrophobic. 

Many first-time floaters looking to document their experience on social media love the Pure Flow for its attractive and modern look to accentuate their Instagram or Facebook feed. 

---

Pro Float Cabin

In addition to the Pure Flow we will have two Pro Float Cabins are Flow Spa. These cabins are extra spacious which provides a great experience for athletes and bigger individuals who just want more room to stretch out and move around in.

I personally prefer the Pro Float Cabin because of the extra space that I have in it to stretch out. While I still fit in various pods and tanks, I like the extra space granted to me when floating in a cabin.

This is another great starting point for someone who may be a little claustrophobic or just want more space because of the height and width of the Pro Float Cabin. The door can also remain open on these cabins and there is optional audio and LED lights to accompany you. 

We’ll be sure to provide you with more information in the coming weeks as we document our journey to getting open at Flow Spa.

If you’re interested in learning more about the science of floating and meditation, the blog on our website is the place to go. We will continue to put out new content every week or so and will send out occasional newsletters with links to the articles so that you can stay informed. 

Cannabis and Floating

Marijuana was legalized across Canada last week; here’s what you need to know if you are thinking about augmenting your float session with cannabis.

---

Key Takeaways:

• Floating by itself is so relaxing you might not want to get high and the deep relaxation state you can reach is like a good sleep.

• Marijuana may physically relax most people but its psychoactive effects tend to cause more anxiety. By floating while high you may get something out of it creatively but you probably won’t reach as deep of a mentally relaxed state as you could otherwise.

• Ultimately it comes down to personal preference but it is highly recommended that you go into your first float completely sober to understand the experience.

• Try CBD Oil for a relaxation effect to settle into the float more without the high.

---

There are still many people who consider floating to be some kind of hippy practice so it serves as no surprise that many people are wondering what the protocol for floating and marijuana use are.

Additionally, there are a number of staunch advocates of float tanks who also happen to be renowned pot smokers and the two are regularly described as going hand in hand for some of these experienced floaters.

Let’s dive a little deeper into the weeds and see if combining marijuana with floating is really worth its weight in smoke.

Floating - Complete Relaxation, Easily Accessible

Float therapy is like taking a long and relaxing vacation condensed into a brief session and there’s good evidence to show that it actually works this way; becoming weightless in the tank helps to relieve joint and muscle pain and the break that your mind gets feels a lot like years of practice in meditation.

Through floating you are able to achieve a state of complete relaxation in mind and body that is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve through other relaxation practices. Floating is so relaxing in fact that many people equate an hour-long float session with four hours of sleep.

This is exactly what many people are looking for when they feel like smoking weed - they just want to chill out.

Does Cannabis Equal Calm?

Marijuana does have a pain-relieving and physically relaxing effect on many people. People with chronic pain looking for a remedy without an extensive list of terrible side effects may indeed find it beneficial to smoke some weed occasionally. These pain-relieving effects are primarily the domain of the cannabinoids in marijuana which act as pain-signal blockers in the body. This is why CBD products have become so popular.

CBD Oil and Floating

CBD has changed the game for combining floating with cannabis in a lot of ways. CBD works to create a calming, anti-inflammatory effect in the body without the associated high of THC. At Flow Spa we sell both Calyx Wellness CBD products as well at the broad-spectrum cannabinoids from Flow CBD. Using CBD in combination with floating provides a gentle relaxation effect to help those who are more anxious settle into the float experience more. CBD oil is fast-acting when a dropper of the tincture is placed under the tongue to absorb more directly into the bloodstream and helps with relieving pain and improving sleep quality.

The Drawback of Cannabis

Where it is unlikely that cannabis is conducive to a complete relaxation experience is that along with CBD, there is another common cannabis acronym thrown around a lot is THC - the psychoactive component of the plant.

As a psychoactive substance, THC is the part of the plant that results in people getting high. Getting stoned may glue some people to the couch to watch endless hours of Family Guy but it doesn’t similarly settle the mind and therein lies the rub. Most people become more anxious while under the influence of marijuana, they just can’t act on it when they’re stoned.

Research has shown that despite people thinking that marijuana helps them to fall asleep, their overall sleep quality suffers and this is the most important factor when it comes to sleeping and ultimately feeling better. This is not to say that some people don’t benefit from cannabis for sleep in another way - if the individual is in so much pain that he or she cannot sleep at all, surely lower quality sleep is better than no sleep at all.

Floating Plus Cannabis Equals...

If you’re entering a float tank to try to relax as deeply as possible, you’re not likely to achieve such a state while floating high.

With that being said, some people like to use the float tank for creative purposes. Turning off the outside world allows some incredible people to accentuate their talents. Many of these people also use marijuana on occasion (or more liberally) for creative purposes. By combining the two, like the multi-talented float advocate Joe Rogan, some people may enjoy a heightened experience of creative output during their float in the tank.

If you do decide to enter the tank while high, I would advise you to let the staff at your local float centre know prior to your session so that they can better guide you through the experience. If you are extremely intoxicated though, do know that most float centres reserve the right to turn you away until you sober up for your own wellbeing.

So should you float while high? I think it comes down to individual preference and what your intentions are for your float session. The only time I would say absolutely not is for first-time floaters who should approach the new experience clear-headed and receptive to all instructions for making the most out of the journey they are about to embark upon.

Have you ever floated while high? Leave a comment below to share your opinion with new floaters.

Get The Most Out Of Your Next Float

Discover the best practices for float therapy for your particular needs.

Peterborough Float Centre Construction - The First Month

It’s been a challenging month in getting ahead of the anticipated delays and troubles in kicking off the construction and renovations of Flow Spa. If you’re not careful and ready to act, every two steps forward will come with one step back. There are many different roles to juggle all at once when in the start-up mode for a business and this month has been a testament to that fact. 

As the progress continues to be made, the pipeline of tasks begins to narrow into a more logical sequence of one after another; albeit with other roles and unexpected decisions still peppered in. 

The two major projects for this month have been finalizing the details of the financing for the business and getting everything squared away for the building permits and starting the renovations. 

As necessary as funding may be for starting a business, there are many steps and a detailed legal process that goes into receiving a loan for a business. Due diligence must be taken by both parties to ensure that a proper agreement has been met; much like the process of lease negotiations. But once the details of the money are out of the way, you can march forward much more efficiently as long as you know who’s doing your work and they are ready to get started with you.

Dealing with the city for the requirements of the building permits has been a more painstaking process. The Peterborough building department is overwhelmed with work and so getting an answer either in-person or online is time-consuming and slows down progress. It’s frustrating when you’re ready to work with someone but need to verify from the city any questions that arise first and it takes two days to get a response. 

There are some strange rules with my business being classified in the large business category despite seemingly falling under the limitations of a small building because of the overall size of the property it is contained in. This not only complicated the requirements as far as what I have to provide for design, but it also increased the costs for permits about four-fold. While this still doesn’t seem logical to me, it is how things are and I just have to move forward from here.  This is just one of the many reasons why you need to have contingencies in your business plan to accommodate unexpected expenses like this.

At least now that I have the answers from the city, my designers are working on what’s required of them and we’re back to making good progress towards getting everything done on time. 

Progress Update #2 - Float Tanks Coming To Peterborough

Show Me The Money

The first major hurdle for Flow Spa was the quest for funding the startup costs. Securing funding for a massive endeavour in a new industry is never an easy thing and our ability to move forward with the construction plans was entirely contingent upon securing a loan for the purchase of equipment and renovations. 

After months of diligent research and revisions, I presented my case on Tuesday of this week and received my response a few hours later. 

I was approved for the loan!

Now we enter the next stage of preparing the business for opening and go full force into renovating the space we have leased. 

Location, Location, Location

Speaking of which, our location is at the Asta Plaza - 866 Chemong Road. This location provides great accessibility and visibility as we proceed with educating our community on the benefits of floatation therapy and the other modalities that will be provided inside Flow Spa. 

In the coming weeks, I will reveal more of what’s behind the renovations going into opening a float centre as well as the fascinating benefits of floating and the research that the float industry is collaborating on to raise awareness and further validate the importance of the experience of floating. 

Feel free to send any questions or comments my way.

Thank you for reading, 

RJ

Peterborough Float Centre Progress Update #1

As we go about taking steps to get this business open, I will be providing updates along the way to keep everyone in the loop about our progress. 

Today in the first progress update I will touch on the following:

• business planning and seeking funding

• settling on a location

• contractors

• float tank manufacturers

Business Planning

Float centres are expensive endeavours.

We have been diligently working on perfecting our business plan in order to secure the funding needed to open this centre. With the business plan rigorously developed now, we anticipate having a clear answer on the funding in the coming weeks and by the next progress update, I will be able to give you an answer as well. One thing that I’ve learned is crucial about going into a funding proposal is being sure that you’ve got accurate estimates of your capital expenditures.  Under asking and not having enough working capital to see us through the early growth phase of the first few months must be avoided. Getting these numbers dialled in is like trying to reach the top of the moving staircases at Hogwarts - there are many moving pieces that can change the outcome in the blink of an eye. 

Location

We’ve got a location picked out now and the lease has been signed contingent on receiving funding. This is important for any business venture that is dependent on funding being secured because most lenders will require that you have a lease signed before presenting your business plan to them. 

Picking a location was challenging because we needed enough space to properly build out a float centre and also had to consider other factors like the traffic to the area, noise levels in the neighbourhood, and the other businesses to work with (or have to compete against) in the area. 

Contractors

One of the moving staircases in preparing the business plan are the contractors doing the build out. This can often be dependent on the location if the landlord has specific companies or individuals that he or she works with. 

It will also be a matter of comparing bids on the work since the build-out costs for float centres can be out of this world expensive. This is a critical step though and cannot be skimped on when providing the best possible experience to customers. We have been working with the companies that the landlord uses as well as close connections that my business partner has in the city to get the bids for the construction costs prepared for the business plan.

I’m confident that people will be blown away when they see our finished space and come in to float or use any of our other recovery modalities. 

Float Tank Manufacturers

Shopping around for float tanks can be one of the more enjoyable tasks in the early planning phase. If you don’t already have a specific manufacturer or model in mind, this often means getting to go on excursions to test out float tanks if they are close enough to where you live. We’ve picked out the tanks that will be best for our customers and their experience with floating and so now all that’s left is to order them and start the long waiting process until we receive them. It’s important to take care of this early in your buildout phase because most float tank manufacturers build to order the tanks and so wait times before shipping to you can be 9-12 weeks if you’re lucky and there aren’t any manufacturing delays. 

That’s it for this update! There are lots of new things to learn with starting any business but especially one that’s in a booming young industry like floating, so I’ll be updating again soon with anything else that I learn.