How Often Should You Float?
Tailoring Your Sessions for Maximum Benefit
As the popularity of float therapy continues to rise, one question remains at the forefront for many: How often should you float? At Flow Spa, we encounter this query frequently, and the answer isn't one-size-fits-all. It largely depends on your specific goals and reasons for floating.
Having seen thousands of clients come in for all the purposes and benefits of floating you can imagine, we have some recommended guidelines for maximizing the benefits you’re looking for.
The Multifaceted Benefits of Floating
If you've ever floated with us or delved into our articles, such as the "Top Eleven Benefits of Floating," you're already aware of the myriad health advantages that float therapy offers. From mental relaxation to physical rejuvenation, the benefits are vast and varied.
Tailoring Your Float Frequency
Let's break down the most common reasons people turn to float therapy and the recommended frequency based on our observations and feedback from our valued clients:
1. Pain Relief
For those seeking solace from chronic pain or discomfort, floating can be a game-changer.
Recommended Frequency: Every 1-2 weeks.
2. Stress and Anxiety Management
In our fast-paced world, finding moments of calm can be challenging. Float therapy offers a sanctuary for the mind.
Recommended Frequency: Every 2-4 weeks.
3. Boosting Creativity
Whether you're an artist, writer, or simply someone looking to think outside the box, floating can unlock doors to deeper creativity. While there are no strict guidelines, we've found a sweet spot for maintaining that creative connection.
Recommended Frequency: At least once per month.
Consider the entrepreneur on the brink of a groundbreaking launch. A float session can provide the clarity and focus needed to tackle challenges head-on. Similarly, a musician amidst a gruelling tour might find inspiration for a new song during a float.
4. Enhancing Sports Performance
For athletes, float therapy isn't just about relaxation; it's a tool for visualization, recovery, and peak performance.
Recommended Frequency: Weekly or every two weeks.
Especially during intense training periods or in the lead-up to competitions, athletes might benefit from even more frequent sessions. In the final week leading up to strongman competitions, I floated every single day when I was trying to recover and continue to mentally rehearse to perform my best.
This high frequency ensures optimal recovery and prevents overexertion, allowing athletes to push their boundaries safely.
Your Float Therapy Journey Awaits
In essence, the frequency of your float sessions should align with your personal goals and needs. Whether you're seeking physical relief, mental clarity, or a boost in creativity, float therapy can be tailored to serve you best. Always remember to listen to your body and mind, and adjust your float schedule accordingly.
At Flow Spa, we're here to guide and support you on your float therapy journey. Dive in, find your rhythm, and let the transformative power of floating elevate your well-being.
Ready to embark on your float journey? Book your next session with us and experience the magic of float therapy.
Fight or Flight or Float?... Managing The Stress Response To Your Life
When your threat detection system goes off and your spidey sense starts tingling as the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, how do you respond?
Do you fight or do you flee?
We are all familiar with the feeling that floods in when we become aware of a threat in our surroundings.
Heart rate skyrockets, breathing becomes rapid and shallow, we get that tingling sensation as our blood flows from our core to our limbs to mobilize us for action to escape this threat.
While much less common today, this autonomic response to stress or threats was instilled to protect us from the jaguar hidden in the jungle only given away by the subtle sound of a twig snapping or the need to sprint after the deer to feed your family as it tries to get away.
When our sympathetic nervous system is engaged, we are in full-force action mode to handle anything in our way.
Working opposite to our sympathetic response is the relaxation response known as rest and digest. It helps to keep stress levels in check and takes over when we feel safe and secure. With this parasympathetic activation, our breathing and heart rate slow down and as blood can return to our core, our digestive system becomes more active again and we’re also more likely to be sexually aroused.
There are important functions to both sympathetic and parasympathetic responses in our bodies and we depend on the ability to engage in fight or flight to deal with short-term challenges.
The problem that we face today is that stress has become a constant in our lives. The kids are late for school, then someone cuts you off in traffic, so now you’re running late to get to work and you get chewed out by your boss.
And this is all before 9 am while guzzling down a stimulating pot of coffee.
Our days go by like this constantly and even if we try to stay positive, that threat detection system is used to working subconsciously to protect us.
Even before the booming threat of the pandemic, stress levels were already on the rise, especially in cities where there’s a constant din of noise, motion, and interaction keeping our nervous systems buzzing. Everybody says that they’re stressed and in a constant state of avoiding overwhelm and having to deal with COVID hasn’t helped anyone.
Finding ways to unwind and get our bodies into the relaxation response is one of the best things we can do for our physical and mental health. When the term “relaxation response” was first coined by Herbert Benson, he came up with a protocol for practicing relaxation and eliciting the response.
The original steps for the relaxation response look very similar to a beginner practice of mindfulness and that’s because Dr. Benson is often credited with familiarizing his Western audience with meditation through rebranding it as the “Relaxation Effect.”
Meditation is a tricky thing though because despite rebranding it or rephrasing the concept, most people don’t know how to get started with meditation in a meaningful way that feels like something positive.
But that’s where float tanks come in.
Most people are curious to try out the float experience and to escape from the world in the nearly complete way that only floating can allow for.
It’s not surprising given the many studies that have found floating in a float tank brings on the relaxation effect as well as the benefits that come with that. And this is in part due to how many people describe floating as a sort of training wheels for meditation. It’s like your mental filing cabinet where your brain is able to turn down the noise and sort out the thoughts that tend to swirl around uncontrollably.
People coming in to float notice in real-time the benefits for reducing stress, improving mood, and also helping to increase focus as you return to the outside world.
The float tank environment is the perfect place to turn off that stress response that is ever-present in our lives today. It’s a safe and comfortable space to engage our relaxation response and let go of everything.
Depending on how you like to float, you can completely tune out from all the stimuli that are normally present and keep our fight of flight response actively engaged. You get to choose calming music or blissful silence and the comfort of lights if you don’t want to immerse yourself in complete darkness.
The next time that you feel you're fed up with life and ready to lose it, instead of running away from your problems or getting into an argument, give yourself a time-out to engage your relaxation response. Or even better, treat yourself to a float and relax every muscle in your body while your brain gets to have a complete rest as well.
Float Into A New Way To Relax and Feel Your Best This Summer
After being cooped up for most of 2020 and the start of this year, we’ve all been eager to get back to some level of normal and that means prioritizing self-care as well.
Floating is one of the best ways to improve almost any experience, whether it’s through the serenity of practicing self-care alone or to help with recovery as you get back to doing the other things your love after many months off.
The Cooldown Float
As we get back into our workout routines and local sports leagues, floating after you get your heart rate up can be a great way to bring it back to baseline.
Research shows that athletes at any skill level who incorporate floating into their training and recovery programs are able to recover faster and increase their performance more than without floating.
Because the water in the float tank is the same as skin temperature, you won’t overheat. Floating helps to reduce blood pressure so you’ll come out of the float feeling restored post-workout.
Appreciate the Little Things
The post-float glow that comes after getting out of the float tank is one of the greatest blissed out feelings that we can have. And this is a perfect time to stop and appreciate the beauty around you.
Your senses become heightened after the sensory reduced environment of the tank, so there’s no better time to stop and smell the roses, literally! As all of our senses are vibing out after a float, food tastes better, music sounds better, and sunshine feels cozier than ever after getting out of a float.
So take some extra me time after your next float this summer to snuggle with your pets or relax and enjoy the sun in a hammock. You will come to find you’ll appreciate new things about these experiences.
Floating Into The Sunset
This already sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Given how much floating relaxes us and adjusts our reactionary behaviours, many floaters will adjust their schedules for the rest of the day after a float.
Sunset is one of the most magical times of the day and we need to more often stop and bask in the awesomeness of it. Finding a good spot to watch the sunset like at the lake, during a hike, or on a patio is always a worthwhile moment to pause for and that much better after a float has turned down the chatter going on in your head.
With longer days in the summer, it’s easier to book an afternoon or evening float to unwind and still time it perfectly to get to your favourite lookout to watch the sunset.
Float when you go on vacation
As your local float centre, we hope that you think of Flow Spa as, if not a second home, at least a second living room, and one of your favourite places to go. For regular floaters, it can feel like a trade-off when going on vacation because we miss out on the comforts of our familiar float tank routines.
But just because you’re out of town or on vacation doesn’t mean you have to give up your regular floats. There are float centres starting in more and more towns all the time. It can be fun to see how other float centres operate and if you find any cool ideas, be sure to let us know!
Floating is also beneficial for resetting your circadian rhythms so if you’re feeling jet lag from travelling, it can really help you to stay on track with your schedule.
Be sure to book an extra float with us when you get back to continue on that vacation feeling and make the transition easier as you return home.
Late night floats are great for winding down
Whether it’s gathering with friends and family again after so long, or getting back into a workout routine, we’re all trying to make the most out of this summer and doing it big. It’s important not to overextend yourself when celebrating or getting out more often to stay healthy and avoid burning out as your capacity ramps back up.
Whether you’re training for a marathon or long-distance bike ride, crossing things off your bucket list, or just hanging out at late night bonfires to take back this summer, going for a float as a way to decompress and recover is going to help you to prevent exhaustion and burnout.
And this list just barely scratches the surface of all the ways you are likely going to make the most of this summer. But hopefully it gives you some inspiration to make floating a part of your summer routine as a reminder to appreciate the small things that we so often take for granted.
After a year of forgotten dreams and quiet isolation, let’s make the rest of this summer worth the wait and float to make the most of it!
The Benefits of Float Therapy During Pregnancy
Answering Your Most Common Questions About Float Tanks And Pregnancy
Float therapy has become more popular with pregnant mothers as a safe way to get great physical and mental relief and relaxation during pregnancy. Let’s go over some of the most common positions that mothers like to lay in while floating for maximum comfort.
Can You Use A Float Tank When Pregnant?
Floating while pregnant has become a growing trend, which is not surprising to see as float therapy has many potential benefits for both mom and baby. Some turn to floating as it helps to relieve back pain and relieve a lot of pressure, while other new moms just love to be able to hear their baby’s heartbeat in the quiet isolation of the float tank.
Float therapy is safe to do during pregnancy although it is understandable that expecting mothers have questions about whether you can float and the best way to do it.
We always recommend that you direct any medical questions to your doctor, but wanted to take some time to provide tips for one of the most common questions which is “how can I float comfortably while pregnant?”
It is generally safe to float on your back or on your belly because of the weightlessness created by the buoyancy of the sensory deprivation tank. The situation is different from outside of the tank where laying on your back can be risky for the health of the mom and baby. *
Getting Comfy For Your Float
Try out the following positions as starting points when you come in to float. Height, body type, and personal preferences really make a difference in what you will find more comfortable. If you’ve never floated before you will be surprised at how buoyant you are in the float tank because of the 1,000 lb. of Epsom salt dissolved into the float tank solution. It’s totally effortless!
Belly down floating can help to release pressure during pregnancy. The weight of the growing uterus pushes against the rest of the mother’s organs and so this pressure release for 60 or 90 minutes during the float can offer a lot of relief.
One position that is often said to be very comfortable for pregnant floaters is floating face down with their arms across or under a pool noodle. The noodle is kept under the chin to keep their face out of the water. In this position, even if you fall asleep for some deep rest and a well-deserved nap, your head will stay supported by the noodle out of the water.
Some other expectant mothers prefer to do the same face-down position without the pool noodles, just using their arms crossed under their chin to keep the face dry.
Another belly-down option for floating is to put your elbows on the floor of the tank and cradle your chin in your hands. The shallow water is the same depth as most people’s forearms, so you can keep your face dry in this position.
An added benefit is that this position can provide additional stretch and traction to the spine.
Once you’ve gotten your doctor’s approval, if floating on your back seems like the best option for you, you can use a noodle under your low back or go without it.
The Epsom salt concentration in the water will support you and your baby very well as it is.
Potential Precautions For Floating When Pregnant
Every pregnancy has its own unique conditions and while floating is a highly safe and effective therapy, we ask that all expecting mothers speak with their doctor for approval before floating.
We’ve seen some sources online say that women should not float during their first trimester but there is no data to support this concern. It likely originated because it’s more likely for miscarriages to happen during the first trimester.
This article is for informational purposes only and you should consult your doctor before making any decisions but from reports of floaters at Flow Spa as well as the community globally, floating through pregnancy can be an incredible relief on the body and mind.
Here’s one mother’s personal blog about floating while pregnant: https://floatingpregnant.wordpress.com/
*The risk related to a pregnant woman lying down on her back on a solid, flat surface is due to constriction of blood flow to the placenta. This can interfere with the development of the baby. Also, the weight of the uterus can put pressure on major veins, causing dizziness and discomfort for the mother. In a float tank, this doesn’t seem to happen, because there is no rigid surface underneath the mother to put pressure on the circulatory system. Floating has been shown to have other positive health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and reducing stress, which can also help a pregnant mother to have healthy blood flow to her heart and to the baby’s placenta.
Float Your Way To Peace | Studying Serenity and Float Therapy
Finding serenity sounds nice right about now, doesn’t it?
As we’ve struggled through 2020, it can seem like a faraway dream to find serenity now.
With so much uncertainty, it’s difficult to tune out and relax to focus on the present, even though it’s one of the most important things we can do for ourselves right now.
We have to remember to focus on what’s in our own control and what we can have an impact on when the world feels so chaotic. And one of the things we can make a positive impact on is taking better care of ourselves. Finding our own sense of serenity and taking care of our mental health through positive routines is something we can and should control, especially at this time.
Because we so often talk about mental health from the perspective of negative symptoms, it can be hard to remember that mental health isn’t an on/off switch. We don’t often talk about mental health from the positive perspective without comparing it to the negative but the reality is that it exists on a spectrum and even when we’re not suffering, we still have room to make things better for ourselves.
And this is one of the things that floating does best for you. It improves your serenity by helping with mental and physical wellness while setting you at ease.
We often think of serenity as something that comes from meditation or the peace of relaxation but it’s also a specific term used by scientists. Serenity is a marker of mental wellness that gauges how well we stay present, our readiness to practice forgiveness, and how content we feel with our lives despite the negativity.
Serenity was also one of the many mental health factors studied in recent float therapy research.
In 2018, Dr. Justin Feinstein’s team at the LIBR were able to demonstrate the effect of a single 60-minute float on serenity, and the results are part of what makes floating such a promising wellness practice:
In anxious participants, serenity soared post-float, above the baseline for non-anxious participants in the study.
And in the non-anxious group, serenity increased a significant amount as well, demonstrating this mental health gradient.
Even more impressively, when looking at the data from all 50 participants in the study, every single one saw an increase in serenity post-float. And a quarter of them maxed out the serenity scale post-float.
Looking at the graph for all the participants’ data shows the significant results of this study. The red bar is how serene they felt before floating, and the blue bar shows the post-float improvement.
There’s a presentation on the full results of the study here, and the research article is available here. In addition to the study looking at serenity, the researchers also saw decreases in anxiety and muscle tension as well as increases in relaxation and energy levels.
This chart shows the different mental health traits impacted by a single float:
Regardless of what this year has been like to you, we are all able to cut through the chaos and choose to take control of what we can, including our self-care. And this can look like many different things that you find restorative, from meditation to yoga, to sitting by a fire listening to holiday music or even getting away to the complete stillness of a float tank to silence the holiday hubbub for a bit.
Serenity can be found closer to home than you think and isn’t just in some far-off oasis. But it does require you to take the time for yourself to rest and recharge.
The Secret Behind How Floating Dissolves Your Stress and Reduces Anxiety
There’s an incredible amount of pressure put on us from the choices we make each and every day. Not to mention that we are also in the midst of a global health crisis. It’s clear that the stress we face daily can cause a lot of health problems. Many of us recognize the commonly associated physical problems like heart disease and high blood pressure, but stress can also weave its way into presenting as mental health issues like PTSD, depression, and eating disorders.
Most of us can feel the need to recharge and provide ourselves with some of the self-care these days as the world seems to spiral out of control. We want to turn to any solution that may help but there’s always a bit of skepticism when it comes to alternative wellness practices and whether they are as helpful as they claim to be.
Floating is no exception to this.
So let’s dive into some of the science on floating to see just how beneficial it can be for reducing stress.
Float Therapy and Stress Reduction
Dr. Justin Feinstein is one of the most well-known scientists studying the effects of float therapy in his custom lab setup at the Laureate Institute of Brain Research. In a recent Tedx Talk, Dr. Feinstein shared some of his study results about the effects of floating on stress.
The effects were incredible.
Every single person who participated in the study experienced some amount of stress relief. Furthermore, most of the participants saw a significant reduction in their stress levels that lasted for more than 24 hours after just a single float session.
If there was a pill you could take that would allow you to be stress-free for the whole day, who wouldn’t want that?
Floating to reduce stress may be more time-involved than just taking a pill but the benefits of it seem to be even more significant than most anti-anxiety treatments.
And just as importantly, there’s no concern about interactions with other medications or other negative contraindications. It’s one of the safest and lowest risk wellness practices there is.
Get 20% Off Your First Float at Flow Spa
Dr. Feinstein isn’t just studying the effects of floating on people with normal, everyday stress though. He’s looking at stress-related illnesses like PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and finding that the individuals with the highest levels of stress before floating experience the greatest benefit from the treatment. Everyone who floats returns to a baseline level of relief, which means floating will bring you down to a similar level of relaxation as those people who always seems to be as cool as a cucumber.
What’s The Secret Behind Floating?
So the next big question is how does it work? Do we really just lay in the dark and let our minds clear out our thoughts for an hour or so?
This does seem to be the key to it all.
It’s difficult to find the effects of the solitude of floating, where we can’t be bothered by the outside world, anywhere else. Our minds and bodies slow down dramatically, our brains enter a state similar to dreaming, and this all gives us the ability to recharge more quickly.
Before float tanks took over as the most effective and relaxing way to experience this solitude, a psychologist named Dr. Peter Suedfeld did a lot of sensory deprivation research in the 60s and 70s by placing people in completely dark rooms in isolation for 24 hours. The term he used for this was REST (Restricted Environment Stimulation Therapy).
Dr. Suedfeld created a paradigm shift in the scientific community on sensory deprivation. Before this time it was only thought of as torture, as a result of incomplete research and questionable methods performed by researchers that would prime the subjects for a bad experience before the experiment even began.
By keeping the subjects at ease and making the process simple for anyone, Dr. Suedfeld found that participants actually enjoyed the sensory deprivation experience.
Over the years, Dr. Suedfeld found that the benefits of REST carried over to many areas including addiction treatment, helping with autism, enhancing creativity, and reducing stress.
This research was the foundation for the future of float tanks and helped scientists, as well as the wider community, stay open-minded to the benefits of floating and reducing stress.
Since these early days, we’ve come even further in seeing the light that shines in the darkness of sensory reduced environments. You don’t need to spend a full day in the darkness to experience the benefits, a single float session can provide similar benefits.
In his Tedx Talk, Dr. Feinstein comments on how we as humans aren’t designed to be constantly plugged into looking at screens, listening to the cacophonous noise of the city, or sitting under the glare of fluorescent lights all day. We also aren’t supposed to constantly let our minds go wild thinking about our to-do list and everything else that we cram into the 24 hours of our day.
Even if we enjoy having a full and vibrant schedule, these things can wear us out and add to the stress of our daily lives. Taking a break is our chance at hitting the reset button, and as we’ve seen, floating has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to do that.
The Top Three Reasons Float Therapy Can Help To Reduce Your Pain Naturally So That You Can Live The Life You Want Again
It shouldn’t be so hard to find the right treatments when your body needs relief. Swollen and achy joints, stiff muscles, these things drag us down and impact our ability to feel our best.
Float Therapy can have a major impact on the pain you are experiencing. This modern innovation on a natural phenomenon has incredible benefits backed by science. When it comes to treating chronic pain, there are few therapies as gentle, yet effective as floating.
Here are the three main reasons why float therapy is so great at relieving pain:
Experience Weightlessness in the Float Tank
Floating is one of those miracles of human ingenuity that needs to be experienced to fully comprehend. It’s like harnessing the power of the Dead Sea in a giant bathtub.
Briefly, the float tank solution is saturated with 1,000 lb. of Epsom Salt, making the water denser than our bodies.
When you lay back and relax in the float tank, your joints and muscles decompress in a way unlike anything else.
You float effortlessly on the surface of the water.
Your body doesn’t even get this relaxed laying in bed or while deep asleep.
This decompression effect is the first potent pain-relieving effect of float therapy. Many people with joint pain and sciatica leave their float session doing a jig they feel so good.
Magnesium for muscle relaxation
Laying in 1,000 lb. of Epsom salt, which is a magnesium sulphate salt, is a muscle relaxant. Often when we experience any type of pain, whether it’s in our muscles or our joints, we struggle with muscles locking up as a way to prevent further injury. But this in itself is very painful.
The super-saturated solution of Epsom salt in the float tank has been associated with increased cellular hydration and blood magnesium levels which suggests that float tanks are an excellent way to get more of this important electrolyte into our system. This also helps to explain why people experience less restless-leg syndrome and have some of the best nights of sleep after floating. As a muscle relaxant, magnesium is often used as a supplement to help with restless leg syndrome and as a sleep aid.
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Stress also Turns To Tension
Who doesn’t have stress in their life? We’re adapted to handle stress but the problem is that stress has become pervasive in most people’s lives and it is causing more sickness than we can imagine.
Stress often expresses itself in the body as tension being held in areas like our shoulders and neck. Different people hold onto stress in different ways. But when we physically lock up due to stress, it becomes very painful physically as well as limiting in many other ways.
It’s unbelievable how relaxing the float tank experience is. Many people are blown away by where they hold stress they didn’t even know about. This awareness while deeply comfortable is very effective for releasing tension and letting the clutch off of holding on to that tension physically and mentally.
People come out of the float tank feeling like brand new humans. Making it a part of your regular routine for treating your pain can be a radical shift in your well-being.
Book at Float a Flow Spa today.
You’re just one float away from a new outlook on life.
Feel your best by Booking an Appointment today or call today to schedule a free consultation to see if float therapy is right for you.
How Debbie Relaxed For Two Days Pain-Free After Float Therapy
The first voicemail was a courtesy call from Debbie to thank me, no need to call back. Debbie hadn’t had pain all day and didn’t have to take her usual cornucopia of pills.
The second call we received later from Debbie was even better…
The first voicemail was a courtesy call from Debbie to thank me; no need to call back. Debbie hadn’t had pain all day and didn’t have to take her usual cornucopia of pills.
The second call we received later from Debbie was even better…
The healing potential of the float tank is quite incredible.
It’s hard to say just how and what benefits will come to any individual until they’ve entered through the doors of our float centre and stepped into another world of relaxation.
I’ve previously talked about how floating alleviates my back pain - a byproduct of years of heavy weightlifting - and this is something that has shown to be scientifically validated. There’s documentation consistent with these personal findings.
The oftentimes more amazing results come at the fringe of research where ongoing studies are working through the process of confirming hypotheses. This is where someone comes in not knowing if they will simply get an hour of deep relaxation and peace or if it will go further in alleviating deep-seated pains that have been persistent for years.
It’s been happening just like this so far at Flow Spa. A cosmic roll of the dice. What bonus gift will be dished out to our next customer? Will it be better sleep, a quieting of the mind, or the blessed release from the mortal coil of chronic pain?
It’s been happening more often than not and that’s why I’m convinced it’s only a matter of time before the ongoing research confirms these further benefits.
Everyone gets the relaxation once they get past the learning curve of the first 15 minutes or so. What’s on top of it is the icing on the cake.
From ages 13 to 89 we’ve already facilitated an amazing experience to an incredibly diverse group of customers but some still stand out as having their lives do a complete 180º after visiting us for a float.
Another phone call was received several days later. Debbie was ecstatic. She couldn’t believe that she’d had two full days free from pain. The first time in what felt like an eternity.
Everything becomes better and easier when you’re not constantly in pain.
All the difficult times seem worth it when our customers become our friends and feel such gratitude for what we’ve been able to offer them.
This is why we float.
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Getting The Most Out Of Your Float | 1
At Flow Spa, we choose not to belabour the point of what to expect in the float tank because the experience is unique to each individual. There are far too many factors to take into account to be able to say “this is what you’re going to experience,” especially in the first few sessions as you learn how to relax deeper into the float.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t tips you can use to get the most out of your float and bask in that “post-float glow.”
Far from being comprehensive, today let’s look at some of the tips that you can work on applying when you come in to float to take the experience to the next level.
Remaining Still
I include this as the first tip because I think it can be the more important one for many people looking to elevate their float experience. Part of the benefit of floating is that your body is given a chance to decompress and dissolve in relation to the environment around you. We’ve calibrated the temperature in our float tanks to be perfectly neutral to skin temperature and have made adjustments in the first few weeks to be sure that it is at the perfect comfortable temperature for virtually everyone coming in to float. This means that you’re not supposed to be able to FEEL that you are in water across most of your body or even be able to tell the difference between the air temperature and water temperature. After some thought and experimentation with this, I’ve come to realize that a very important step in nurturing this physical sensation dissolution is to practice remaining perfectly still once you set into your most comfortable position.
Movement means that part of your brain is firing, whether you’re feeling restless or just fidgeting.
The other reason to limit movement is that movement has a convective effect in the water, which will draw heat out of your core quicker and temporarily give you a cooling sensation at your skin as that heat is pulled away from your body. When you remain still everything in the float tank system, including your body, is in a perfect balance. Movement in the water is much like the cooling effect that standing in front of a fan while sweating in the summer heat has. The water draws heat out of the body and cuts through that vapour barrier that our bodies possess.
Slowing Your Breathing
The float tank is conducive to slowing down your breathing already because you are letting everything in your body relax deeply, which frees the diaphragm to take in fuller and deeper breaths and also allows you to hyper-oxygenate because all of your muscles are relaxed and not requiring copious amounts of oxygen for any demanding work.
Many people never take full and deep breaths though so it can be a new and different experience the first few times in the float tank to allow your body and your breath to fully relax and deepen.
I often advise starting with a box breathing style of 4-4-4-4 where you:
-breathe in for a count of four
-hold your breath for a count of four
-breath out for a count of four
-hold the bottom of the breath for a count of four
The Japanese Society for Hypertension has shown that even 1-minute of deep breathing (5-6 breaths depending on the cadence and method you’re using) can significantly reduce blood pressure. Spending an hour like this in the float tank, therefore, has a dramatic impact not just on mental wellbeing but on many physical markers of health as well.
Some people prefer to count their breaths. When doing this style of deep breathing and meditation I like counting up to ten and then starting over. Holding any larger numbers in the mind can take away from the peace of mind you are looking for and if you’re deeply relaxed, even counting to 10 can become a challenge without losing track but whenever that happens you just start over.
Come in with permission to relax
We all lead busy and distracted lives. It’s become a pervasive issue for many people which is why I believe the reset of floating first and foremost teaches all of us the value in practicing mindfulness in whatever way comes naturally to you daily. It’s not realistic for everyone to float more than once a month but trying to go 30-days with only one hour of mental peace of mind is also not a good strategy.
When you do come in to float though you want to pamper yourself with the experience as much as possible.
Turn off your phone or put it in airplane mode so that you can reap the most benefits of not letting your mind instantly get distracted again. Make a day out of it or at least a few hours by hanging out in our lounge before heading back out into the wild or schedule your float for a day where you do have to immediately get busy again after you are done. The more you can float on that cloud for a while afterwards, the more at peace you will be and the more you will realize the value in cherishing the present moment regularly in your life.