How To Use Float Therapy To Help Treat Your Back Pain

Floating For Pain Relief Series - Part 1

Why do you float?

There are many ways that a float tank can be used to improve your life; from mental health to chronic pain to sports performance, float therapy has a truly impressive resume of benefits. In this series, we’re going to dive into the different benefits of floating and see what both the research and the people floating on a regular basis say about the benefits of this futuristic recovery vessel.

The focus of this first series of posts will be around pain, both chronic and acute, and how the warmth and density of the Epsom salt-filled waters work like a fountain of youth for all kinds of pain conditions.

As a competitive strongman athlete, I’m no stranger to back pain. Whether it’s the usual soreness that comes after deadlifting 700 lb. or the occasional low back muscle strain that leaves me out of commission for several days to weeks, back pain is unsurprisingly common in strongman.

Staying one step ahead of my injuries is the best remedy of all and combined with more acute treatments at the time a flare-up of back pain occurs, I’m able to get right back to training and competing sooner. In addition to daily stretching and movement to keep my muscles firing correctly, floating has become a key component of my recovery protocol for staying in the game. Floating not only to allow my mind to rest and focus better but because the support and buoyancy of the float tank solution allow all of the muscles in my back to completely relax while also decompressing my spine.

This therapeutic effect of float tanks on muscle tension pain, particularly in the back and neck, has been researched and shown to provide a significant benefit compared to a control group receiving no treatment for their pain (Kjellgren et al., 2000).

As I relax into the float tank to start my session, all the pressure and tension in my low back starts to drift away immediately. After a few minutes of finding my perfect position, I can almost start to feel my back elongate and decompress and in a much gentler way than if I were to use an inversion table or hang from a pull-up bar to stretch out. This becomes much more noticeable when you get out of the float tank after your session and you can feel yourself stand taller.

This has been reported almost unanimously as one of the most dramatic and immediate improvements that floating can offer as kyphotic customers leave their float sessions standing tall and proud once more.

Bulged discs get the relief they need to heal and over time subside.

Neck pain from being desk-bound or due to whiplash and traumatic accidents are no match, as your body is gently relaxed and supported from all directions to return to the most natural position possible.

But the benefits of floating for treating pain don’t end with back and neck tension. As we continue this series on floating for pain, you’ll find out even more about the myriad ways that float therapy can benefit both acute and chronic pain syndromes.

Book Your Float at Flow Spa in Peterborough today.

Floating and the Other Services Offered at Flow Spa

More Than Just Floating

While float therapy may be the main attraction at Flow Spa, it’s by no means the only service that we are offering, even as we just get started. As we continue to grow as a company, the services that we provide will also evolve.

In starting out as a new business, the services that we have in addition to float tanks for sensory deprivation include hot and cold tubs used for contrast therapy and the NormaTec pulsed compression suit. Let’s dive into the features of these unique services and talk about who can benefit from them the most.

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Hot/Cold Tub

One of the four main treatments rooms at Flow Spa is built for contrast therapy and cryotherapy. We’ve decided to utilize a hot tub and cold tub in this room as it’s the most practical and well-researched form of cold or contrast therapy.

Contrast therapy refers to alternating states of exposure to heat and to cold which is achieved by moving from the hot tub to the cold tub and back in regular intervals. Some of the typical protocols include 10 seconds of hot with 20 seconds of cold, alternating for 4 or 5 minutes. Performance experts like Dr. Kelly Starett recommend extending the cold exposure time to just before you start to shiver and then switching back to the hot tub to warm back up to a comfortable level before returning to the cold.

Cryotherapy implies using the cold exposure of the cold tub by itself and trains the body to better withstand stress, both physical and mental in nature.

Our cold tub is set to 5ºC and so this isn’t the typical cold shower you might take after a hot summer day. So the question you’re probably wondering now is why subject yourself to such torture?

Both cold and heat have incredible healing and restorative properties. Our bodies have become used to living in climate-controlled environments and for most people, extreme temperatures are no longer part of our daily lives, and if they are, it’s usually short-lived. Extreme temperatures are what is known as hormetic stressors - a little bit of exposure can boost our immune system and make our body more resilient in many different ways. It is well-researched and validated that regular, short bouts of cold exposure will improve your immune system to the point that you are better able to fight off colds and other viruses and infections. Cold is also a more potent anti-inflammatory remedy than any drug and if your body is cooking from the inside due to stress and other lifestyle factors, brief cold exposure can help to keep that balanced and maintain your health.

Heat, on the other hand, is cardioprotective. People who regularly incorporate hot tubs or saunas in their lives experience the benefit of a lower risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases, in part because the heat stress exercises all of the interior valves and muscles that dilate the blood vessels to keep us cool during the heat.

The combination of hot and cold may be the most powerful therapeutic solution of all hormetic stressors. Contrast therapy works out the valves and tiny muscles of the cardiovascular system to promote blood flow while also crushing inflammation, which is why it’s the most sought-after rehabilitation and recovery method for top-level athletes. When attempting to recover from intense training and game-day performance, many athletes choose the hot and cold contrast therapy because it has been shown to be a highly reliable method of recovery from injury and for reducing soreness.

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NormaTec Recovery

Another sports recovery tool that we have at Flow Spa is the NormaTec compression system. The NormaTec is a pulsed compression suit which promotes blood flow and clears lactate from muscles after training or playing sports. NormaTec works much like contrast therapy but in a more localized manner. This can prove to be useful for athletes with specific body parts that need extra recovery time or for anyone not yet ready to brave the cold water. Because the NormaTec suit is like an intelligent and cost-effective massage, it’s also great for anyone experiencing pain, discomfort, or poor blood flow in their extremities that need regular attention. People with diabetes or Restless Leg Syndrome can see substantial improvements in quality of life by incorporating Normatec recovery sessions.

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Guided Meditation with Muse

Our mission at Flow Spa is to help everyone achieve a deeper and truer state of relaxation, which comes not only from relaxing the body but also helping the mind to be at ease. The most effective way to rest the mind is through practicing mindfulness by learning to meditate. We will be offering a whole host of classes on meditation to learn this often tricky art and we also have a Muse headband in our lounge area for anyone wanting to track their mindfulness progress.

Using the Muse before and after a float session can be an interesting way to see just how effective floating is for calming the mind by looking directly at its impact on your brain waves. The Muse headband can also be used to teach you how to reach a proper state of mindful awareness when meditating.

Muse works by using EEG sensors to detect your brainwaves, particularly in areas associated with focused attention or distraction. It then translates those brainwaves into nature sounds which you can use to guide you towards calmer and focus. When your mind is distracted the soundtrack will be more windy and rough waters at the beach, when you’re calm you will hear gentle waves and be rewarded with birds chirping to indicate you are in a calm state.

Using the Muse as a regular part of beginner-to-intermediate meditation practice can help to reinforce your state of mindfulness so that you can get better at helping yourself with stress and anxiety.

Booking Your Appointments

If you’re interested in booking any sessions for our additional services at Flow Spa, you may check out our online booking software for more information. These services will be open for access from everyone in the coming weeks as they become available in our spa.

What Is Floating?

The world is a radically different place from what it was even a few decades ago.

Technologies that were once considered Orwellian fantasies have now become our reality and are more and more creeping into our psyche.

Most people see these technological advances as a boon to our society as they present us with new opportunities, but it is undeniable that our primitive brains have also become fodder to this new type of on-demand world that we live in.

With the advent of instantly accessible information and entertainment available in our pockets at any time and the constant blips and pings of notifications that come with it, our reactionary nervous systems and brains biased towards detecting environmental dangers have become overstressed.

The average adult attention span has decreased in recent years and symptoms of stress-induced health complications have skyrocketed leading not only to a decline in health but also productivity.

Dedicated researchers who are curious about how we can overcome these changes in our society have started to focus on these concerns and what to do about them in the past two decades. Ancient wisdom has returned to the forefront of much of this research as a means to quiet the mind and remove oneself from the constant bombardment of distractions that we are all so easy to fall prey to.

This is where float tanks enter the picture.

A float tank in its purest form is an enclosed bed of shallow water in which you lie down in a saltwater solution and float on the surface of the water due to the density of the solution. This sense of weightless floating is achieved by mixing 1,000 lbs. of Epsom salt in a foot of water. The tank was originally referred to as sensory deprivation because the lid blocks out the light and within the enclosure sound is blocked from the external environment. These features have since then been upgraded to allow both light and music to keep the beginner company during this novel experience. The temperature of the water also remains body temperature neutral to keep physical sensations to a minimum.

The sensory deprivation tank as we know it today in a pod or cabin form was invented by Dr. John C. Lily back in the seventies. At the time, the prohibitive cost to build a tank coupled with Dr. Lily’s unusual research into trying to figure out a way to listen to peoples’ thoughts and also communicate with dolphins led there to be no real consideration for any therapeutic uses for the float tank.

In the decades that followed its inception, the float tank was relegated to the world of psychedelic explorers looking to take a trip to another dimension.

It wasn’t until research into ancient practices like meditation and mindfulness started to validate the benefits of the quiet practice of doing nothing in the late ‘90s and early 2000s that people started looking for ways to promote and facilitate these ostensibly difficult to describe practices.

The more stressors that our society burdened upon us, the more communities revolted with wellness practices to counterbalance their health. Yoga became a billion dollar industry and everyone had their own preferred specialty fitness club for spin class or boot camps or weightlifting. Innovators started to turn their attention back to those salty solutions for peace and tranquillity and introduced float tanks to communities as a place to go and escape from the bustle to relax and recover.

Incredible case studies started to pop up about individuals who were benefitting from floating in myriad ways.

Palliative cancer patients were able to find relief and rest pain-free for the first time in months.

Athletes saw their performance increase through improved visualization as well as physical recovery.

People suffering from anxiety disorders could enjoy life more as their overactive stress-response systems were quelled.

Then scientists started to research floating as a therapy and increasingly we are seeing the validation that these claims hold merit; not only of incredible mental relaxation but also a reduction in pain and physical symptoms due to the decompressing nature of being weightless in the tank.

Dr. Justin Feinstein has created the Float Clinic and Clinicalfloatation.com to help consolidate and clarify the research for the float industry. The collection of publications in scientific journals on floatation is rapidly growing.

The summarized list of current research includes benefits for: “hypertension, chronic tension headaches, chronic muscle tension pain in the back and neck, and stress-related pain with “burnout depression.”

Several studies have also concluded that floatation is a safe and effective rapid treatment for:

“individuals with clinical anxiety, including generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic disorder, agoraphobia, and social anxiety disorder, with many patients presenting with comorbid major depressive disorder.”

“Clinical trials are currently underway investigating the long-term impact of floating in patients with anxiety disorders, anorexia nervosa, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, and insomnia.”

Clearly, the surface of the water has barely been scratched in terms of just how deep the benefits of floating go (pardon the pun).

One of the most interesting and promising points is that not only is floating an effective treatment, but it is also extremely safe with minimal possible side effects. This one feature is unlike virtually every other treatment we currently have for anxiety, stress, and pain disorders and serves as no wonder why floating has become one of the fastest growing industries in North America.

At Flow Spa, we are dedicated to helping our community to relax and heal by creating the very best float therapy experience as well as bring education and awareness to you about the float industry and the wider world of wellness. If you’d like to enrich your life and learn ways to improve your well-being, stay updated with the latest information and exclusive content by subscribing to our newsletter.

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.

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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.

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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.

The Four Factors of Well-being and Floating

We all face adversity. But what do you do when you receive that bad news? Do you accept your fate as it is or do you seek the opportunity that can be found within all obstacles? 

According to neuroscience research, there are four factors that contribute to our overall well-being and that are within our control. Knowing that these factors are controllable means that we don’t have to play victim to our hardships any longer. What we can control we can change for the better with practice and over time. 

Research from Richard J. Davidson shows that the four areas of mental functioning can be trained to significantly improve well-being; in this way, wellbeing is fundamentally seen as no different from riding a bike - the more we practice the better we will get. 

By incorporating these four factors into our routine and practicing them, we are able to improve our mental health and are better prepared to face hardships that come our way. 

The four factors are resilience, outlook, awareness, and generosity and this is how floating can directly impact these factors and lead to improving your wellbeing. 

Resilience

Resilience refers to how quickly we can adapt to obstacles in our way and the sense of adversity and negative emotions that come from those obstacles. Float therapy harnesses the essence of mindfulness meditation, which is one of the key ways that Davidson has found that you can improve your resiliency. By limiting all external distractions, the float tank facilitates a mindful state that helps to build resilience. When you are better able to practice mindfulness you can look at your situation for what it truly is and not what your automatic reactions are telling you. In this way, you can better address adversity from a calm and logical perspective, not reactionary and overly emotional. 

Awareness

Awareness is focusing on the present moment and there’s no better way to enhance that than through floating. It’s not easy by any means to stay anchored to the present moment, even in the isolated environment of the float tank but it definitely helps when we aren’t bombarded by external distractions. 

Enhancing awareness is how we stay immersed in the present moment without dwelling on the past or anxiously awaiting the future.

As you settle into your float, bring yourself more and more into the present moment by focusing on your breathing. It’s challenging to feel the rise and fall of your abdomen in the float tank, so focus on the breath moving past the tip of your nose. Let this be your single point of awareness for the full duration of breathing in and breathing out at your own pace. If you find your mind wandering, don’t fret, simply return your attention to your breathing. This is the practice of mindfulness. 

Outlook

Davidson uses the term outlook as what is often referred to as optimism or pessimism; outlook is the ability to see the positive in life and to savour those positive experiences. Coming out of a float therapy session being completely relaxed is a perfect time to savour a moment of tranquillity. At Flow Spa, we have designed our lounge to serve in this capacity so that you can continue to further enjoy your state of wellbeing as you transition back out of the float environment. 

Davidson’s research has also shown that practicing loving-kindness or compassion meditations can improve your outlook. Our float tanks offer audio input if you want to enhance your loving-kindness practice during your float session through a guided meditation. These guided meditations are also available after your float session in the lounge.

Generosity 

Generosity is the last of the four factors to be trained for wellbeing and is the least likely to be directly improved upon by floating. Generosity implies expressing compassion and doing good for others, like through volunteer work. Practicing compassion meditation while floating will only go so far to truly impact the factor of generosity. However, by floating and improving the other three factors of your wellbeing, you are going to be much more inclined to act generously and compassionately with others because you will already feel so much better and at ease with yourself. In this way, floating can help to guide you towards more generosity.

A Continuing Practice

While these four factors of mental training for wellbeing are not exclusive to the float tank environment, the additional relaxation and isolation of a float tank do help to turbocharge the process with these otherwise challenging practices to make time for.

Remember that to truly have an impact on your wellbeing, the factors of resilience, outlook, awareness, and generosity need to be practiced regularly - ideally daily. You can’t shovel the driveway once and expect it to stay clear of snow all winter. Whether you return to the float tank to recharge or start a regular meditation practice of your own, there’s always more to be done to keep your mind strong and ready for any obstacles that life throws your way. 

My First Float

How often do you get to have a completely new experience, unlike anything you have to compare to?

Experience the Dead Sea without travelling to Jordan.

Today I floated for the first time ever. And not just like doing a starfish in the water to stay near the surface. I was completely buoyant in water denser than the Dead Sea. 

At first, I was unimpressed and underwhelmed. So much for the experience of a lifetime.

But then everything changed.

As I climbed into the float cabin and uneasily lay back, I let the buoyancy of the Epsom salt take over and my body was whisked upwards from the bottom of the shallow water. From there I struggled to relax and get used to the thunderous sound of my heart beating in my chest. It was all I could hear other than the occasional pop and crackle of a joint completely released of all its tension.

Once I got my rhythm and played with my body in relation to the sides of the tank a bit, I was sinking deeper into the zone. I had an hour and a half in the tank. I didn’t know how I could possibly last it. When you’re in the tank eyes open or closed doesn’t mater - darkness is pitch either way. 

If you stay still, the temperature is perfect. You have no idea which body parts are submerged or exposed. Everything melds as one experience and time becomes funny. 

It felt like an eternity and before I knew it, it was over. 

The 90 minutes was done and I swear only 45 minutes at most had elapsed. The music slowly grounded me in reality and I thought there was no way my time was up - this music had to be coming from inside my mind. Sure enough, my time was up. I was relieved. After that length of time, I was ready to get up and use the bathroom.

That was when the real magic started. Just like with meditation, floating isn’t all that exciting of a therapeutic modality. The near-complete absence of stimuli, however, trains your mind to react differently.

The rest of the afternoon I was as calm as a cucumber. It was like I was floating on a cloud above all the bustle and nagging thoughts that usually race through my anxious mind. 

Everything just slid off my shoulders with nonchalance. This is what it must be like to experience the blissful non-judgement of the Zen Masters. To live a life free of pain, depression, anxiety, stress, and anger. All because it has no chance to gain purchase on your shoulders. 

You come to realize that the burdens of modern society are meaningless.

Welcome to a new outlook on reality.

Welcome to floating.

Welcome to Flow.