How Teachers Can Benefit From Float Therapy

Back to school time in the fall is a challenging transition for students and teachers alike. Momentum shifts and that sense of the grind through to Christmas as the weather gets colder imposes upon our psyche. The stress of the new school year is also compounded by the new germs being passed around which often leads to an uptick in colds shortly after the summer break. Having a strategy to incorporate mental and physical wellness into your weekly and monthly routine is essential for maintaining good health year-round but becomes critical at these transitional times. 

Teachers can benefit from floating through:

• Powerful stress reduction.

• A chance to get away to a quiet oasis without having to travel.

• Joint and muscle pain relief.

Float therapy is a wonderful way to reduce pain and stress naturally. Being supported in Epsom salt water that is denser than the Dead Sea allows your body to completely relax to relieve tension. The unique stimuli-reduced environment of a float pod or float cabin also allows your mind to let go of stress and anxiety. 

Stress Reduction

Teaching is a challenging and demanding job with all of the different factors that go into commanding the attention of a classroom full of students, all with their unique personalities. Combined with the tight timelines of grading work, and countless other factors, teaching can be very stressful. Float tanks may be the best technology we have to combat stress. Research has shown a significant reduction in cortisol levels come about from just one hour of floating. Anxiety is also significantly reduced and the “post-float glow” feeling of complete relaxation you get while not having a care in the world is extremely helpful when needing to unwind after a long day or a long week. 

A Quiet Oasis

The float therapy experience is incomparable. Customers leave saying that they’ve never experienced anything quite like it because we are never in an environment with no external stimuli. While some new floaters opt to leave the lights on or music playing, the benefits of the experience are compounded when you immerse yourself in the stimulus reduction through turning off the lights and letting the music fade out. This gives your brain the chance to bask in complete silence and darkness which extraordinarily refreshing in the overstimulated world that we live in. 

Pain Relief

Repeated strain from grading papers and desk work can lead to a lot of tight muscles and pain in the body.

There’s over 1,000 lb. of Epsom salt in each float tank, making it denser than the human body and allowing you to float completely without effort. Research shows this decompression is beneficial for back and neck pain, and ongoing studies are working towards validating the benefits that we’ve seen at Flow Spa with clients suffering from chronic conditions like arthritis and fibromyalgia. 

Needless to say, teachers who came into Flow Spa during the final grading and exams before school was out for the summer found their float experience to be exactly what they needed in terms of a reset between grading tests and papers. 

Developing different strategies to incorporate a reset into your routine will help to ensure that you are prepared through it all. At Flow Spa, we help in providing guidance with meditation and some of the various techniques you can use to consistently reduce stress and anxiety. Restorative exercise is also essential to maintaining balance and overall well-being. And when you need that time to get away from everything and decompress, float tanks offer an unrivalled experience. 

Use This Gratitude Practice To Make Your Outlook Immediately Brighter

As we are approaching the first six months of doors-open business for this burgeoning start-up that is Flow Spa, like any business, getting the momentum rolling forward hasn’t been without its hitches.

Throughout it all, I have had an unwavering sense of gratitude for the business and the support in my life that has allowed me to push forward with this vision.

We often forget the little things that have a profound impact on our sense of well-being. Without a habit being ingrained in your routine, it will fall by the wayside when life gets in the way or you feel you are too busy to take less than five minutes out of your day.

Gratitude is one of those things.

It often sounds so simple and doesn’t take much time to incorporate into your daily routine but seems to be a lost art to many people. That is gratitude journaling or just showing gratitude daily.

Starting your day off with a dose of gratitude makes a world of difference in your outlook and how you feel about the day.

While some people like to kick off the day with their gratitude practice, others prefer to wait until before bed to reflect on the day while looking forward to the next one or the bigger things at hand that you are grateful for.

I suggest trying both methods and finding what works better for you.

People often approach the idea of taking those precious moments to be grateful or to write it down as a waste of time because they are naturally pessimistic or feel like they don’t have a lot to be grateful for in their current situation. A lot of people get confused about practicing gratitude and think that it has to be things that are immediately present and make your world seem like it’s all sunshine and rainbows.

It can be beneficial when working towards a goal to have gratitude for that bigger goal at hand. Recognize that you are working towards something that will better you and you can be grateful for how far you’ve come already or if you’re just getting started, be grateful for the path ahead of you because having a goal and a mission to accomplish brings us a deeper meaning.

To balance this goal-oriented gratitude I have found that the way Tony Robbins practices gratitude has a lot of power to it.

Balanced Gratitude Practise for Optimism

The gratitude practise takes all of three minutes a day and consists of:

1. Something relatively goal-oriented, the type of gratitude that we typically see as we look forward to some expected outcome.

2. Something immediate and relatively mundane. Look around you on a macro setting- it could be the feeling and warmth of the rising (or setting) sun on your skin, it could be the sounds of the birds around you, the smell of summer, the colours of the vibrant flowers in your field of vision. Get specific and take a moment to deeply embrace that feeling.

3. The final type of daily gratitude is to reflect on a past relationship or experience with another person (or place) and relive the lessons that you have learned that you are grateful for because of that person or place.

By breaking up your gratitude practice into three distinct pieces, you won’t always write down or contemplate the same things. This is why writing down your daily gratitude list can help you to catch yourself from running on autopilot and make the practice more potent if you tend to always think of the same answers. Writing it down also forces both hemispheres of your brain to work in concert to actualize the gratitude more deeply. Priming the nervous system in this way is powerful so I do recommend writing your gratitude lists down in a journal, on a notepad, or even in a note on your phone or computer.

Try it out for yourself.

Start with one week and do the practice every day at the same time. Prime your day in the morning or set your mind at ease before bed with a nighttime practice. Get it done and see how you feel after one week. I’m certain that it will help to bring more optimism into your life and you’ll realize that this is a valuable practice to incorporate for life.

This Fighter Used His Emotional Mastery To Beat An Opponent At His Own Game

I recently sat down to talk to my friend Mike Doherty on the FlowCast about his recent wins in muay thai, including an IKF World’s title.

This is a powerful and inspiring interview and I hope you give it a listen and enjoy!

Unlocking Creativity and Flow Through Breathing

Can we unlock deeper states of creativity and flow states through breathing?

We often hear the question arise about what do you do in the float tank?

Other than the pithy answer of “well, you just float,” it often helps to provide some open-ended guidance to those new floaters who maybe don’t have a lot of practice with single-point meditation or focused yoga.

Breathing is often the first place I turn to when recommending something to focus on when floating. Your breath and your heartbeat are the only things you can hear if you’ve turned off the music and so you can either embrace it or it may become a foe like the telltale heart of Edgar Allen Poe.

It still sounds a little hokey, but learning to attend to your breath and breathe more consciously is doing miraculous things for people’s health. You can do anything from reducing stress to performing and recover better in sports all just by shifting the way you breathe.

Most of us breathe an average of 12 times per minute and this isn’t far away from what researchers suggest is a sign of a stressed body at 15 breaths per minute. Shifting your body into a relaxed state takes a little conscious awareness and practice to reduce your breathing rate to less than 8 per minute.

I believe that getting into this relaxed state alone is enough to induce deep states of flow in the tank and enhance creativity by allowing your brain to function more optimally.

However, to take it a step further, there are techniques more deliberately designed to tap into the creative centres of your body, as you practice and develop more conscious awareness of oxygenating your body through deep breathing.

This is an example of a Wim Hof Method (WHM) technique used to specifically induce creativity through thyroid activation. This is a more advanced technique with the Wim Hof Method and while you may try and practice it, I will be releasing more information in the coming months about how you can join me in learning more of the fundamental techniques to help you get more out of the practice.

WHM Technique for Creativity:

* Never push anything past your comfort zone. This isn’t about doing anything to extremes. It’s about developing more control and capacity in your body over time.

* Get into a comfortable position, either seated in a chair or preferably lying flat on the floor.

* Begin WHM breathing - fully breathing into your belly, chest, head in a wavelike motion. On the exhale, only let your chest and belly fall without effort to retain most air and oxygen.

* Repeat this wave-like breathing for about 30 breaths until you are fully oxygenated. The signs of an effective round are that you will begin to feel lightheaded, tingling in the fingers and toes, and loose in the body.

* On your final breath, fully inhale, fully exhale, fully inhale again and hold at the top of the breath with your lungs full of air.

* Squeeze your chest and neck and push that oxygenated blood into your upper chest where the thyroid is located. Only partially squeeze the neck to avoid the sensation from going to your head, which is another technique for different intended purposes. It helps to visualize the blood going to your chest and thyroid as well.

* Hold for about 30 seconds before exhaling fully.

* Repeat two more full rounds before ending or doing some regular WHM breathing for relaxation.

This practice will take between 15-20 minutes depending on your pace of breathing.

After completed it helps the first few times to sit for a moment and take inventory of how you feel. If you are doing the practice for the intended tapping into your creativity, you would then ideally sit down to do the creative work you’re wanting to do.

This might not make complete sense at first, but we talk about it in this podcast episode here as well and watching the video version may help to better see how it works. Read or listen through a couple of times while trying it out for yourself.

P.S. I will be running some seminars inspired by the Wim Hof Method and other meditations that I’ve learned from in the coming months and so follow us on social media or subscribe to the email list to get advanced notice on the limited space that will be available in each of those groups.

Top Eleven Health Benefits of Float Therapy

11 Ways Floating Makes Your Life Better

Jump to a Section:

1. Pain Relief

2. Complete Relaxation

3. Deeper Sleep

4. Anxiety Reduction

5. Stress Relief

6. Theta State - REM

7. Skin Health

8. Magnesium Deficiency

9. Creativity

10. Brain Injuries and Concussions

11. Sports Performance

Floating will make your life better. This incredibly therapeutic saltwater Flow Spa float experience has clinical evidence to back up a whole host of benefits.

Floating, float therapy, or REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulus Therapy), used to be called sensory deprivation tanks but the name has become a misnomer as improvements to the technology allows these spacious pods and cabins to be as comfortable as you want it to be. Customizations include leaving music, guided meditations, and relaxing lights on to help you get the most out your experience. Inside each of our pods and cabins are over 1,000 pounds of Epsom Salt dissolved into a solution at a depth of 11 inches. This makes the water denser than the Dead Sea allowing you to float effortlessly on the surface of the water.

Each person has their own unique experience with floating because it’s such a gentle therapy, the healing potential will benefit whatever is in most dire need of attention.

Here are 11 of the most common benefits supported by research and our own customer experiences when you come in for a Flow Spa float.

1. Pain Relief

Research supports the pain-relieving benefits of float therapy for chronic pains like neck and back pain. Because your entire body is gently supported in the Epsom salt solution, floating promotes better spine health by allowing the spine to decompress and all the tense muscles that don’t normally get a chance to relax - including during sleep - can reduce tension completely over time.

Other chronic conditions like fibromyalgia, ankylosing spondylitis, and arthritis have shown great promise in the customers we’ve had come in and long-term studies that are underway to gather further support for this beneficial effect of floating.

2. Complete Relaxation

Describing floating is challenging - it’s something you’ve got to see and experience to fully understand because it’s a completely new experience and sensation. One term that does get through most often in describing floating is that it is a complete and unrivalled relaxation experience. This type of stimulus reduction and peace sets the entire body and mind at ease in a way that’s hard to compare to anything else. The temperature of the water is the same as your body and most people liken it to feeling more like floating on a cloud rather than being in water

3. Deeper Sleep

Many people report having the best sleep of their life after floating. This is why it’s popular to float in the evening while winding down after work to allow the body to gently ease into sleep with a reduction in racing thoughts and to-do lists shuffling through your mind.

4. Anxiety Reduction

We live in a busy and distracted world and a byproduct of this is that many of us are facing greater levels of anxiety daily. Because floating is so relaxing and allows our overactive nervous systems to completely tone down for an hour, clinical evidence supports a dramatic reduction in symptoms of anxiety from float therapy. Many customers relish the feeling of leaving the spa without a care in the world about the things that usually bother them. More often than not customers will take some extra time to relax in our lounge and enjoy some tea or water after their float.

5. Stress Relief

In addition to reducing anxiety, floating busts through similar symptoms of stress. Researchers have shown a significant drop in the stress hormone cortisol after just one hour of float therapy. Having less cortisol present in your system allows you to have a clear and focused mind and to be more productive or to fully embrace the bliss of treating yourself to some well-deserved R&R.

This reduction in stress levels also contributes to a significant reduction in hypertension that comes with floating. High blood pressure is temporarily improved even after just one float session.

6. Theta State - REM Sleep

The theta brainwave state sounds like something very mystical, and sure, it can be but in essence, it is the slow and calm state our brains get into during REM sleep when we are dreaming. It is a sign that our brains are deeply relaxed and can be reached by experienced meditators as well. The cool thing is that research shows the deep state of relaxation that comes from floating induces a theta brainwave state without the need for years of practice in meditation or going completely to sleep. There are unique benefits to this including enhancing creativity, consolidating memory, and feeling refreshed without needing to completely fall asleep. While it’s not a perfect analogy, some people liken this theta brainwave activity that comes from floating as the equivalent of 4-6 hours of REM sleep. For people who sleep poorly, this can be extremely powerful when it comes to memory consolidation and recovery that sleep typically provides.

7. Skin Health

The float tank solution is nearly 30% Epsom salt which makes it supersaturated in magnesium. Magnesium is important for skin health and many customers dealing with dry skin or conditions like psoriasis and eczema report improvements in symptoms when adding floating into their routine.

8. Magnesium Deficiency

Testimonials from customers reporting that floating helps with restless leg syndrome or sleep quality (as magnesium is an important mineral for promoting deep sleep) suggests that magnesium may be boosted through floating. While it’s next to impossible for researchers to accurately support this due to differences in skin porousness and multiple possible pathways for absorption, it’s still great to know that floating seems to help with conditions often associated with magnesium deficiency.

9. Creativity

Deep relaxation and inducing the theta brainwave state has helped many artists and thinkers in a wide range of fields uncover incredible potential and ideas in their brains. Whether you go into a float with a particular problem you’re trying to tackle or it simply comes to you naturally from the depths of your subconscious, it’s undeniable that the unique environment of the float tank has produced countless fascinating works of art and ingenuity. Float centres in the U.S. have worked with various artists to put together entire music albums and art instalments produced from these artists after coming out of a float. Comedian Joe Rogan has also become a patron saint of floating as he often attributes this deep meditative state to helping him create many of his most popular bits of comedy.

10. Brain Injuries and Concussions

As if floating wasn’t good enough already, many doctors and health care practitioners working with patients dealing with brain injuries or concussions are starting to recognize the healing potential of float therapy. The typical post-concussion protocol involves having the patient spend some time each hour away from the blue light of digital devices and ideally in a quiet and dark area. Taking this a step further, the advantage of nearly-complete sensory deprivation that comes from floating provides an hour or longer free from stimuli, a significant amount of time for the brain to work its magic on healing itself.

This is an important point which has started to get the attention of athletes competing in high-contact sports and we’ve seen customers return to work after a shortened recovery period following traumatic brain injuries with the help of regular floating.

11. Sports Performance

Professional sports teams have started to take note of the potential of floating for more than just the potential to help with concussions. Athletes are highly driven and competitive and often have a hard time turning off their brains to enter a relaxed state. Floating can work wonders to allow athletes to shift into a deep state of relaxation to allow the nervous system to reset and recharge.

The very best athletes in the world also include visualization in their routine as a regular practice to perfect motor patterns for the repetitive movements involved in their sport. It sounds a bit odd at first and like magic to think that seeing yourself in your mind in action can lead to an improvement in the physical world but repeatedly this is the case in research done on a wide range of physical performances. Dry training with U.S. Olympic Swim Coach Bob Bowman’s athletes, including Michael Phelps, entails mentally rehearsing a race while timing it with a stopwatch. These world-class athletes become so myopically focused that they visualize their full race and can stop the clock within tenths of a second of their actual swim time. The sensory reduction of the float tank is the perfect place for athletes to mentally rehearse the practice of their sport to carry over to their performance in-game. Golden State Warrior’s All-Star Steph Curry floats multiple times per month to maintain crisp and perfect shooting.

Just like with any therapeutic modality, many of the great benefits of floating come with time and our customers experience better results over time as compared to just one session. While you’ll love your experience of floating even the first time, know that it gets better with each subsequent visit. A common recommended is that you try floating three times to get used to it and figure out your preferences for having the best experience.

Book Your Float Today

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.

Do This To Conquer Boredom

It's ok to be bored sometimes.

We are driven. Doers.

Every minute planned; every to-do list spewing out to the margins.

And when we have a moment to come up for air, we choose to hold our breath and take another dopamine hit from the social media slot machine. Who’s doing what that’s more exciting than our reality? Who liked our selfie?

At the end of it all we are so run into the dirt that we can no longer choose for ourselves - take our binge watching of The Office, yet again, as case-in-point. The never-ending slump into ‘blah.’ Over time we lose our spark. Our uniqueness is dissolved into the technological soup of humanity and the vicious cycle keeps turning round and round. Our health suffers. Our lives suffers. Our relationships suffer. We suffer. 

Every moment of every day we have a choice. Many of those choices may seem to be pre-filled - eight hours here for sleep, another eight for work there, but that still leaves eight hours - not to mention the number of opportunities most of us have at work to make the right choice when on break or switching between tasks. 

The choice we have in front of us is that of choosing boredom and then conquering it. We are becoming less human because we give ourselves no chance to just BE anymore. 

We come to find our true selves in boredom. We remember. Everyone is so desperate to be someone on social media but we already are somebody in the real world. 

People are showing signs of withdrawal symptoms when they are unplugged for too long today. Our smartphones and the apps we use daily have been engineered to be addictive. That constant dopamine drip when unplugged will leave us itching for another hit.

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For the sake of your self, your health, and your peace of mind, you must resist regularly. 

Conquering boredom is easier said than done. You’ll feel like you’re missing out on something when you look around and see everyone else plugged into a digital landscape and completely unaware of what’s right in front of them. You’ll seem strange, in fact, to choose yourself over your digital avatar. 

You’ve been convinced that you’ll miss out on something but you won’t; not really. You’ll actually be receiving so much more in return. 

The next time you’re waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting for your friend to arrive for dinner at the restaurant resist the urge to immediately pull out your phone and swipe mindlessly. Because the urge will come immediately - take note of that. And instead take a deep breath - focus intensely on that breath. It feels good to breathe deep. Much better in fact than looking through your Instagram feed like a mindless zombie.

 It may feel boring, true, but overtime your overstimulated nervous system will relearn to settle down. It wasn’t very long ago that our world wasn’t like this. Only 15 years ago we didn’t have the same fidgety issues at such an epidemic scale and a generation ago we were content to sit quietly or allow our imagination to wander without intervening. 

Think about the simple pleasures a dog gets from sitting and waiting. The depth that comes to the world from the sounds, smells, and sights that are ever-present when we let them just come to us. 

So return to your breath or just let your thoughts process for a change. What you call boredom isn’t always as it seems. You’ve just unlearned what to do with your own thoughts as you constantly have the inputs of other consciousnesses bombarding your own. 

Overtime it will become easier to embrace the boredom and to allow the stillness to settle in. 

And in this stillness, in this silence, you will realize that it’s all ok. 

Digital Minimalism - A Podcast Prologue

This week we’ve got a big and important podcast episode for you and I wanted to clear some the thoughts in my head for it prior to the recording because it’s a topic that I’m passionate about and have been studying a lot about in the past few years.

So before I go off rambling on the podcast I wanted to refine my thoughts and target the conversation to be actionable as well as perhaps eye-opening to some of our audience.

The topic is Digital Minimalism.

Who’s In Control?

Several books in the last few years have started to rally towards the need for more control when it comes to all the great and powerful technologies we have in our lives today. At the heart of digital minimalism is the realization that we are becoming slaves to our digital devices in many ways.

This sounds like some sort of sci-fi dystopian scare tactic but it isn’t. Not yet at least.

Technologies do a lot of great things for us but we are evolutionary beings with incredible susceptibility to the shiny object that stimulates the reward centres in our brains the most. This is what technologies like smartphones and social media apps do best, and not by accident. There are many scientists and engineers behind these technologies while their sole job being to make them as addicting as possible. The same people who design slot machines in casinos are working for companies like Facebook or inspiring the work of their software engineers.

Social media sites want you to stay on them longer, because as the whistleblowers and people making cautionary statements about social media say, we the consumer are the commodity being sold to the real customers who are the big companies and ad agencies buying ad space on the likes of social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Furthermore, these companies are taking ownership of the data of our lives - where we live, where we travel to, what we do every day, and the questions that we are Googling. These data points are refining our digital experience and also being sold for big bucks to the highest bidder wanting our personal data.

It sounds a little scary and it can be if you are an unwitting subject to this reality without making informed decisions and operating with some restraint and forewarning.

Is Social Media Really An Issue, Or Something We Need To Accept?

Many people on the opposite end of the spectrum say that there’s nothing wrong with this and it’s just the way the world works today but that’s not entirely accurate to say. Not only because it’s exploitation on our susceptible biology that we want the easy and immediate rewards in our lives - delayed gratification is a product of our consciousness and insatiable need for growth as human beings and not what we as animals have evolved to want to do. (Have you ever seen a dog pass up a treat in exchange for TWO treats later? NO! And not just because the dog will beg for more treats later).

But this delayed gratification is something that we can and often do as humans to achieve greater meaning. You can have your cake and eat it too but you’ve got to use moderation in the short-term to achieve those bigger goals.

The other reason that the argument that we just have to accept the way the world is today is missing the point is that excessive use of social media, which is ubiquitous, is harmful to our health. Social media has been correlated with an exponential increase in anxiety on college campuses. Social media researchers are showing that the ease of access to social media is making us feel more lonely and socially isolated. When it’s easier to jump on Instagram and double-tap that photo of your friend’s food rather than meeting to go out for dinner together and turn your phones off to have a deep and undistracted conversation or binge-watch Netflix instead of getting together with friends to go hiking when you feel a little “blah” it becomes a real problem for our ability to have those conversations and truly live as a tribe.

It’s true that we’ve far-surpassed our tribal connection which Dunbar’s number considers being 150 people and we may use that in a very empowering way to expand our reach and opportunities in this world but how many of those people would really be there for you if you needed them? That’s one of the issues and the dichotomy between having stable social relationships and those superficial relationships that “Liking” and “Retweeting” online give us.

So what can we do about it?

The Solution For Social Media Addiction

First, recognize.

Recognize that feeling of malaise that you get when you’ve glued yourself to the couch binge-watching Game of Thrones (not to mention the sobbing uncontrollably when another of your favourite characters gets his or her head lopped off).

Recognize that you’ve swiped through all of the latest photos from your friends and all of their Stories are just pictures directing you to check out their feed post on their bio.

Recognize that there’s more to the world than what’s happening on the five-inch piece of glass glowing so bright that it affects your melatonin production and sleep quality.

And once you recognize, take small steps (or big ones) to make a change.

Digital Detox

Digital Detoxes like the one Cal Newport suggests in his book Digital Minimalism are the best way to completely reset and pull the tentacles of addiction out of your skull for good. Small steps are less impactful but you’ll see pretty quickly how out of control of your brain you are when you try to check your social media profiles less than for the over 60 minutes a day we are on Facebook out of the 80 times per day we check our phones on average or reduce frantic email checking to one to two blocks per day.

We all lose our ways over and over again. Recognize that as well. There is no final solution, other than becoming a hermit and moving off the grid and into a cabin in the woods. You will get sucked back into the digital spiral again and again.

But just start again.

Do another Digital Detox, reduce your screen time. Turn your phone off at the dinner table. Check your screen time - all phones do it now - and reduce it by 10 minutes per day for a week. Then push that number a little further. Fill that time with something worthwhile to reduce the temptation.

Whatever strategy you choose to go with, your non-digital brain and body will thank you for it and you’ll be living with more meaning again.

Everything You Need To Know About CBD, Briefly

View The Full Calyx CBD Product Line Here

You’ve certainly heard more buzz around CBD oil as it seems like every industry is capitalizing on this trend and making use or touting the benefits of CBD oil. But what exactly are the benefits of CBD and how does it work?

Let’s break down the science of why CBD oil works to reduce pain in the body while improving mood and symptoms of anxiety.

CBD or cannabidiol is a component of the cannabis plant, you know, marijuana - the stuff that was recently legalized across Canada and no longer carries with it the old “refer madness” perspective. Now, I don’t think everyone is completely over the stigma of cannabis and may have sensitivity or allergies to hemp and while some companies, like Calyx Wellness which we carry at Flow Spa, do a great job creating a very pure and refined CBD oil, we’ll go over some alternatives for anyone looking for natural pain relief without CBD.

How CBD works

CBD is a fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) antagonist. You don’t have to remember this, but it increases anandamide in the body which then activates the CB1 and CB2 receptors throughout the brain and body. Anandamide is a neurotransmitter associated with euphoria - its name comes from the Sanskrit word meaning “joy, bliss, delight.” Sounds pretty good right? It also appears that higher than normal levels of anandamide in the brain and body can lead to reductions in anxiety, lack of fear, and enhancement of the immune system.

The Role of CB1 and CB2 Receptors

The CB1 and CB2 receptors are the main receptors of the endocannabinoid system. Early research into this system was shown to be the target of action for phytocannabinoids like THC and it wasn’t until later that scientists discovered anandamide’s activity on these receptors. CBD has a low affinity for the CB1 and CB2 receptors themselves but works indirectly on those pathways for pain and anxiety modulation through its action as a FAAH antagonist amongst other pharmacological mechanisms.

The CB1 receptor is located in the brain and central nervous system and is primarily associated with euphoria and mood regulation as it is targeted by cannabinoids like CBD, THC, and anandamide.

The CB2 receptor is located throughout the body as part of the pain signal pathway and modulates the inflammatory response in the body.

Because of the mechanisms of action, both CBD and THC can reduce pain and lead to improvements in mood, while CBD does so without the psychoactive effects of THC, meaning you won’t get high from CBD.

This makes CBD a very safe and effective way to improve mood, reduce anxiety, and mitigate pain and inflammation in the body without the harmful side effects that anxiolytics and over-the-counter pain medication has.

Globally, we’ve been seeing an increase in CBD use with both topical application and internal use for a wide range of conditions including:

• anxiety including social anxiety and PTSD

• depression

• pain, including arthritis and fibromyalgia

• stress symptoms

• dermatological conditions like psoriasis and dermatitis

• addiction and neurological conditions

• sports performance

The dosage depends on body weight and the severity of the symptoms that you are trying to remedy. Most people will start out with more modest dosages of around 10-20 mg per day and gradually increase daily or every few days until the desired effect is attained.

What if you’re still unsure about CBD?

Plants have evolved incredible defence systems and pharmacological effects and through sheer human curiosity, we continue to find more promising ways to benefit as we experiment and learn about the effects of various plant compounds. Copaiba is an oleoresin coming from the Copaifera genus of South American trees that is concentrated in beta-caryophyllene or BCP. BCP is another compound that has been shown to directly act on the CB2 receptors, thus creating an anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effect throughout the body.

Copaiba essential oil from doTERRA is produced in its native regions of South America and cleanly distilled to pure essential oil making it safe for internal consumption where it can then take effect.

We carry Copaiba from doTERRA at Flow Spa and a few drops under the tongue or in your water each day can help to reduce pain and inflammation in the body. Our customers have told us that taking Copaiba daily has reduced their pain and arthritis symptoms to such an extent that their health care practitioners are impressed with the progress they’ve been making.

Genuine Health Natural Pain Relief

At Flow Spa we also carry the full line of Genuine Health products - a company renowned for their commitment to excellence in quality and research validating the effectiveness of their products. Several of the products from Genuine Health are specifically formulated for safe and effective natural pain relief, both acute pain symptoms and more chronic symptoms. Their fast pain relief+ product is used for acute symptoms of pain and works more effectively than Aspirin at blocking pain within 2 hours.

In addition to this, Genuine Health has a selection of specifically tailored long-term and chronic pain remedies that work for moderate-to-severe joint pain and arthritis in as little as 5 days. The most beneficial aspect of these products though is not just the reduction in pain symptoms but that rather than just blocking pain signals, they actually work on the root cause of the pain by reducing inflammation in the body to promote healing.

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…

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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.

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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.

Book Your Float Today

Spring Cleaning To Declutter Your Mind

Spring cleaning is like this quarter's New Years Resolutions, it’s great that we make a whole big event around it but why did we let it get to this point in the first place?

Whether you embrace the springtime for decluttering your surroundings or you keep it up year-round, we all can benefit from doing some more mindful decluttering not only of our environment but also our mental and emotional framework. 

Decluttering may leave you with the feeling of a great sigh of relief - not only because your physical space is in more harmony but also your mental state has been granted a reprieve. 

We all know the basic principles of decluttering - gather up the junk you don’t use anymore and donate, sell, or throw it out. Today I want to share with you a few brief techniques that may help in your spring cleaning efforts but I also want to emphasize how your physical reality translates to your emotional state and vice versa and if you’re spring cleaning, you might as well clean up the attic too. 

The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up

Marie Kondo has become the patron saint for tidying up and admired by minimalists around the globe because of her book and the inspiration she provides as a professional organizer. It’s become so popular that Netflix has made a series out of it. If you want a fresh take on tidying up that will have you actually enjoying the process, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up is a short, but complete, reference to how you can declutter your physical space to create joy in your life. 

The basic rule of the “KonMari” method is that you organize by category not location and gather every item into one pile before discarding anything. A massive pile of stuff that you barely use will leave quite the impression on you during this process. You are to take each and every single item and ask yourself if it sparks joy. This may seem like a strange practice with inanimate objects but is the core principle of the KonMari method and seems to be the reason this practice works so well to tidy and maintain that tidy sanctuary once you’ve done it. 

Sort in this order clothes -> books -> papers -> miscellany -> mementos

Treating your objects with such reverence shouldn’t be hard to do if they are actually that meaningful to you. If you can’t bring yourself to think of the joy you get from a particular item, it’s time to discard it. 

Emotional Baggage Impedes Focus

Spring cleaning can be a great time to discard your emotional baggage as well. The physical act of decluttering lends itself well to improving your mood and this is the perfect time to declutter your headspace. 

Consider Jim Rohn’s statement that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

During your spring cleaning efforts, ponder your emotional state and who is contributing positively or negatively to your life. 

If you don’t get rid of the wrong friends you will never meet the right friends. 

Is it time to fire your friends? Maybe even a family member?

Emotional decluttering is much harder than cleaning up your living space but will lead to greater breakthroughs in your life. 

This doesn’t happen overnight, although I suppose it could if you wanted to be really aggressive with your action plan. Don’t just point the finger and throw out blame in this process though.

If you’re going to blame someone for all the bad that has happened in your life, be sure that you are also ready to thank them for everything good that has led you to where you are as well.

You must lead with grace to truly exit a relationship with peace of mind and a clean slate.

A Clean Slate Leads To More Flow

Physical clutter is distracting when you are trying to do deep work but emotional turmoil can be catastrophic. Whatever you do in your life can benefit from being in a flow state. It’s what leads to finding meaning in our lives. 

You can’t find flow when in a bad mood. 

In this week’s FlowCast, Telsi makes the analogy of your mind is like a river flowing smoothly versus the rapids where all the jagged rocks are. 

We all face those rapids but the more that you can smooth out your mental landscape the more productive and creative you will become. 

If you want to learn more about strategies you can use to do your spring cleaning more effectively this year, check out this week’s episode of the FlowCast where we dive even deeper into this topic and subscribe on Apple Podcast to get notified when a new episode comes out.

How I Float Now

As a new float centre owner, you should float every single day for a month

This is some of the advice that I received which has been bouncing around in my head all month because, well, I haven’t floated every single day. In fact, far from it. I’ve got customers who have floated more times than me so far.

And I’m ok with it.

Because I didn’t start a float centre just for my own selfish pursuit of floating every day.

I started a business because I wanted to provide something more to myself in terms of growth and to my community in terms of a legitamite benefit to a broad range of people

Do I have time to float every day? I suppose if I wanted to set aside the other important things in my life I could but I don’t think that would bring me much contentment or fulfillment. Maybe I’ll try it later on as an experiment like one of those BuzzFeed articles - “I tried floating every day for a month. You won’t believe what happened…"

And to say I dont have time for it may seem alarming to some - it always tickles that quote in the back of my mind about how if you don’t have 20 minutes to meditate, you need two hours.

But I haven’t given up on my daily meditation practice. It’s actually made a grand resurgence as I study Sam Harris’ Waking Up meditation course which I recently purchased for the benefit of the spa and the customers here.

There’s a big difference between practicing meditation for 10-20 minutes daily and floating for an hour. Not to mention the fact that only one month into a new business I have yet to stay in the float tank for a full hour once.

I’ve made it to 50 minutes so far, which is probably just as good as an hour for most since I already know what to expect when I get in there to float.

My mind doesn’t dissolve very well each time. Perhaps because the minute I step out of the tank it’s back to work.

The four or five times I have floated though have gotten progressively better - other than the one where I listened to a podcast the whole time - I don’t recommend doing that unless your intention really is to use the float tank to download information into your brain. It’s physically relaxing but didn’t come with that great sigh of relief and the post-float glow. It’s probably best saved for another round of experiments or maybe creating a “plugging into the Matrix to download a book into your brain” offer.  Any takers? Let me know.

So how do I float now?

As a business owner with an important mission at hand I need to be able to get that valuable recharge time in my week. Meditation is a must on a daily basis - it’s the floor sweeping of your mind - but as many smart business owners will tell you, it’s important to keep your batteries fresh so that you can do the deep work, stay in your flow, and accomplish the big goals that drive your company and your mission forward.

My friend Josh Martin shares his intimate story of what can and will go wrong if you let yourself burnout in his yet-to-be published book “What Is Next.”

So with that in mind, I’m committed to scheduling in my floats and my nature walks when need be. To unplug, reset, and spark creativity.

When it comes to the float tank, I go through the routine that I think most people do. I am not a guru; we are all following the same journey.

The first few minutes are getting situated, letting my heart rate settle down, and my skin temperature equilabrate with the water and the air - returning to the womb if you’re into humouring the Freudian nature of the experience.

It would really be fascinating to see what Freud thinks about floating - I’m imagining a float tank in place of the couch that he’s sitting behind and picking away at your subconscious.

After I’ve reached stasis I deepen my breathing and just try to become aware of the sensations in my body. In typical mindfulness meditation this often equates to the body scan or becoming aware of your surroundings but one of the fascinating things about the float tank is that your surroundings no longer exist in your conscious mind and so you can look inwards to explore deeper things. Whoa, that last sentence sounds like some deep profundity but it doesn’t have to sound so mystical - you’re just relaxing into an experience of nothingness that we rarely ever reach in our day-to-day lives.

Once I’ve let my brain process and settle down I start the final challenge which so far has without fail ended my float exactly when I intend it to - like the satisfying sense of completion that comes with closing the back cover of a really good book.

I count my breaths to ten.

In -one…… Out - one…..

If you’ve ever done this before without getting distracted by other thoughts and losing track you’ll know how challenging it can be.

In…. Two ……. Out…..Two….

I often incorporate this into box breathing to the beat of my heart for a while until I’m ready to let go of the numbers to keep my focus.

The moment I breathe out on ten I feel I’m ready to continue on with my day. And while my body may feel like limp spaghetti for a while after, my brain is firing on all cylinders again and ready to tackle creative masterpieces like this blog post.

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.

World Sleep Day and Recovery

This week’s blog features an audio companion for anyone who prefers to listen - check out this week’s FlowCast here.

Today is world sleep day and with daylight savings time just passed last week, it’s an important time to think about sleep and getting yourself reset this weekend.

Daylight savings time has become a hotly debated issue because it forces us all to accept a lost hour of sleep when we spring forward and for many of us with already full schedules this means we end up losing that hour altogether.

It may not seem like a big deal but from Matthew Walker’s research which is covered in-depth in his masterpiece on sleep science “Why We Sleep” we don’t properly catch up when we’ve accumulated a sleep debt by sleeping more later.

Sleep is an essential part of the circadian rhythm and as such requires diligent daily, not weekly, attention. Something astounding that Walker talks about in his book is that the incidence of heart attacks skyrockets the Monday following the spring forward in DST and plummets when we get an extra hour of sleep when we fall back an hour.

This doesn’t automatically mean that you’re going to have a heart attack because you lost an hour of sleep last weekend but from many people I’ve talked to this week, the change affects us all in subtle ways. The sudden shift in when the sun rises and sets, the sense of feeling the need to catch up all week, it’s kind of a funny feeling.

So what can we do about it?

Matthew Walker might suggest that we can’t make up for a sleep debt but getting an extra hour of sleep or recovery time for World Sleep Day or anytime this weekend can help to get you back on track still in my mind. Take a nap, spend an hour recharging in a float tank, get outside for a quiet walk in nature, turn off all of your devices and go to bed an hour early.

The quick transition of Daylight Saving’s Time is additional stress on all of us. Life is a constant balance of stress and recovery, sympathetic and parasympathetic - yin and yang. Out of respect for World Sleep Day, if you didn’t spend the March Break somewhere relaxing, take an extra hour to do something rejuvenating this weekend and perhaps start to make it a routine - but that’s a whole other topic for another day.

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.

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.

Use This Morning Routine For Stress-Free Living

All I have is good days.

As I spring out of bed ready to tackle the day and all of the challenges in front of me, I think back to when it wasn’t like this - when the mortal coils of the daily grind seemed to close a little bit tighter around me day after day.

With the right morning practices in place you can inoculate yourself against a lot of the mundanity of daily life and start to find more joy in living mindfully and paying attention to the little things that matter.

Fortunately, I am a morning person and so I do understand that the feeling of a great morning is going to be different for some people. If you gravitate towards the night, then just being able to roll out of bed before 9 may be a victory for you if you’ve owned the previous night and gotten the most out of that quiet time.

Regardless of your disposition towards mornings or nights, we do live in a society that tends to require you to prepare yourself well for the mornings before distractions and stress start to creep in from every direction. If you feel yourself stressing out almost as if the cortisol were oozing out of your adrenals by just thinking about the daily grind, try taking action towards these following tips for starting your morning with a routine that can combat your stress all day.

First Thing’s First:

Keep your phone off. If you really want to start the day off right and without your cortisol levels spiking from a cascade of notifications, keep your phone powered off or at least on airplane mode as you go about starting your day.

Practice Gratitude

One of the simplest ways that you can improve your morning routine is by practicing gratitude. If you are also going to start journaling your thoughts (see below) it can benefit your to write down the things you are grateful for, or you may just want to think about and meditate on them. I find it more powerful to write the things I am grateful for down, an important practice that I will talk about more in the next tip on affirmations.

Tony Robbins talks about including a morning gratitude practice as part of his 10-minute routine to prime his body and mind for a great day. Robbins’ gratitude practice includes thinking about 3 things he is grateful for and spending about a minute on each one. When coming up with 3 things to be grateful for, he recommends that you include one that is a small, simple thing in the present moment to be grateful for.

This simple object of your gratitude could be the cool glass of water you’re drinking or the sun creeping over the horizon.

Whatever it may be, feel grateful for something in the present moment - this ties into living mindfully.

If you want to read more about Tony Robbins’ morning practice read this: https://www.businessinsider.com/tony-robbins-morning-priming-exercise-2017-7

Start Your Day with Intention - Affirmation

In addition to being grateful for 3 things and taking a moment to truly feel that gratitude, write down your intention either for this day in particular or for this overarching chapter of your life.

If you’re seeking a new job, write down that you will ace the interview:

“I will have a great interview today” or “I am the type of person who shows confidence at interviews."

If you’re trying to lose weight, you may write that your goal will be to lose 10 pounds, but also be specific in what steps you are taking on a daily basis to get there:

“I am the type of person who goes to the gym daily” or “I will not eat carbs before dinner.”

These “I am” or “I will” type of statements are more powerful than simply stating what you want because they tap into your subconscious and start the process of you actually identifying with the statement.

In Grounded in Gratitude, Josh Bryant talks about how writing down these intentions or affirmations is also very important.

By actually writing it down, the information is able to be shared by both the left brain and the right brain and so you can more powerfully work on making your goal a reality by synergistically combining the power of your whole brain.

The other benefit of writing your intention down is that by allowing your subconscious to start identifying with the statement, you will be primed to pick out more opportunities to act upon that goal in your everyday life.

Sound too good to be true?

Try it out and fully embody that intention and let me know how it goes.

Journal

Create a short, daily journaling practice to harness these affirmations and things you are grateful for. Tim Ferriss often talks about using a morning journalling routine to get the thoughts bouncing around in his monkey mind trapped on paper so that he can focus on what’s most important for that day.

I like to structure my daily journalling practice around the "Five Minute Journal" concept and then if there are thoughts in my head I need to structure better on paper I’ll write those down after I’ve completed the 3 steps.

The morning component of the 5-minute journal that I’ve adapted looks like this:

1. List three things you are grateful for:

2. List three things you must accomplish today (this is your Power List)

3. State your intention or affirmation for the day, or for this chapter of your life.

Move

Even if it’s just 3-5 minutes, move around and get your blood pumping as soon after you wake as you can. Do a brief yoga and stretching routine or chase your dog around the yard, as Aubrey Marcus suggests in Own The Day, Own Your Life. Moving, combined with the next tip, is more powerful than a shot of espresso to get you kicked into high gear and ready to start the day on a positive.

Cold

I saved this tip for last because it requires the most discipline to implement but is also the one that can have the most powerful effect.

"The Iceman” Wim Hof has popularized cold exposure on his quest to educate people on how powerful the cold and just breathing better can impact your quality of life and your health. Brief cold exposure in the morning fires up your nervous system and releases norepinephrine which will boost your mood and leave you feeling invigorated. Chronic stress exposure can wear down your immune system and leave you constantly battling illness. Research has now validated that the jolt to your body from brief cold exposure has a powerful effect on combatting chronic stress and will reduce your susceptibility to getting sick.

Tony Robbins also includes a cold plunge into his morning practice and has plunge pools installed at his homes to be able to do this daily.

That quick burst of firing your nervous system up in the morning leaves you feeling great and is one of the reasons that we built the contrast therapy room at Flow Spa. In this room, we have a hot tub along with a cold tub set to 5ºC. We will definitely be running the morning Wim Hof club for all of the morning warriors wanting to kickstart their hearts with a cold plunge.

There are a lot of different things that you can start to implement for having a better day and eliminating stress from your life. If you’re already stressed out it may seem like too many things to juggle at once, so instead of trying to add in everything at once, just pick the one idea that’s easiest for you to implement right away and start with that. Overtime as you start to feel the beneficial effect of the routine you can add in more steps to the harness the full power of a morning routine.

What do you like to include in your morning routine? Leave a comment below!

Are Sports a Suitable Replacement for Your Daily Mindfulness Practice?

Do Sports = Mindfulness?

I recently heard a debate from a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher that caught my attention as it related to the question of whether playing sports or participating in physical activity can substitute a mindfulness practice.

The argument was that people who claim they get everything they need out of their physical practice are missing an inherently valuable component of more traditional mindfulness practices and that playing sports won’t carry over any benefit into an everyday situation. One of the primary concerns of the author was that the sport you are most passionate about because a vehicle of escape over time.

I look at it as a situation where there is a complementary value of participating in a physical challenge along with taking the time out to find regular stillness in your week.

The mindful value of sport primarily comes when operating a peak performance, when everything depends on your mind and body working in harmony and you reach the flow state. By meditating, you help to strengthen the mind-body connection, allowing yourself to avoid distractions to reach and maintain the flow state more often, whether in competition or casual sports practice. Vice versa, most people gravitate towards a physical practice that they have enjoyment and passion for which is another critical factor for producing a state of flow.

Playing sports and practicing mindfulness have some of the same qualities to them but they are not exactly the same thing. The statement cannot be made that all sports are mindfulness practices just as much as you cannot say that all mindfulness practices are sports. But are people who say that their meditation or mindfulness practice is found in the gym or on the field or court wrong? I think that if in their own mind they feel a mindfulness benefit from their preferred physical activity, it’s good that it is helping them, at least in the short-term.

Former Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink talks about how the gym and training Jiu Jitsu is his mindfulness practice and it helps to serve him well. Some people really struggle with sitting still to find mindfulness and so maybe you will need to find a balance between the physical and resting types of mindfulness.

One of the statements the MBSR teacher made that cuts through the differences between sports and a more calming mindfulness practice is that many people who gravitate towards sports as their mindfulness practice end up having it as a crutch that cannot help them as much in real life or when they are injured and can’t keep playing.

This is why you don’t want to just practice sports, because you may be missing out on a valuable part of the everyday practice of mindfulness and meditation for helping you to cope with other stressors.

Physical activity is a stress in and of itself, albeit a beneficial one. By getting your blood pumping and releasing beneficial endorphins, you are also activating the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the fight or flight response in emergency situations. On the other hand, meditation and mindfulness practices turn up the parasympathetic nervous system, enhancing calm and relaxation.

The Mind-Muscle Connection and Flow

Many people gravitate towards more traditional mindfulness practices only after having found a passion for a particular sport or physical activity because there is that excitement and passion that comes with doing something that gets your heart rate up and produces endorphins. This also seems to be an entry point to mindfulness as the inherent challenge in sport, whether competing against yourself or others, is a powerful driver of flow. Once people find an activity that reliably produces the flow state, it’s hard to get them to want to stop. Flow is the ultimate destination of practicing mindfulness - finding peak present moment awareness to push the body and mind to its limit.

But it can be very difficult to maintain a flow state even when pushing yourself in a sporting environment because of the intense focus it requires. To strengthen this focus on the present moment I believe that it is absolutely essential to have a daily mindfulness practice. It’s like lifting weights - you can’t expect to get stronger by lifting weights just once; it has to be done consistently over many months and years to produce results.

Sweep The Floor

Or better yet, my favourite analogy for the need to practice consistently comes from the final chapter of Ryan Holiday’s Ego is the Enemy: you’ve got to sweep the floor.

You don’t just sweep a floor once, dust your hands off, and consider it done; you’ve got to sweep the floor regularly in order to keep it clean.

In Ego is the Enemy, Holiday is referring to practicing Stoicism when he talks about sweeping the floor but Stoicism and mindfulness have a lot in common and the analogy works well for either of the practices. Practicing mindfulness daily will bring more richness of experience to your world when playing sports or any other physical practice and that’s why you shouldn’t just do one or the other - they work better together for finding your flow.

An example of someone who fully embodies this dichotomy is Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you’ve listened to any interviews with him, particularly The Tim Ferriss Show podcast, or read his biography Total Recall, you might be familiar with how Arnold spent two intensive years practicing Transcendental Meditation to find peace of mind and hone the mind-muscle connection to improve as a bodybuilder. Arnold claims that he got everything he could out of his daily meditation practice and as a result was able to focus better in the gym and this was part of the practice that made him into the legendary bodybuilder that he was. After those two years Arnold treated meditation as a refresher that he did occasionally to reset himself.

It’s the same with floating regularly - some people love floating so much that they transform it into their weekly mindfulness practice but you still need to keep the daily mindfulness practice in place to get the most out of your float sessions.

So here’s my conclusion:

Physical activities and mindfulness might have a lot in common when it comes to present-state awareness but the similarities end there. The two practices are not the same but work synergistically to get you more deeply in touch with your mind and body and should both be incorporated regularly for living a rich life and finding your flow.

Sweet Dreams: 9 Ways You Can Sleep Better Tonight

Sleep is so important to health and performance that the next stage in the evolution of talking about sleep is that it will become a regular prescription from doctors.

When we think about sleep, the world has shifted to considering it that stretch of time where we have lost productivity from the constant grind and hustle that is preached by entrepreneurs and professionals alike. But the reality is that quality sleep is one of the most important factors for improving productivity and performance. It’s no wonder that professional athletes like LeBron James and Hafthor Bjornsson get upwards of 10 hours of sleep each night.

If you struggle to recover from heavy training or your progress isn’t as good as you expect it to be, your sleep should be one of the first places you look to make a change that will benefit you. Even if how good your workouts are isn’t a primary factor that you use to gauge how you feel, sleep quality will dramatically affect your performance at work and your mood.

In getting a quality night’s sleep, the term that is often used now is “sleep hygiene” and it refers to the different steps that you can do to make your sleeping domicile (aka the bear cave) as conducive for sleep as possible.

I find this to be particularly important as a competitive strongman athlete because for many of us our sleep isn’t great to start with due to a prevalence of sleep apnea. If you’ve gone through and made changes in the following nine steps and still don’t feel well-rested, you should consult a sleep lab to get a sleep test done to see if you’ve got sleep apnea or any other sleep disorder that can be treated. Using a CPAP for treating sleep apnea will make an immense difference in your quality of sleep, recovery, performance, and well-being.

In Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker put together the most comprehensive account for the fascinating effects of sleep. Walker outlines a multitude of sleep hygiene steps that can be taken to hit that recommended sweet spot of 8 hours of sleep each night.

A lot of it comes down to how well you prepare your nighttime ritual to prepare yourself and your bear cave for deep slumber. Here are some of the most important steps I have found to help, as well as some additional tips that may be worth checking out.

Steps to improve sleep hygiene (roughly in order based on the timeline before bed)

10+ Hours Before Bed

Avoid Caffeine - typically most people should stop around 1 pm if they aim to sleep around 10 or 11. Even if that afternoon pick-me-up doesn’t leave you feeling jittery, there may still be enough caffeine floating around in your system to impact your sleep quality and make it more difficult to fall asleep.

3 Hours Before Bed

No Strenuous Exercise - getting your heart rate pounding within a few hours of your scheduled bedtime can make it harder to relax and fall asleep. If that’s the only time you have available to workout and it’s a priority in your life, training may just have to come before sleep quality but you can also consider going to bed earlier and waking up earlier to get your workout in.

No Big Meals - Eating to the point of discomfort means your body has a lot to process and digest and can leave you feeling like you’ve got a rock pressing down while you’re trying to get comfortable for sleep. You also want to ideally time your last meal around the 3-hour mark so your stomach isn’t grumbling either as you try to fall asleep.

1-2 Hours Before Bed

Keep the Bear Cave Cool - You’ll want to start to drop the temperature in your room in the last couple of hours of the day, as one of the factors that trigger your brain that it’s time to sleep is a drop in temperature. Before we had temperature controlled houses, the temperature while sleeping in a hut or cave dropped as the sun went down and we went to sleep. It’s usually recommended that you set your room somewhere in the 65-68 F range and you’ll have to play around with this to find your own sweet spot. An additional tip you can try is sleeping with socks on. Your feet like to be a little bit warmer than the rest of your body for the best sleep possible.

Electronics out of the Bedroom - this really should be 24 hours before sleep thing because everyone who values quality sleep can agree that electronics need to be removed from the bedroom. When we watch tv in bed we tend to go to sleep later and the same thing goes for watching videos on YouTube or scrolling social media. It also ties into the next tip...

Blue lights out Before Bed - Depending on what time you go to bed relative to the cycle of the sun, this may even come before the 1-2 hour mark but blue lights should be eliminated as early in the evening as possible. Set all of your devices to Night Shift towards a warmer tone. I like to have mine automatically set to follow the sunrise/sunset cycle. This will also help to reduce eye strain if you find yourself constantly staring at the blue light. Taking it a step further, you can buy a set of blue light blocking glasses on Amazon for about 10 or 30 bucks depending on how fancy you want them to look.

In getting rid of this blue light before bed, it also means you should shut down the tv, tablet, and phone and read an actual book. If you’re in the market for switching out your light bulbs in the bedroom, you can also replace any bulbs with a colour-changing LED bulb that can shift towards a red light, like the Philips Hue. This is the ideal way to go about it. The best compromises that you can make would be to dim your existing lights and then use an offline e-reader so you aren’t being distracted with messages or phone calls when you’re trying to wind down for sleep. The backlight of a Kindle can be turned way down so that you can simply illuminate the page with your dimmed light the way you would for a hard copy.

Have a Contrast Shower or a Hot Bath - In Why We Sleep it’s suggested that you take a hot bath to prepare yourself for sleep because as you get out of the hot water, your brain will notice the dramatic temperature gradient and signal your body to prepare for sleep. I can’t stand getting so hot before sleeping so another option that many people including myself prefer is to do a contrast shower starting with hot and ending on cold. Typically this consists of alternating between 10 seconds of hot and 20 seconds of cold for a total of 8 to 10 cycles. I like that ending on cold gets you out of the shower with the temperature drop already started so you’re on your way to sleepy town. The contrast also works nicely before bed because I’ve found that simply doing cold may get you too cold which actually makes it harder to sleep.

Block EMFs in Your Home - I’m still not convinced that there’s much merit to these claims but it has been suggested that electromagnetic fields from electronic devices and WiFi routers are negatively affecting our health, including sleep quality. If you follow all of the steps above and still have a hard time getting quality sleep, you may have to “ground” yourself and eliminate EMFs. The simplest way to do this is to put all devices on airplane mode and turn off your WiFi router during the night. Plugging your router into an automatic wall timer may be the simplest way to accomplish this without having to remember to turn your WiFi router off and back on.

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Bonus Tip: Know Yourself - the Oura Ring

The Oura ring is the most comprehensive sleep and recovery tracker that I have seen on the market. With the combination of sleep tracking and heart rate variability (HRV), Oura helps you to go a step beyond just “feels” to know how well you’re recovering and how prepared you are for training each day. If you’ve been working out for any appreciable amount of time, hopefully, you are introspective enough about how you feel in order to know fairly well what your body is dictating your training should be like each day. In using the Oura ring daily for two months now, I’ve noticed that much of how I think I feel is reflected in my score each day. The ring is sensitive enough though that you can get into the very fine details about things like how well you’re sleeping based on what time you ate your last meal or even what type of foods you ate at dinner (or throughout the day). Sleep can be messed up in all sorts of ways due to the foods we eat by throwing off blood sugar and stressing the body with highly inflammatory foods or foods that we are allergic or intolerant to.

The Oura ring also gets smarter as you continue to use it and it’s able to detect your own trends better. This makes it a neat tool to use short-term but a much more valuable part of your reflection on training and recovery as you use it more regularly. I said the same thing a few years ago when I wrote more about using HRV for training.

(If you are concerned about the EMFs from this little device you can also put it on airplane mode and only take it off airplane mode when you want to upload your data).

This sort of next-level biohacking is what can take your overall sleep and well-being from whatever mediocre state it currently is into being at your own pinnacle of health. It does take more conscious effort but if at the end of the day you are living a more fulfilling life or striving towards your goals better, it can be well worth it.

Sleep Well!