As you consider what changes you want to make in your life for the new year, it’s worth also spending some time thinking about how you are going to make sure that you actually follow through with them. There are people who joke that their main New Year’s resolution is to not break their New Year’s resolutions – and there is actually a good amount of wisdom in that quip. Especially for those of us who don’t have the best track record of following through with our well-intentioned goals, it’s important to engage in activities and behaviors that can help us on our journey.
There are many tools and tricks out there to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions, from goal journals, to accountability apps, to prescribed morning routines. These are all designed to help you overcome one of the frustrating realities of being human: we are creatures of habit. For the most part, this is a good thing – we have countless routines that allow us to live our lives and get through our days consistently and safely. There are also, of course, those adopted habits that we’d like to change, or eliminate altogether.
One of the practices that is especially useful in breaking bad habits and fostering new behaviors is floatation therapy. In fact, Dr. John Lilly, the inventor of the float tanks (and who would have been 107 this month) wrote several books about using the float tanks to take control of your habits, or as he would say, “to reprogram yourself.” Floating facilitates self-reflection & visualization, it’s incredibly effective at reducing stress & anxiety, and it provides you with all-important alone time.
Consistent reflection on your goals has been shown, time and again, to predict your ultimate success in achieving them. Reflecting, not just on the changes that you want to make in your life but the reasons you want to make those changes, is incredibly helpful in making them a reality. In the same vein, taking the time to visualize going through the steps to fulfill your resolutions better prepares you for accomplishing them in the real world when the time comes.
The float tank is an ideal place for both self-reflection and visualization, and those are actually two of the reasons that regular floaters commonly cite for coming in. Without any outside distractions, and perfectly comfortable physically, your mind can direct its attention wherever you’d like – for instance, on your New Year’s promises to yourself. Without starting to form these strong associations with your goals, it’s all too easy for your old habits to slip into their familiar places, like an old man slipping back into his favorite chair.
As numerous studies have shown, floating is also an incredible tool for relieving anxiety, as well as depression – which can both be huge obstacles in the way of us achieving our goals. With so many things in the modern world demanding our time and attention it’s not surprising that nearly everyone is operating at levels of heightened stress, hampering our efforts towards making real change.
Taking purposeful time out of the demands of everyday life, even for something as simple as 15 minutes of silent breathing, has been shown to help us manage our stress better. This in turn leads to improved focus, more self control, lower blood pressure, and a range of other benefits. Research continues to show us how important it is to disconnect, and floating is the perfect way to do that.
It’s tempting to think that we will, by simply declaring our resolutions, be able to effortlessly follow through with them – however, adopting new habits (and eliminating old ones) is most often a more challenging task than that. It’s important to use all the tools at your disposal to help you out, rather than just choosing one (or, as is often the case, none). Try journaling, experiment with goal tracking apps, try starting your day off with some new activities, and, of course, we recommend scheduling regular time to float.
Making the Most of the Holidays
It's the holiday season. You've booked your time off from work, planned where you're going (or who's coming to you) and you’re excited to finally reconnect with loved ones after an unusually busy year. Holidays are meant to be a break from the craziness – they give us a chance to enjoy special moments and make memories with the people we love.
Sadly, actually fulfilling that yearning for a few nights where “all is calm and all is bright” can be quite stressful. Misbehaving children, older relatives that need extra care, bickering couples, organizing transport and accommodation, spending time to find the right gifts, catering for dietary requirements – with multiple distractions, time can easily feel like it's running away. This was supposed to be a holiday right?
Modern lifestyles are making us stressed, especially in the winter holiday seasons when advertising is at its peak. With so much of our lives being spent in front of screens and digital devices, the exposure to messaging from other people and companies is more extreme than it’s ever been. Somehow, although the internet and social media are amazing at connecting us to others it becomes easy to forget about ourselves.
These days, the relationship with self seems to be one of the hardest to maintain, and it is perhaps because of this that self-care has been taking more of the limelight in recent years. Looking after ourselves is worth the attention. It helps us in our relationships with others, allowing us to be more happy and present, as opposed to giving in to distraction and feelings of being overwhelmed. Despite the many obligations that come along with them, holidays (and their deviation from normal life) provide a perfect chance to work on some healthy habits and activities – and not just for yourself.
Although for many, gift giving has become more of a burden than a joy during the holiday season, it’s important to remember the beauty and power of thoughtful presents. A gift can express how well you know somebody, and that you care about them. When you get it right, it can make a positive impact, not just on your relationship, but in that person’s life as a whole. Gifts are a perfect opportunity to encourage your loved ones to take a break, and to treat themselves to some (very likely much needed, and much neglected) self-care.
This doesn’t need to be extravagant: even setting aside time for a hike or a picnic with someone is likely to be much appreciated. A nice meal, movie tickets, a massage, and pre-paying babysitters or house cleaners are all presents that encourage someone to take some time to themselves. Of course, a gift card for a float fits the bill perfectly – solitude in quiet darkness, with nothing but the peacefulness of a calm imagination, is the ultimate break from responsibility.
Letting go into the warm buoyancy of a float tank, the mind is able to slow down. Breathing deepens, muscles relax, and brainwaves shift down to a less frantic pace (known as entering the theta state). The gift of peaceful sanctuary from daily stresses and social obligations is not only a wonderful present in itself, it’s also likely to make the time that person spends with others more memorable, connected, and joyful.
Floating can be a great primer for a relaxed day out sightseeing or before going to an event. It’s also a wonderful group activity in itself, and taking your family in to float pretty much ensures that whatever you do for the rest of the day is going to be that much more peaceful and pleasant. The nice part about this is it's unlikely people will turn down a float. If they've never tried it it's intriguing, if they’ve floated before - well, you can probably tell by the smile on their face after mentioning the idea.
At the end of it all, floating is about connection - something so many of us are missing. There is the immediate connection with yourself during the float session, but there is also a lasting tranquility and openness that lets us connect that much better with the people around us. Floating has a unique effect of inspiring openness and ease, even in the most Scroogey individuals.
This holiday season, remember to take care of yourself and to encourage others in your life to do the same. That is a real gift, and although floating is only one of many ways to accomplish this, it’s also one of the best.
Alone, But Not Lonely
In many ways, our culture has fostered an unhealthy relationship with time spent alone. Even the words that we use to describe alone time are often steeped in some kind of negative connotation. Solitude. Seclusion. Withdrawal. Loneliness.
Loneliness is especially telling: the etymology of the word is simply in the act of being alone, but the modern meaning and most common definitions refer to it as an unpleasant emotional state in which you desire the company of others, but for one reason or another can’t satisfy that desire. When we’re thinking of things that we want to do next Friday night, being “lonely” rarely finds its way to the top of the list.
Fortunately, our relationship to loneliness is changing, and many of these terms and notions are being gradually replaced (or at least supplemented) with ideas that aren’t as negative: me-time, down-time, self-care, treating yourself, and decompressing. As our technology and culture have pushed us to be constantly connected to other people (along with their opinions and demands), we’ve seen an increase in research and general attention to the benefits that spending time alone can offer us.
Let’s take a moment to define what we mean by being “alone.” At its root, being alone is spending time by yourself, without interacting with other people. So, if you’re talking on the phone with someone, chatting online, or reading & responding to social media, we shouldn’t really call that “alone time.”
Another way to think of being alone is spending time with your own thoughts. Even watching a show or a movie is perhaps not truly “alone time.” There are a fair amount of studies that back this up, showing that when we’re watching media, especially serial TV shows, we overestimate how many relationships we have – our simple human brains have a hard time distinguishing between spending time with two-dimensional actors and three-dimensional friends.
The act of truly being alone – where your own internal monologue isn’t interrupted by the thoughts or actions of others – isn’t all that common for most people in their daily, or even weekly, lives. This is a shame, given the many benefits that often come with carving out at least a little time to be completely by yourself. These include:
emotional benefits (such as increased contentment, lowered anxiety, and a reduced chance of burnout)
physical benefits (like more awareness of physical stress and increased energy)
social benefits (counterintuitively, studies show that spending more time alone allows us to be more attentive to those around us, more enjoyable & engaging, and even better romantic partners)
hair growth benefits (well… maybe not… but when you’re alone, who cares about your hair anyway?)
These benefits of alone time parallel those that modern research is finding from meditation & mindfulness, as well as floating (which is, of course, one of our favorite ways to spend alone time). Not only is the mental stress from socializing removed during a float, the actual physical stresses of the world are lifted as well. The cognitive load from observing your environment, regulating your temperature, and even just constantly holding yourself up against gravity is freed up in a float tank.
This reduced cognitive load, combined with an extremely comfortable and relaxing environment, allows your brain to spend time reflecting, processing, and assessing pretty much everything – from past events & future obligations, to relationships, to muscle tension, to coiffures. Although there are many benefits of actively engaging your thoughts, there is definitely something to be said for making the transition from engaging, to observing, and finally to letting go of your internal monologue completely.
If you’ve practiced meditation (of almost any form), you’ll certainly recognize this process. Likewise, if you’ve spent any amount of time in a float tank, this will no doubt all sound very familiar. Just as our bodies need both exercise and rest, our minds need time for directed reflection as well as time to disengage and not think about anything at all. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but, just like going to the gym, it’s also easy to push aside when the demands of daily life rear their heads.
Just as the terminology around loneliness is evolving, it would be excellent to see progress in the overall relationship we have with being alone. Next time you feel overwhelmed with everything you have to get done, you should consider giving yourself a time out (for at least 15 minutes) to let your mind relax for a moment. Next time you find yourself messaging on social media, think about writing down some notes on paper to yourself instead. Next time you have some free time and you’re thinking about what you’d like to do with it, you should perhaps consider doing nothing at all.
Fight or Flight...or Float
You’ve probably heard of our fight or flight response – when we’re presented with stressful or threatening situations (like being chased by a hippopotamus), our body’s autonomic nervous system responds by preparing for action. Our heart rate increases, our breathing picks up, and blood flows from our core out to our limbs (along with a lot of other changes, all focused on helping us get ready to defend ourselves or to get out of there as swiftly as possible).
In addition to this well known reaction to stressors, we have another autonomic response you may not have heard of, which is pretty much the polar opposite of fight or flight: the relaxation response. This is also referred to as the “rest and digest” response, and it takes over when we feel safe and secure. Our breathing and heart rate slow down, our circulation evens out, our digestive system becomes more active, and we’re more likely to become sexually aroused.
While our fight or flight serves us best in dangerous situations, our rest and digest response is useful for all those times when we’re NOT being threatened, and it makes more sense for our body to focus on taking care of itself. This allows us to store up energy, heal and recover, and even attempt to produce future generations. Both autonomic responses are incredibly useful to our survival, helping us to get through tough short-term situations and make sure that we have the resources and time to prepare for whatever may be coming in the future.
Unfortunately for modern humans, we’re often under constant stress (even if it’s not as immediately threatening as being chased by a hippo). Things like being cut off in traffic, being chewed out by our boss, or being woken up by a loud car in the middle of the night can make our fight or flight response kick in. Even before the global pandemic, stress levels were especially high for people living in cities, where all of the motion, noise, and interaction creates a more threatening environment for our psyche. It’s safe to say that many of us were going through our days in a state of constant and chronic stress, and having to deal with the Covid-19 virus and all of its impacts has certainly not helped.
This isn’t an all-or-none situation: there is a large gradient of stress that people experience in everyday life and a large diversity in the effects of that stress. Regardless of both the exact causes and levels of stress, finding ways to unwind, de-stress, and cue the relaxation response is increasingly important for all of us. In fact, when the term Relaxation Response was first coined by Herbert Benson, it was presented alongside a protocol for practicing and eliciting it in yourself.
Reading through his suggested steps, it may sound very similar to engaging in a simple meditative practice. You wouldn’t be the first to make that comparison – in fact Dr. Benson is often credited with familiarizing a Western audience with meditation, essentially through rebranding it as the Relaxation Effect and conducting studies on its measurable impacts.
With that in mind, it’s not surprising at all that numerous studies have found that floating in a float tank seems to bring on both the relaxation effect and its associated benefits. In fact, floating is often described outside the scientific community as “training wheels for meditation,” demonstrating that outside the lab, people have also been noticing the similarities between floating and the relaxation response for things like reducing stress, improving mood, and increasing focus.
The environment of a float tank is pretty much the perfect place to help turn off our nearly ever-present stress response (regardless of its current severity) and to help us to engage with our relaxation response. All of the examples above for triggering our fight or flight response involve things like loud noises, surprises, uncomfortable social interactions, hippopotamuses… all of which are notably absent in a float tank. In fact, the lights, noises, shocks, and demands on your system are about as reduced as you can possibly get in a float tank. Even the burden on your brain of trying to balance on these two awkward pillars we call legs and walk around the world without bumping into anyone (or anything) is eliminated.
So, the next time you feel like arguing with your partner or running away from your problems, consider giving yourself a time-out to meditate and practice engaging your relaxation response. Or better yet, treat yourself to a float and relax your entire musculature while your brain takes a well needed rest.
Promising New Research Into Anorexia Nervosa
From helping with anorexia nervosa, to regulating the immune system, to reducing general and acute anxiety, new findings on floatation continue to flow out from researchers around the world. While much of the science news these days is taken up by stories and discoveries about covid, countless labs around the world carry on with their studies, many of which began years before the pandemic, and the world of floatation is no exception.
At the recent 2021 Float Conference at the end of August, we got to hear highlights from some of the world leaders in float research. Of special interest was the ongoing research at the Float Clinic and Research Center at LIBR (the Laureate Institute for Brain Research), and the research relating to patients with anorexia nervosa was the furthest along. In addition to the float clinic, LIBR houses a treatment and research center for anorexia, including a large population of inpatients who live there for longer periods of therapy and treatment.
Dr. Sahib Khalsa has been carrying on long term research on anorexia nervosa patients for the last 4 years, most recently as the director of the Float Clinic at LIBR. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental disorder, and it is notoriously difficult to treat. Even in-patient facilities like the one at LIBR, with multiple avenues of care and support, often show minimal long-term benefits in many of the participants. The severity of anorexia nervosa, and its resistance to conventional treatments, make it an especially impactful area for study and an interesting one for floatation research.
The benefits of floatation seem to be most notable in two main areas for anorexia patients – anxiety and body image. Although his study is waiting on the last of the follow up results to conclude, Dr. Khalsa presented on some of his initial findings at this year's conference, building on the results in his paper published at the end of 2020. The largest effect was on the anxiety levels of the patients, which mirrors similar findings from other floatation studies done on healthy populations and on chronically anxious individuals.
In his controlled study, relative anxiety was reduced by up to 20% in patients, with the impact being the most notable on those who had the highest baseline levels of anxiety. This also parallels the findings from other studies done at LIBR by Dr. Justin Feinstein, Dr. Khalsa’s collaborator and predecessor as head of the Float Clinic. Even in those with lower levels of anxiety, however, there was a significant improvement in anxiety levels for those patients who floated.
The relative impact on perceived body image was smaller, but it is perhaps the most impressive result of the study (from the data so far). Anorexia nervosa is most often a chronic condition, and the misalignment between patients' perceived body weight and real body weight is notoriously difficult to recalibrate. The patients who floated saw a shift in how they viewed their own body, tending more towards their real weight. They also saw the “ideal” body type as slightly heavier, and more aligned with a healthy body type. While the size of this shift was not large (around a 5% relative change), the fact that even a few floats were able to make a measurable impact is incredible.
Hearing the ongoing progress of this study is always exciting, and Dr. Khalsa’s full talk will be released soon on the Float Conference YouTube channel (although we’ll have to wait until at least 2023 before the last of the follow-up data comes in and we get to see the full results). In the meantime, if you know anyone who has anorexia, consider taking them in for some time in the tank. There is certainly no guarantee that it will make a positive impact, but there also isn’t any identifiable risk, either psychological or physical, for patients with anorexia: much of the lengthy, early work on this study was spent establishing the safety and lack of contraindications in patients.
Although Dr. Khalsa’s work has had some of the most concrete progress over the last year, we also heard from a few other LIBR contributors. Dr. Justin Feinstein, who retired last year from LIBR to pursue his own research, also presented on his progress to develop the Float Research Collective: an initiative which will gather data from float centers around the globe for peer reviewed studies. If this project is successful, it will dramatically increase the quantity and quality of data we’re able to gather on floatation. He is currently forming his 501c3 non-profit, but much like the anorexia study (and like so much scientific research in general) it will probably be at least a few years before the foundations and government approval are in place to start any studies.
Another LIBR contributor, Dr. Flux, explored a couple new ways to think about the previous work he’d done on floating and the immune system. In popular culture, we hear about all sorts of products and services that “boost our immune system,” but that’s not always the best thing for us. In fact, a whole host of issues arise from an overactive immune system, and often what we need is not to make our immune response stronger, but to regulate it more effectively. Although floating does seem to help with immune system regulation, the exact pathways that it works on are currently underexplored, and Dr. Flux is looking forward to further studies that will hopefully be able to shed more light on the mechanisms that are active (and inactive) in our immune systems during and after a float session.
Although this blog focused mainly on the work being done at LIBR in the United States, there are researchers in other countries such as Sweden, Australia, Germany, Canada, and China who are pushing forward our understanding of float therapy with their own studies. We look forward to sharing more of the progress being made on these other fronts soon, as more of their results are published and made public.
Sources
[ARTICLE] Reduced Environmental Stimulation in Anorexia Nervosa: An Early-Phase Clinical Trial
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.567499/full[VIDEO - Talk] Sahib Khalsa - Float Conference 2017
https://youtu.be/_UYkZHEVNPs[ARTICLE] The Elicitation of Relaxation and Interoceptive Awareness Using Floatation Therapy in Individuals With High Anxiety Sensitivity
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451902218300491?via%3Dihub[ARTICLE] Examining the short-term anxiolytic and antidepressant effect of Floatation-REST
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0190292
Floating Up From The Depths
As a vehicle for both relaxation and recovery, float tanks are fairly unparalleled. There are lots of studies and anecdotes about the benefits that even a single hour float can offer. The most profound (and often inspiring) results, however, actually come from floating more regularly.
We hear this everyday in our conversations with our members and regulars, and so for this month’s blog, we wanted to highlight some of the personal stories from long term floaters that have been shared publicly. While these are just a small sample of the incredible stories we’ve heard, they help to illustrate the wide variety of benefits floatation has to offer. Stories like these are why we opened our center, and why we’re so proud of the work that we do.
Emily Noren, as a young teenager, developed anorexia and bulimia. Maintaining her weight occupied much of her thoughts and actions for the next decade and a half of her life, and the treatments and medications she tried never provided long-term solutions. All too often, eating disorders like this are more than just unhealthy – they can be tragically fatal. Floating, which started off as an uncomfortable and slightly unsettling experience, became the catalyst for change in Emily’s life. She credits floating with, not only helping her have a healthier and happier life, but also with her full recovery from anorexia and bulimia: an achievement that some experts in eating disorders have questioned is even possible.
Here is a link to Emily Noren’s book, “Unsinkable,” in case you want to read more about her story.
An Australian soldier, Michael Harding was deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry machine gunner. He faced hostile contact, experienced the deaths of those around him, and was returned home experiencing severe symptoms of PTSD, including full body muscle spasms. He and his partner Bek tell the story of his trauma, his struggles and substance abuse upon returning, and his path towards recovery through a regimen of alternative treatments: including support groups, medical cannabis, yoga, and floating.
Read more about Michael’s story in this article by Time magazine.
Murphy Monroe tells his story of nearly debilitating verbal and physical tics. He spent most of his life, from childhood on, working to overcome these through disciplined habits, such as clenching his whole body and running through mental distractions like adding large numbers in his head. He tells this story after his first year of floating, which completely reframed his control, and his views, of his previously uncontrollable habits:
In our own center, we have countless customers with stories like these. People who are struggling - with physical injuries, chronic stress, sleep disorders, and more - who find relief in floating as part of their ongoing efforts to better themselves. There is more and more evidence coming out showing how our long-term health and happiness depends on these habits of self-care.
Whether it’s a practice of stillness (like floating and meditation), or something more active (like yoga, bicycling, and running), routines that involve giving your mind a break from constant input are crucial. A single, novel experience can definitely be beneficial to people on many different levels, but there’s no doubt that for floating, as with so many things in life, the benefits become stronger as you integrate the experiences into your everyday life over time.
We want to leave you with Melissa Martinez, who floats every week – not to overcome an acute disability or trauma, but instead to simply have time set aside for herself, and no one else. Time free from the demands of the world and the people around her. Time to think, to recover, and to relax. She talks about how the practice of floating regularly has impacted her joy and her stress levels, and why she believes that she will continue to float for the rest of her life.
A History Of Floating
Hopping into a soundproof, light-proof box filled with saltwater may be a popular relaxation therapy today, but those just discovering it are likely asking themselves: “who came up with this strange device, and when were float tanks developed?” In order to answer those questions, we first have to ask “why did they want to make them in the first place?”
In the early 1950s, neuroscience was a relatively new field of study, and how the brain worked was much less understood than it is today. One prevalent theory at the time was that our brains were designed to react to stimulation and that everything we did was solely a reaction to something external. Because of this, some scientists thought that if we were to remove all sensory stimulation, our brains would simply shut down. Early experiments to test their theories involved rooms with white noise (such as fans) blocking out sound and goggles with bright lights to keep participants from seeing anything clearly.
Lilly and Shurley initially experimented on themselves and recorded their reactions to this sensory reduced environment before later bringing in other people to try it out. Most of the subjects they had in the tank (including the two researchers themselves), found the tank incredibly relaxing.
Physician and neuroscientist John C. Lilly thought this theory was incomplete and the testing methods being used weren’t a good way to demonstrate sensory reduction. Lilly, along with his colleague Dr. Jay Shurley at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), wanted to create an even more optimal environment to remove all sensory input on the human mind. To that end, they created the first float tank (or “isolation tank” as they called them) in 1954. It involved being fully submerged in water, and looked nothing like the sleek fiberglass designs we see today. In fact, they looked like something more out of a Halloween Haunted Mansion rather than a relaxation device. They required operators to monitor the air supply, which was sent to cumbersome breathing helmets at all times during use.
Lilly and Shurley initially experimented on themselves and recorded their reactions to this sensory reduced environment before later bringing in other people to try it out. Most of the subjects they had in the tank (including the two researchers themselves), found the tank incredibly relaxing.
In fact, their time in the tanks completely subverted their expectations – it was entirely different from what other researchers had published at the time on “sensory deprivation.” They were not slipping into a comatose state, nor was it the least bit distressing. Instead, Lilly found his time in the tank surprisingly profound and physically rejuvenating. Shurley found the float experience equally impressive, and the two of them spent the next decade improving on the design.
Over the next few years, Lilly also experimented with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) inside the float tanks. The drug was extremely novel at the time and was beginning to widely circulate in academic circles in the late 50s. This was a departure from what Shurley was interested in studying, but Dr. Lilly found the combination of LSD and sensory isolation to be life changing.
So much so that it inspired him to write several books on how this combination of therapies impacted his life, work, and philosophy.
Throughout the 70s Dr. Lilly did speaking tours and workshops, bringing awareness of floating to a broader, but still very small, audience. He found himself in the middle of a cultural revolution in the United States as the world experienced a wave of social and political change. In 1972, Lilly met Glenn Perry at one of his speaking engagements at Bear Rock in California.
The two quickly became good friends. Glenn was an engineer who was also deeply interested in the meditative benefits that came from floating. He offered some suggestions to Dr. Lilly about how to improve the tank by adding salt to the water to raise the specific gravity, making it easier to float on the surface. It wasn’t long before they were collaborating on a design for a commercial float tank intended to go in every house in America. Thus Samadhi, the first float tank company, was born!
They started manufacturing in 1973 and opened up a 20 float tank center in Beverly Hills. Celebrity endorsements quickly started rolling in: Susan Sarandon, Michael Crichton, and Robin Williams all shared their profound experiences in interviews. The world learned about floating and they liked it!
Since those early years, a lot has changed. The tanks have evolved and a global industry has developed around floating, but that sense of discovery that inspired the first float tank is still a fundamental part of the experience. There’s still something to discover every time you go for a float: what will you find in the quiet darkness?
Floating Into Your Best Summer
2020 is unique in being the only year in living memory that has consisted of an entire decade. Needless to say, we’ve all got a lot riding on the next few months. Floating is one of the best ways to enhance just about any experience, so it’s a natural fit for any big outings you may have planned.
Float to Cool Down after Getting Worked Up
Whether it’s from joining a local rugby team, going to a dance party, or just bicycling your local commute, going for a float after getting your heartrate up is a great way to bring you back to baseline.
Floating is also a great way to let your body rest after pushing your limits. Many athletes who incorporate floating into their training program have been able to recover faster and perform better than without it.
Appreciate the Little Things
That post-float vibe you get when hopping out of the tank is one of the best times to stop and appreciate the beauty around you. After being in a sensory reduced environment (like a float tank), your senses become heightened. What better time, then, to literally stop and smell the roses than immediately after a float? And it’s not just roses (and not just smelling): food tastes better, music sounds better, and sunshine feels cozier when getting out of a float.
All this to say, after a float, hit up your favorite restaurant or pop on your favorite album and you just might find new things to appreciate about them.
Book an Afternoon Float just in time to Catch the Sunset Afterwards
This just sounds like an obviously good idea... doesn’t it? It’s pretty common for floaters to adjust their schedules for the rest of the day after their floats, given how much it can affect behavior. Sunset is easily one of the most magical times of the day and taking the time to appreciate it is always a good idea – possibly during a hike, at the beach, or on a rooftop garden if there are good spots nearby.
Find a float center when you go on vacation
As your local float center we hope that you think of us as, if not a second home, at least a second living room. It can feel like a trade-off going on vacation because we’re going to miss out on the comforts of our familiar float tanks.
However, just because you’re out of town doesn’t mean you have to give up your weekly float. There are established float centers in nearly every major city across the world. Also, it can be fun to see how other float centers might operate. If you find any cool ideas, don’t hesitate to let us know!
And while it may feel strange to float in a new center, don’t feel guilty! Just make sure you book an extra float when you get back! Floating is also a great way to reset your circadian rhythms, which can do wonders for jetlag when traveling.
Late night floats are a great way to wind down
Like we said at the beginning, lots of people are going to make sure that these next few months will be big ones! One thing to look out for is to not overextend yourself when celebrating and carousing. Whether it’s running marathons, beach trips, bungee jumping, going to dance parties/wine tastings/bonfires – going for a float to decompress and relax is a great way to prevent exhaustion and burnout afterwards.
These are just a few ideas for how floating enhances all the enjoyable things about summer, and this list barely scratches the surface. Hopefully this gives you inspiration for other ways to make floating part of your vacation, staycation, or regular sunny schedule.
After a year of FOMO, let’s get the most out of this year and make 2021 the Summer of the Float!
Theta State: How The Brain Signals Relaxation
What’s happening to your brain when you float? How do you go from being awake, conscious, and stressed to relaxed and dreamy? While we still have a lot to discover when it comes to different states of consciousness, one key element is the “Theta State,” when our brain waves operate at a certain frequency most often linked to the moments between sleep and wakefulness. To really understand what the Theta State is and how it benefits us, we have to first explore a little bit about brain waves more broadly.
In 1924, German psychoanalyst Hans Berger recorded an electronic signal coming from the brain for the first time. The signal was chaotic, intermittent, and didn’t exactly fit with the contemporary understanding of how brains functioned. It took him five years to figure out what his findings meant before he could publish any meaningful results, and it took over a decade for the international scientific community to accept them as legitimate (some readers may notice that there are parallels to be drawn here with how float tank research has been received by academia).
Since then, scientists have discovered multiple frequency bands that brain waves operate on, including Alpha (aka “the Berger wave”), Beta, Gamma, Delta, and of course – Theta. Whenever a certain frequency is dominant, we say the brain is in a certain “state.” As an example, when you’re holding a conversation, your brain is using resources that are alert, engaged, and focusing on details, so it is in the “Beta state.”
Theta brain waves are a lower frequency band, which means they’re typically more active when you’re less active. This type of brain activity is much more common in children and becomes less frequent as we get older. Theta State is also often associated with some really great benefits: increased creativity, stress reduction, restfulness, and contentment. These benefits extend beyond the moments when your mind is in Theta State and regular practice can prolong these benefits, leading to greater health outcomes.
Since they were first discovered, Theta waves have been seen as a key to understanding the subconscious mind. Research has shown that theta waves are running the show when we’re in the moments between sleep and wakefulness, where consciousness is malleable and intuition is higher.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, neuroscientists were eagerly examining the brainwaves of all sorts of people performing a variety of different activities (not the easiest thing to do, given that early EEG technology looked a lot like this). One thing researchers discovered was that Buddhist monks were slipping deeply into Theta State when meditating, demonstrating a clear physiological effect from this (at the time) poorly understood religious practice (research has since shown that experienced meditators can also slip into Gamma State, as well).
This caused a flood of excitement and curiosity. What else could cause our minds to flip into this mental recharge state? When researchers began studying sensory reduced environments, it wasn’t long until they started looking to see what impacts it was having on the brain. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they found that there was a massive increase in theta waves in subjects. One of the problems was that, given the limitations of technology, they couldn’t monitor brain waves until after people got out of a float tank, leading to gaps in understanding about what was happening during the floats themselves.
Until recently EEG technology just couldn’t handle the wet and salty environment of a float tank. But as of 2016, thanks to new developments in wireless EEG technology, we can watch people enter Theta State in a float tank in real time. Because of this, we’re finally able to figure out what’s going on inside the brain during a float.
It turns out that even first time floaters are able to get into Theta State during a 90 minute float. Experienced floaters are not only likely to experience Theta State, but can do so much more easily, staying within that mental state for much longer stretches of time.
Given all this, it’s not exactly surprising that floating has been shown to significantly reduce stress, enhance creativity, and improve sleep – these benefits are all closely related to Theta brain activity. Also notable is that as people float more often, it gets easier to enter Theta State inside and outside of the tank. Interestingly, the scientific discovery of what happens to our minds during floating is actually more exciting now than when it was first discovered.
We now know that floating is great for general mental health improvements and in patients with stress or anxiety disorders, it can have even more profound effects. Low theta wave activity is associated with several mood disorders including PTSD and Depression. The increased activity in Theta may even contribute to why floating has such a remarkable ability to alter the brain activity of people with anxiety conditions to bring them back to baseline stress levels like those found in healthy brains.
While there’s been a long history of almost mythological deference to the Theta State in the alternative wellness community throughout the years, the science has never been more clear: the Theta State exists, is beneficial, and can be reached through floating.
So what are you waiting for? Go float yourself.
Floating While Pregnant
Floating has many potential benefits for both mom and baby, and so it’s not surprising to see a growing trend in floating while pregnant. Some take on floating to help reduce back pain, while others just love to hear their baby’s heartbeat without anything else around to distract them.
The rise in floating while pregnant has sparked some questions. While medical questions are best left to your doctor, we wanted to provide some tips for one of the most common queries we hear: how can I comfortably float while pregnant?
First, it goes without saying that you should definitely check with your doctor before floating, just in case you may have some unique contraindications that prevent the below advice from applying to you.
Generally, it is safe to float on your back or on your belly. Outside of the tank, laying on your back would be risky for the health of the mom and the baby, however, in the weightlessness of a sensory deprivation tank this doesn’t appear to be the case.*
Comfortable Positions for Pregnant Floaters
Successfully accomplishing the following positions will depend on factors such as height, body type, and ultimately personal preference, so take them as general suggestions and starting points to find what works for you.
Floating belly down can be a real release of pressure during pregnancy: a lot of the weight of the growing uterus pushes against the mother’s organs, and letting the salt water support this weight for 90 minutes can be quite blissful.
One position that pregnant floaters report as comfortable is laying on their belly while they float, with their arms across or under a pool noodle, and the noodle under the chin to keep their face out of the water. Even if you fall into a much-needed nap during your float, your head will remain supported by the noodle.
You may also be comfortable simply crossing your arms under your chin and floating belly down in the water, resting your head on your forearms to keep your face dry. This is very similar to floating with a pool noodle and might be preferable for some.
Another suggestion for floating belly down in the water is to put your elbows on the floor of the tank and cradle your chin in your hands. The depth of the water is approximately the length of many people’s forearms, so it may be possible for you to keep your face dry and mouth comfortably out of the water. Some floaters say this is a really satisfying position that also provides a great stretch to the spine.
As far as tips for floating on your back (once you’ve gotten your doctor’s approval), you could use a noodle or inflatable pillow under your lower back, but you probably won’t need it. Chances are that the Epsom salt will support you (and your baby) beautifully.
Potential Concerns
The conditions of every pregnancy can be different and all expecting mothers should seek the approval of their doctor before floating.
Some sources online state that women should not float during their first trimester. There is no data we’ve found to support this concern, but it seems reasonable that it’s in place because it’s more likely for miscarriages to happen during the first trimester.
Definitely take all of the information presented in this blog post with a grain of salt, and make sure that you consult your doctor before making any decisions. However, from many reports of personal experiences, floating through pregnancy can be a real load off – both the body and mind.
Here’s a link over to a personal blog about floating while pregnant as well, the author of which this post was adapted from.
* The risk related to a pregnant woman lying down on her back (on a flat surface, not a float tank) is due to constriction of blood flow to the placenta. This can interfere with the development of the baby. Also, the weight of the uterus can put pressure on major veins, causing dizziness and discomfort for the mother. In a sensory deprivation tank, this doesn’t seem to happen, because there is no rigid surface behind the mother to cause detrimental pressure on the circulatory system. Furthermore, floating has been shown to have positive benefits such as lowering blood pressure, which can also help a pregnant mother to have healthy blood flow to her heart and to the baby’s placenta.
From East To West, What Did Mindfulness Lose Along The Way?
Spending time in an isolation tank is a great way to practice being present, removing external distractions about the past, worries about the future, and escaping your stress. In a word, it’s a great place to be mindful.
Over the last few years, mindfulness has become a popular tool for improving general mental wellness. When mental health professionals talk about mindfulness, they’re referring to a state of “moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness.”
Studies have shown mindfulness offers remarkable results in dealing with stress-related conditions such as anxiety disorders, PTSD, and depression. The results have been so profound, in fact, that they were considered extremely unlikely from a non-invasive treatment (at least by the standards of Western medicine). As these problems become more ubiquitous, non-traditional methods for dealing with it also become more common.
In addition to this, our world has experienced a massive perspective shift recently. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have found that much of our lives are now lived in front of screens. Our phones, computers, and televisions are operating as our gateways to the rest of the world as our social interactions have become increasingly more online. Which brings its own set of challenges.
Mindfulness becomes even more appealing as we cope with the newfound stresses of the modern world. And by “stresses of the modern world” we mean “how we function on a daily basis now.” Increased access to modern communication means that the expectation for more immediate responses to emails, texts, and phone calls; the gig economy has made it so we’re working even in our free time; and a whole host of other additional responsibilities that have been tacked onto daily lives as a result of being constantly plugged in.
We already know that floating is also a great way to unplug from it all, much in the same way mindfulness is. It makes sense given that floating is such a great way to practice mindfulness more generally (along with a whole host of other benefits). Those intimately familiar with mindfulness, like those who practice traditional Buddhist meditation techniques, have said that floating makes it much easier to get into states of mindful awareness, especially for beginners.
While mindfulness techniques have had a noticeable impact on health and improving behavior generally, there are distinct differences between Eastern and Western visions of mindfulness that might help explain why, despite the increased popularity of mindfulness, health problems related to stress and anxiety are on the rise instead of decreasing.
Is there something about how mindfulness is presented in Western culture that is keeping us from experiencing the full benefits of the practice? There are a few fundamental differences in Eastern and Western mindfulness that are worth looking at to see how our cultures handle anxiety and stress.
Eastern mindfulness (sati) dates back to the 5th century BC when the earliest version of Buddhism started taking shape in Southeast Asia. As part of a religious practice, sati is one tenet in a series of eight that layout the principles for how to live your life in a way that leads towards enlightenment. These eight principles, The Noble Eightfold Path, are often presented as a wheel, with the spokes all connecting together.
You can already see how, presented in this way, mindfulness is more than just a stress reduction technique. It’s a guiding principle integrated into a broader philosophy about how to live your life, and as such, it impacts culture and behavior more broadly than when it’s presented as a treatment. Buddhism also places a heavy emphasis on how individual actions impact the greater community and The Noble Eightfold Path is much more about how to act in a way that serves the whole of humanity, not just personal betterment.
This Buddhist framing of mindfulness became popular in Western Culture in the 70s, when Asian culture and philosophy was becoming much more widely accepted after World War II. Part of this process came about during a broad secularization of religious concepts as well. Some of the teachings about community and service to others got removed in favor of emphasizing individual self-improvement instead.
It’s worth noting that mindfulness as a concept has been around in Western society for a long time as well. Whereas Buddhism has The Noble Eightfold Path, Catholicism has a similar set of precepts called the 7 Heavenly Virtues, one of which is Prudence. While contemporarily, prudence has taken on the meaning of “cautious”, it’s earlier definitions include being able to discipline oneself through the use of reason, taking in information without judgement, and maintaining awareness. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Prudence was also deemed the “mother of all virtues” by philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who shaped a lot of early Western thought.
If Western culture already has a comparable philosophical principle to mindfulness in Eastern society, then what is it that’s being brought over to help address our mental health? Is it just using Buddhism as window dressing for a practice that Western society has forgotten about in favor of secularization? Probably not.
The important thing to remember about mindfulness when we practice is that “present awareness” isn’t enough to improve our lives. It’s an important facet to a better way of living, but without a fundamental readjustment to how we think about the world around us and our role within it, we cannot change the aspects of society that are causing this stress. If the only thing we’re doing when we practice mindfulness is acknowledging the present moment for several minutes so that we can reduce our own anxiety, then all that is providing for our problems is a band-aid. And while it is a useful tool, mindfulness alone isn’t enough to make a better life for ourselves or those around us.
While mindfulness is a major component of the benefits of wellness practices like floating, it’s also important to recognize that there are limits to how it’s discussed and that not all mindfulness is created equal. We can take comfort, at least, in knowing that floating forces a more deliberate form of mindfulness that removes us from outside stimulation and distraction far beyond what other mindfulness-based therapies can provide. This lets us focus more deeply on the practice and carry that sense of being present into the rest of our lives, instead of using it solely as a retreat from our day-to-day existence. And, as with most things in life, if we approach our time in the tanks intentionally with this in mind, we can find deeper meaning than we may have otherwise.
Appreciation and Thoughtfulness
If you’ve ever gone on a walk after a good float, you’ve probably felt something similar to the experience of cresting a summit after a long hike or staring deeply into a beautiful painting. It’s that overwhelming feeling that comes from a profound sense of awe after being in the presence of something greater than yourself.
When we stop to smell the roses, it improves more than just the scent of the roses. When we slow down to appreciate the little things, those little things take up more of our mental focus. If we stop to think about this phenomenon, it can inspire some curious questions. What actually is awe? Why does it feel so good to experience it? Beyond being satisfying, how does it impact us?
Brain scans of people experiencing awe give us a few insights into some of these questions. Awe inspiring moments can reduce activation in an area of the brain called the Default Mode Network. While a lot happens in this area of the brain, some of what it’s responsible for is auto-biographical information like our memories, opinions, and personal traits. Essentially, the Default Mode Network helps us understand the world through the context of ourselves. As a result, it’s also what helps determine how we feel about ourselves, our memories of the past, and our thoughts about the future.
The Default Mode Network works opposite another part of our brain called the Executive Control Network, which is the part of the brain that helps us make observations, pay attention to things outside of ourselves, and perform tasks. They are anti-correlated, meaning they don’t typically work at the same time. It’s difficult to make observations about the world around us while focusing on something from our past, which is why it’s easy to get distracted nostalgically strolling down memory lane when we were supposed to be studying for that final exam in college.
Basically, when we experience awe we’re quieting down the part of our brain that makes us focus on ourselves, the past, the future, and the outside world.These are the very same types of thought that we work to quiet in our brains when we float or practice mindfulness in other ways. That’s not just conjecture, either: the Float Clinic at the Laureate Institute of Brain Research has been researching what exactly happens to the brain when we float. We’ve learned that floating can be incredibly helpful for those who experience anxiety and other mental health conditions.
We’re also finally starting to see that part of the reason it’s so effective is because it’s reducing the activity in the Default Mode Network as well, which helps explain how it reduces anxiety. If we can’t think about social obligations, failures from the past, or worries we have for the future, it makes it much more difficult for our brains to perpetuate anxious thinking. This leaves more room for other parts of our brain to sit in the driver’s seat.
After a float, we’re likely at our most receptive to the sensations outside of ourselves, making it easier for us to appreciate the beauty of the world around us and the communities that we’re a part of. This is also a possible explanation for the profound sense of awe we can have when we observe beautiful artwork or when we meditate.
This makes mindfulness self-reinforcing. When we practice being more present and less focused on ourselves, it becomes a habit. The more often we practice stepping into this mental state, the easier it is to return to when we need to. It also enhances our appreciation for other things as well. Food tastes better, art is more captivating, we can engage in creative activities more easily, building connections between us and the rest of the world. This, in turn, has the potential to extend that enhanced sense of presence beyond just ourselves, into others around us.
How to Learn to Love Yourself (and Others)!
Let’s talk about loving yourself. It’s that time of year when partners and paramours really try to show their affection to their special someone. Alternatively, for the unattached, this time of year can be a reminder of our own isolation (and after 2020, that’s something we don't need more of).
Whatever your Valentine’s Day might look like this year, you already have the perfect date: yourself. Even if you’ve already got a beau, belle, or similar beloved you intend to dote on, dedicating some affection internally can pay off for them as much as for you.
This means more than buying yourself something nice, giving yourself compliments, or going for a spa day. In fact, limiting your idea of self-love to such a surface level interpretation is going to be counterproductive in the long term.
If you’re going to date yourself, you gotta remember that it’s not going to be like a first date. You already know your best stories, after all. It’s more like going on a date night after a lifetime of marriage. The kind of date that reminds you why you fell in love in the first place. The important thing is to find ways to connect with yourself, to show that you care about your own well-being and you can appreciate the things about yourself that no one else will notice.
Self-love is as much about self-acceptance as it is self-care. When you accept yourself for who you are, it makes it easier to focus on others around you. Look at it this way: if we place most of our attention on our mistakes, then we are also failing to appreciate what’s truly important in life: the subtle flashes of beauty that come into existence before blinking away forever, the quiet moments of serenity that exist in between the big ones, or the joy that come from sharing these things with those closest to us.
Too much focus on your flaws can become a compounding issue, too. If you dwell on your negative traits and behaviors (like many of us are prone to do) they can become self-reinforcing. Guilt isn’t a great motivator for change, and instead can lead to fatalistic conclusions about how inevitable our perceived inadequacies can be. And since we have a bias towards negative information, we tend to seek out harsh or critical information over positive information, and if no one provides it, we’ll often provide it ourselves.
This is especially relevant right now on the heels of 2020. Most of us have probably been more than a little critical of ourselves lately, even if we’re not aware of it. We often blame ourselves for things that are outside our control, making it easy to feel like we’ve fallen short of our goals. Which means now more than ever – it’s important to handle yourself, your ambitions, and especially your failures, with a little grace.
So how do we address this? Are there things we can do on our self-love dates that can help make us the best version of ourselves?
Yes! As it turns out, mindfulness is a great way to counter this impulse of self-obsession, so long as we do it correctly. Mindfulness, as a practice, has been a fundamental part of Hinduism and Buddhism for centuries. The practice of quieting the mind and keeping the body still was about stepping outside of one’s regular, self-oriented experiences, and was essential to religious practices that helped emphasize how the individual could improve the greater community. As mindfulness in the Western world has become more popular, it has often been used to amplify our sense of self, instead of helping to diminish it. So, while mindfulness can be extremely effective at reducing this cultural self-obsession, it needs to be approached intentionally to achieve that goal.
Floating is a great way to practice mindfulness and exercise being present. In fact, without any external stimulation, it can be difficult to do anything but live in the moment while your sense of self melts into the water and air around you. Dr. John C. Lilly, the creator of the float tank, used his invention to help develop his own radical personal improvement techniques.
So this Valentine’s Day, do yourself – and your loved ones – a favor. Treat yourself, not just to a pleasant and relaxing experience, but form that meaningful connection with who you are deep down. Go for a float, become one with the Nothingness you’re surrounded in, and come out ready to give everything you’ve got to those who need it. With the way this past year has been, it’s more important than ever to look out for each other, and that starts by looking out for yourself.
Floating Your Way to a Better You
The beginning of a new year is often a time for making plans and inspiring change, but 2021 has just started and already it has a lot of expectations being placed upon it. With the pandemic, 2020 felt like a global “timeout” for a lot of people, so we’ve all had to push things off and are banking on this year being an opportunity for new beginnings.
In the spirit of pursuing positive change, here’s a collection of some lesser known benefits of floating for making changes in your life.
SLEEP
This one feels like cheating a little bit because it seems so obvious, but a better night’s sleep is actually one of the best ways to set yourself up for success when trying to create a new routine or build better habits. Maybe the better habit you’re trying to build is around sleep, in which case, hey – two birds, one stone!
Improving sleep is consistently one of the most reported benefits from float studies (right below reduced stress and anxiety).
IMPROVED LEARNING AND TRAINING
One of the really interesting ways floating impacts our minds is through our emotional state, which can, in turn, impact how we retain information. People experiencing negative emotions tend to have trouble remembering positive experiences and, even with neutral information, what they recall tends to be less specific.
Since floating is so good at reducing stress and anxiety, it’s probably no surprise that in clinical trials researchers found that memory recollection in people who floated was more vivid and intense compared to control groups.
Floating also helps with training skills as well. In high performing athletes who trained for precision, floating helped improve performance beyond their regular training plateau. Whether it was archery, marksmanship, or endurance, floating made it possible for them to do better more consistently.
ADDICTION
Anyone who’s recovered from addiction can tell you that isolating yourself from whatever is triggering your impulses can be extremely helpful, even for relatively short periods of time since it removes you from whatever the motivation is to break apart the impulse to relapse.
There was some excellent research done about sensory isolation to combat addiction of nicotine, alcohol, and narcotics. The studies showed that prolonged isolation is really great at dealing with withdrawal symptoms as well, lessening their intensity and making them more manageable. It’s been so effective that there are certain recovery programs that have begun integrating floating into their treatment to help lower the risk of relapse in drug addiction.
In addition to the research, there are several personal stories that have attributed floating to helping with addiction. John Lennon, as shared in Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman, famously used floating to help him overcome his heroin addiction.
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No matter what your New Year’s Resolution may be, floating can be a really helpful tool in getting there. And even if you’re not sure what goals you’d like to focus on in the New Year, a float tank can be a great place to think about it.
Salinity And Serenity
Salinity and Serenity: Floating Your Way to Inner Peace
Serenity. That sounds nice, doesn’t it?
With 2020 not letting up as it careens to a close, serenity can seem like nothing but an out-of-reach pipedream – both in our own lives and in the world as a whole. It’s difficult to relax and focus on the present when so much of even the immediate future is uncertain. In times like these, though, fostering that sense of mindfulness and serenity is perhaps one of the most important things that we can do.
With so much of the chaos around us being outside of our control, it’s especially important to focus on those areas where we can have the most positive impact. As always, one of the most immediate places we can make the largest difference is in taking better care of ourselves. Even more precisely, cultivating our own mental health – our own serenity – is a very worthwhile endeavor.
When discussing mental health it can be tempting to talk about the negative symptoms of a certain condition, such as how stress, anxiety, or fatigue aggravate mental health issues. Rarely do we talk about improvements to mental health in strictly positive ways without comparing them to an existing negative. Something needs to be wrong in order for us to “fix” it.
This isn’t just a result of our culture: it’s baked into our psychiatric science and treatment as well. In the DSM-5, the reference manual for diagnosing mental disorders, a huge number of the disorders’ descriptions end with, “...and interfere with daily life.” What if nothing is wrong? Or, if something is wrong, what if it’s not bad enough to significantly interfere with your daily life?
It can be hard to remember that mental health isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a gradient, and even when you’re not suffering you still always have room to make things better for yourself.
This is one of the things that floating does best. It improves your mental wellness and sense of personal satisfaction. It improves your serenity.
Now, when we say serenity, you probably have some kind of mental image of meditation, or relaxation, or of Joss Whedon’s Firefly. All totally valid, but we’re really only focusing on the first two here. In addition to its cultural meaning, serenity is an actual scientific term. It’s something psychologists measure alongside other mental wellness markers – essentially it gauges how well we practice being present, how ready we are to offer forgiveness, as well as how content we feel with ourselves despite negativity in our lives.
Serenity also happens to be one of the many mental health factors that has been studied in recent floatation research. In 2018, Dr. Justin Feinstein and his team at LIBR were able to demonstrate the effect a single 60-minute float had on serenity, and we don’t think we’re overstating it by saying the results were impressive:
For anxious participants, serenity skyrocketed post-float, above even the baseline for non-anxious participants. In the non-anxious population, though, serenity still increased a significant amount, illustrating very nicely this idea of mental health as a gradient.
Perhaps even more impressively, when we look at the data from all 50 participants in the study, every single one saw an increase in serenity after floating. Nearly ¼ of the participants maxed out the scale post-float. The graph for all participants’ data shows just how impressive this is. The red bar indicates how serene they felt before the float session, and the blue shows the (often quite drastic) improvement.
You can see a presentation on the full results from this study here, and read the actual research article here. Serenity was just one of many things studied, and the same sorts of impact are shown on decreasing things like anxiety and muscle tension while increasing relaxation and energy levels.
As a little teaser, here is a chart showing the negative and positive mental health traits impacted by a single float:
This year, and this holiday season, may be insane, but we as humans experiencing it can choose to make an impact where we can: in self-care. Whether that’s meditation, exercise, sitting by a fire sipping hot chocolate, or (as we are quick to encourage) hopping into a float tank.
Serenity isn’t as far away as you may think, but it does require you to set the stage for it by setting aside time for yourself.
Floating and Creativity: Finding Inspiration in the Darkness
We tend to think of creativity as synonymous with expression (writing, music, art, etc.), but creativity is also how we respond to unusual situations, how to approach old problems in new ways, as well as how we share this information in a way that is both entertaining and informative.
Creativity is such a fundamental part of what it means to be human that we often take it for granted. Change is one of the defining characteristics of the human experience, and being able to adapt to it and think laterally when problems arise has shaped our history in both big and small ways. Innovations like flight, the internet, and homogenized milk were all expressions of creativity. It’s something we use daily, even if we’re not thinking about it: developing a sense of style, finding ways to automate your work, or even creating a unique Zoom background for your digital meetings are more everyday examples of how creativity influences our lives.
Floating has such an obvious effect on creativity, that it’s hard to find a float center that doesn’t celebrate it in some way, whether through float-inspired artwork on display, post-float journals for zen’d out floaters to express themselves in, or album releases of float-inspired music.
So what is the connection between floating and creativity? And how do you research something as nebulous and ubiquitous as creativity, anyhow?
For a long time, it was widely believed to be difficult (if not impossible) to manufacture creativity. Beautiful muses could apparently help, but it was still something intangible and unreliable. Either inspiration strikes or… it doesn’t.
For as long as written language has existed, we’ve struggled with how to make inspiration strike. The I Ching, one of the oldest texts in existence, is fundamentally about how to foster creativity to encourage change – in yourself and the rest of your life.
Despite being written thousands of years ago, many of the teachings are frighteningly contemporary. The text itself is non-linear and there’s a lot of debate about specific word choice in translation, which makes it difficult to quote out of context, but one of the fundamental principles it states clearly and repeatedly is a strong comparison between times of quiet rest and solitude and nurturing the mentality necessary to adapt to great change.
Saying that we should avoid distraction and overstimulation to foster creativity is not a new idea, as it turns out. In fact, it may be one of the oldest ones we’ve ever had!
Synthesizing an abstract and analytical approach
More recently, academia has taken a more methodical approach to looking at creativity. In 1954, poet and academic Brewster Ghiselin compiled a symposium, The Creative Process, from some of history’s creative heavy hitters, including such greats as Einstein, Van Gogh, and Mozart to name a few.
Ghiselin took these observations and attempted to make sense of the common threads that give spark to creativity. In an anecdote from Henri Poincaré about inspiration, Ghiselin was struck with the process that led to one of his most important discoveries in mathematics: “he lay unable to sleep and became a spectator of some ordinarily hidden aspects of his own spontaneous creative activity.” Ghiselin saw this as a fundamental part of unlocking creative potential, “though Poincaré was conscious, he did not assume direction of his creative activity at the stage described, and as it seems to have been a sort of activity not susceptible of conscious control, apparently he could not have done so.” In short, he’s making the same observation as the I Ching: when we seek out stillness, our minds work out the rest of the hard stuff.
But philosophy and essays are not research, and at the time, scientists didn’t really know how to study something ] as abstract as creativity. Psychology was still a very young and developing field, and it would be a few decades before anyone would publish peer-reviewed research on how floating impacts creativity and problem solving.
In 1987, that’s exactly what happened at the University of British Columbia. The researchers there found that psychology professors came up with more ideas after floating, and that those ideas were generally more creative, with every participant except for one finding their floats to have an extremely positive impact on their ability to create. These results were later verified by the same researchers and replicated by other scientists at the University of Vermont. The Vermont study also found that people who floated were less likely to feel fatigued or frustrated by complicated problems.
Sweden’s Karlstadt University, one of the leading float research institutes in the world, saw this research and began attempting to replicate the results. Between 1998 and 2003, they published four separate articles on the benefits of floating on creativity, in addition to the other research they were doing. They found that despite taking longer to to solve problems, the subjects who floated all found more creative solutions, that it could help with creativity and literacy skills for those who use english as a second language, that floating increased originality, but lowered deductive reasoning, and finally that floating could potentially be a safe way to access altered states of consciousness, which could lead to increased optimism and creativity.
What makes this research so interesting is that so many of these studies took place before smartphones existed. More so now than ever, we live in a distracted, interconnected world, and the issue of “screentime” dominating our daily lives is an issue at the forefront of our society.
It doesn’t take a team of dedicated researchers with decades of studies to understand why floating stimulates creativity, though. It intuitively makes sense. Unplugging and centering yourself in quiet solitude is naturally going to help your mental faculties. Removing all distractions, even gravity, is a great way to rewire your mind and channel your creative energy into the places it needs to go, not just where the world takes it.
What Do High Level Athletes Know About Floating?
Here’s a sports trivia question for all our athletically-inclined readers:
What do the Dallas Cowboys, the Golden State Warriors, the Chicago Cubs, The Manchester United Football Club, and Michael Phelps all have in common?
You might see this lineup and think “well, the ‘92 Dallas Cowboys won the Superbowl that year, the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Finals in ‘14, the Cubs made history when they won the 2016 World Series, Manchester United is one of the most hono(u)red Football Clubs in the world, and Michael Phelps has won more gold medals than any other Olympian in history! They’re all winners!”
But that’s not all they have in common: they also all used float tanks.
They weren’t alone, either: the New England Patriots, UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie, the Chicago Bulls, Olympic Gymnast Aly Raisman, the Philadelphia Eagles, Olympic Gold Medalist Carl Lewis, The Detroit Pistons, as well as literally hundreds of other professional athletes have incorporated floating into their training and recovery programs throughout the years.
Floating is one of the best kept secrets in high-performing athletes and there’s some interesting research that helps explain why.
Raising the Performance Ceiling
If someone told you that laying in the dark on a bed of saltwater could give you superhuman strength or speed, would you believe them? It may not be as far-fetched as it sounds.
One study found that high-level athletes who have plateaued – those who don’t see any additional benefits from more training – would see an improvement in performance after floating in conjunction with visualization techniques, even without additional training.
Put another way, athletes were able to increase their peak performance just by floating before competition. A followup study not only confirmed this result but also showed that floating multiple times between games led to significant improvements over a single float! This demonstrates something that most floaters already know: the more you float, the better it is for you.
Improved Precision
Beyond general athletic performance, a few studies looked at more specific benefits of floating in athletes.
Several studies tested how floating affects marksmanship. All 3 studies had a float group and a control group, with participants from all skill levels.
In the rifle marksmanship study 75% had a statistically significant increase in accuracy pre- to post-float with no such increase was found in the control group (relaxation without floating). A similar effect was found in the darts study, with 80% of participants seeing an improvement. It’s worth noting that in both studies, these improvements were seen regardless of skill level.
While the archery study didn’t see any significant increase in accuracy, it did show that the float-group had more consistent scores than the non-float group, something that the other two studies found as well.
Reduced Recovery Time
While the benefits described above could be explained as a side effect of stress reduction, there’s more to the story of the impact on floating in physical performance, certainly not enough to explain why floating has been so popular among high-level athletes.
Building off of earlier research, scientists in recent years have started using biometrics to see what’s happening to athletes who float on a physiological level. A 2013 study looked at the effect floating has on lactic acid build-up.
Lactic acid is associated with that post-workout feeling of tightness in your muscles that causes your body to stiffen and get sore. Professional athletes are always looking for new ways to reduce the amount it builds up during a workout to maximize performance.
What they found was that floating after exercise showed a 62% reduction in lactic acid buildup on average compared to the control group. Participants also reported feeling less pain and were back at peak performance sooner.
A followup study in 2016 was able to replicate this effect with a larger sample size over 9 different sports. Not only were they able to replicate the lactic acid reduction, they also found a significant reduction in muscle soreness and improved mood and reduced fatigue in those that floated.
Looking at the Whole Picture
When you take all of these effects together, you can start to see why floating has been one of the best kept secrets of successful athletes. When you take into consideration the stress reduction benefits as well, you can see how floating might help them be at the top of their mental game in addition to their professional one.
The best part about all of this? Floating is helpful for athletes at every level. You don’t need to be an Olympian to see the benefits of floating in your exercise. It can be a nice way to cool down after a jog or help you recover after playing in a local league game on the weekends.
Football:
Minnesota Vikings
Houston Texans
New England Patriots
Seattle Seahawks
Denver Broncos
Dallas Cowboy
Cincinnati Bengals
Philadelphia Eagles
Buffalo Bills
Baseball:
Chicago Cubs
Minnesota Twins
St. Louis Cardinals
Arizona Diamondbacks
Philadelphia Phillies
San Francisco Giants
LA Dodgers
Houston Astros
Basketball:
Chicago Bulls
NY Nicks
NY Nets
Washington Wizards
Detroit Pistons
Golden State Warriors
Atlanta hawks
OKC Thunder
Hockey:
Philadelphia Flyers
Chicago Blackhawks
Misc:
Manchester United
All Blacks …New Zealand Rugby
Crusaders …New Zealand Rugby
Carleton Football club Australian football
Taft Rugby
Team GB Rowers
Individual athletes:
Aly Raisman
Michael Phelps
Stephen Curry
Hunter Pence
J.J. watt
Cody Garbrandt
Harrison Barnes
Carl Lewis
Phillips Idowu
Wayne Rooney
Henry Cejudo
Razak Al Hassan
Mohammed Usman
James Vick
Mark and Montana DeLaRosa
Floating, Meditation, and Mindfulness - Adding Tricks To Your Mental Toolbelt
Floating removes you from the outside world and gives your mind the freedom to wander wherever it wants to go. When you float, you don’t have anything you need to do.
There’s nothing you need to work on.
You have a space where you can lie down, removed from the pressure of thinking, discussing, or participating in anything at all. It’s an environment that exists almost completely opposite our current plugged-in, sensory-driven way of life.
In a float tank, you have the opportunity to be more mindful than pretty much any other environment in the world.
What does it mean to be “mindful”?
Make a mental note of how you’re feeling right now. Now, use the next 30 seconds to try this – you can have your eyes open or closed:
Clear your mind. Take a deep breath. Deep exhale.
Another breath. Flex your toes and fingers. Exhale. Breathe normally.
Relax your shoulders and your jaw.
If you chose to close your eyes, open them slowly.
How do you feel? How does that compare to how you felt beforehand? Odds are you feel better after spending 30 seconds focusing on your breath and where you hold tension. Bringing passive awareness to your state of being reconnects your body and mind and can help remove the physiological effects from the outside world, which can often be stressful.
This, more or less, is mindfulness (although it’s definitely more complicated than this).
It can be summed up as paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental manner. It’s one of the fundamental ideas behind much of Buddhist meditation. It seems absurdly simple, especially when looking at the many benefits attributed to it.
For the past thirty years or so, researchers have been looking more closely into what mindfulness is and why it works so well for us. There are two main components to mindfulness exercises from a clinical perspective: self-regulation of attention and orientation to experience. It can sound a bit technical, but they are pretty easy to understand concepts when they’re broken down.
Self-Regulation of Attention
Much of mindfulness relies on the passive observation of where your attention is focused and maintaining that attention on the present moment. When you pay attention to your breathing and what your body is doing, you’re keeping your mind focused on only things that exist and are affecting you in the current moment.
Many people assume that in order to do mindfulness “successfully”, you have to prevent yourself from thinking, but that isn’t true. Being mindful simply means you acknowledge whatever thoughts arise before returning your focus to your state of being in the present moment. It can be surprisingly difficult to maintain this over long periods of time, but maintaining a lack of attention to your thoughts allows them to flow freely and places you firmly in the present.
Orientation to Experience
This idea is a little more nebulous, but it builds off of what was already discussed. This is what you’d think of as “being present” in mindfulness practices.
All those experiences that you feel and the thoughts you have occur and you pass them by. You don’t pass judgement on any thoughts or feelings. You don’t assign guilt to what you’re doing or not doing. Everything that occurs to you is equally worthy of your curiosity and consideration.
You orient yourself towards your experiences and become a passive observer to your mental processes rather than an active participant. You’re open to whatever occurs and you’re better positioned to accept it than you would be otherwise.
What does this do for me?
If you look at these two elements of mindfulness, it might seem like a nice way to relax or a good way to organize your thoughts – it can be difficult to imagine just how impactful it is to place yourself in this state of being present. While it certainly isn’t a magic spell that can erase all the negativity you feel.
When you make mindfulness a habit, it starts to change how you live your life in subtle ways. It makes it easier to take control over your own behavior and moods, which in turn helps you focus on how you’re feeling. With proper focus, it can also help you build coping mechanisms for day-to-day stress, reducing the negative impact it can have on your life. This can help reduce the severity of stress-related anxiety disorders and depression, as well as manage chronic pain, improve creativity, and generally improve a person’s quality of life.
How Floating Dissolves Stress
Even without the existential malaise of living through global crisis, our modern way of life tends to exert a lot of pressure on most people. As mental health research evolves, it’s become apparent that what we call “stress” can actually cause a lot of health problems; not just physical problems like heart disease and high blood pressure (although those are certainly significant), but also mental health issues like PTSD, depression, and eating disorders.
Finding ways to recharge is more important than it’s ever been, but there’s a healthy amount of skepticism about alternative wellness practices, with floating being no exception. So how can we be sure floating is as helpful as it claims to be?
Simple. We follow the science!
There was a recent Tedx Talk by a well known scientist, Dr. Justin Feinstein from the Laureate Institute of Brain Research, who shared some of his research findings about the effects of floating on stress. What’s so incredible about this research is that every single person who participated in it experienced some amount of stress relief, with most people experiencing a significant reduction in their stress levels that lasted for more than a full 24 hours after a single session.
24 hours is a pretty long time for any given treatment to work. Just think: if there was a pill that would make you virtually stress free for a whole day, who wouldn’t want that? While floating isn’t quite as easy as taking a pill, the benefits of it seem even more significant than most available anti-anxiety treatments. Not to mention, you don’t have to worry about things like interactions with other medications or other negative contraindications.
Dr. Feinstein has been studying people with stress-related illnesses like PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and what he’s finding is that people who have the highest levels of stress before floating experience the largest benefit. Basically, everyone who floated returned to a baseline level of relief so no matter how anxious you are, floating is going to bring you down to a similar level of relaxation as everyone else.
This is all really fascinating, but how does it work? Is it really as simple as sitting in the dark and not thinking about anything for an hour or more? It looks like it.
Floating allows our minds and bodies to slow down, gives us the ability to recharge more quickly, and puts our brains in a more dreamlike state. The solitude of a float, where we know we can’t be bothered by the outside world, is a massive destresser that is surprisingly difficult to find elsewhere.
To help illustrate this point, let’s move from science to history. There’s a psychologist named Peter Suedfeld who did a lot of groundbreaking research into “sensory deprivation” back in the 60s and 70s. Dr. Suedfeld’s work didn’t focus on float tanks (at first), but instead involved placing people in completely dark rooms in total isolation for 24 hours or more at a time. He called this process REST (Restricted Environment Stimulation Therapy).
At the time, psychologists were very misinformed about sensory deprivation -- they essentially thought it was torture. Previous research was incomplete, and the methods that researchers used were suspect at best. They would prime subjects to bad outcomes before the experiment even began; focussing on negative side effects in their introduction. The experiments themselves involved exposure to constant harsh lights and loud noises -- which doesn’t exactly sound like sensory deprivation, does it? Dr. Suedfeld thought that it was possible to take a different approach and get a positive effect. And he was right.
Dr. Suedfeld focused on keeping subjects at ease and making the process simple for anyone participating. What his research found was that instead of feeling like it was torture, people actually enjoyed the sensory deprivation experience! The subjects felt it was relaxing and beneficial. One participant even tried to sneak in multiple times under different names to repeat the experience!
Over the years, he found out that there was a positive potential benefit to REST in many areas: addiction treatment, helping people with autism, enhancing creativity, and, of course, reducing stress. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that there are entire groups of people who choose to live in total darkness for months at a time and say they find it peaceful.
This research was foundational for the future of float tanks, and helped to key in early on to the benefits of floating and reducing stress. In fact, back in the 80s and 90s, scientists started calling it “Floatation REST” and referring to the dark rooms that Dr. Suedfeld used as “Chamber REST”.
Since then, scientific understanding of sensory reduced environments has only grown, and in the age of information, the benefits of isolation run in stark contrast to how we live our day-to-day lives. Luckily, you don’t need to spend a day in the dark to experience the benefits -- we’re learning now that Float REST can provide similar benefits in just a single session (though of course, the longer you can float, the better).
In his talk, Dr. Feinstein notes how we aren’t designed to be constantly plugged in and looking at screens all day, listening to cars driving by, or dealing with the glare of fluorescent lights non-stop. Neither were we supposed to be constantly thinking about what we have to do next, fit a full 8 hour workday on top of raising families, going to school, and being a part of our communities.
Even when we enjoy these things, they can wear us out and add to the stress of our daily lives. Taking a break can give us a reset button, and floating has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to do that.
Whoop Experiment
So, last week I conducted an experiment on myself. Using my Whoop performance monitor, I wanted to see the effect that floating 5 days in a row would have on my sleep and recovery. In the photos below, you can see my sleep quality and recovery leading up to the floats. Not very good, is it?
The next 6 slides show recovery and heart rate during the float, as well as heart rate during sleep that evening.
We’ll mostly focus on the correlation between heart rate variability (HRV) and recovery here. Now, heart rate variability is “simply a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat. This variation is controlled by a primitive part of the nervous system called the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It works regardless of our desire and regulates, among other things, our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion. The ANS is subdivided into two large components, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the fight-or-flight mechanism and the relaxation response.” (https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789)
Basically, the higher the HRV, the better recovery. Now during a float, the environment greatly reduces the demand on the ANS. Heart beat naturally slows down as the body has no demands placed on it, blood pressure reduces with the removal of external stress, and breathing gets into a steady rhythm. Looking at the slides above, it becomes apparent that HRV and recovery go hand in hand. Here’s a short breakdown of the data:
Non float day averages: Float day averages:
HRV - 120 HRV - 141.4
Recovery - 55.9% Recovery - 73%
Sleep quality - 70% Sleep quality - 74.2%
Sleep length - 6:29 Sleep length - 6:57
Strain - 12.58 Strain - 15.8
Low/high for non float days: Low/high for float days:
HRV - 77/163 HRV - 123/159
Recovery - 23/89% Recovery - 58/87%
Sleep quality - 60/74% Sleep quality - 66/89%
Sleep length - 5:39/7:02 Sleep length - 5:57/7:25
Strain - 8.6/14.7 Strain - 13/17.6
To break that down a little more, over the 5 days we saw:
HRV increase of 21.4
Recovery increase of 17.1%
Sleep quality increase of 4.2%
Sleep length increase of 28 minutes
Strain increase of 3.22
Now here’s where it gets really interesting. With only 30 minutes total more sleep over the course of the 5 float days (a measly average of 6 minutes per night!), there was a substantial increase in quality and recovery. And that’s taking into account more strain that the body was able to take through exercise. There were a few unforeseen variables, like noisy neighbors and my 4-year-old crawling into my bed that disturbed the sleep a little, but that’s life.
We all have stress in our lives, and there are many ways of dealing with it. Whether it be emotional, physical or both, we can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. One of the greatest aspects of floating is that it’s completely noninvasive, and there are no harmful side effects. Essentially, it’s nothing at all. Just you, by yourself, having an opportunity to remove all the external stressors that make life less enjoyable. Aside from the benefits of reducing stress, regular floats are tremendous for sleep quality, which of course is critical for immune system, mood, and just keeping your body and mind working at its best.