Many claim that Float Therapy (aka Sensory Deprivation), is the easiest way to experience deep relaxation, profound meditation, and intrinsic wellness. It involves entering a float tank (or float pod), which is a well-engineered chamber filled with highly concentrated epsom salt water, allowing the user to float effortlessly on the surface of the water. External stimuli, brain chatter, and distractions are significantly diminished due to the float environment. The water is heated to your ambient skin temperature, so after a little while, you no longer feel the water. You cannot see or hear anything due to the darkness and silence. Famous celebrity and comedian, Joe Rogan, has a simile to describe Float Therapy that has resonated with many - "It’s like the mind completely untethered from the body."
Users report powerful mental and physical benefits. Mental benefits include a reduction in stress and anxiety, as well as enhanced clarity, focus, and creativity. Many liken Float Therapy to "meditation on steroids". Physical benefits include increased circulation, decrease in blood pressure and cortisol levels (the main chemical agent of stress), the draining of lactic acid, improved sleep and immune function, and stimulation of endorphins, to name a few.
Here are 3 reasons you should try this emerging wellness treatment:
1) Reduce Anxiety and Stress
According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) poll, approximately 40% of Americans have developed more anxiety this year than the same time last year. Respondents cited concerns about health, safety, and financial issues as the leading sources of anxiety.
Not surprisingly, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America has project roughly 1/5 of the US population (18%) are suffering from an anxiety disorder. Even with anxiety levels on the rise, few respondents reported seeking mental health care.
2) Balance the Mind-Body Connection
Mental and physical health are inextricably linked. Your body responds to the way you act, feel, and think. This is one of the many facets related to the mind-body connection. Nowhere is this link more evident than in the progression of chronic physical conditions, such as cancer or cardiovascular diseases. Depression has been linked to a 50 percent increase in a person’s risk of dying from cancer and a 67 percent increase from heart disease.
According to the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Society, Human Development and Health, the most optimistic individuals, when compared to their less optimistic counterparts, had approximately 50 percent less risk of an initial cardiovascular event.
3) Profound Mindfulness Meditation
"Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have." (Eckhart Tolle)
Many of us have little to no experience practicing meditation or mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of living deeply in the present moment. This allows us to stop falling victim to our future or past thought patterns. When we dwell in our future thoughts, this can create anxiety due to needlessly worrying about events that have not occurred and therefore do not exist. When we dwell in our past thoughts, it can create pain due to needlessly reliving regrets, past challenges, prior relationships, etc. that went awry.
By staying deeply in the present moment, we are forcing ourselves to stop living in our future and past thought patterns. While it is important to acknowledge our thoughts and absorb them - whether good or bad, it is not healthy to relive negative thoughts or create new negative thoughts for the aforementioned reasons.