The benefits are cumulative, which explains why flotation devotees incorporate this therapy into their everyday lives.The novice floater shouldn’t expect miracles the first time around, as it primarily involves getting your body accustomed to the new environment. It is recommended to float three to five times to initially understand the process of flotation and begin to reap its long-term advantages.
The benefits are cumulative, which explains why flotation devotees incorporate this therapy into their everyday lives.The novice floater shouldn’t expect miracles the first time around, as it primarily involves getting your body accustomed to the new environment. It is recommended to float three to five times to initially understand the process of flotation and begin to reap its long-term advantages.
Flotation therapy has been academically studied in the USA and in Sweden with published results showing reduction of both pain and stress. The relaxed state also involves lowered blood pressure and maximal blood flow.
Floating can be passive or active, depending on the purpose. For relaxation, one simply floats and ‘clears the mind.’ Active floating has many different techniques. One may perform meditation, mantras, self-hypnosis, utilize educational programs, etc. The idea of active floating is that, when the body is relaxed, the mind becomes highly suggestible and any action taken during these states will enter the information into the sub-conscious. Flotation therapy may be used to complement other body work and healing methods.
Floatation therapy is a medical treatment using sensory deprivation within a float room. Years of well-documented tests show that floatation therapy not only has an immediate effect on pain relief and elimination of stress, it also promotes ‘whole-brain’ thinking. Studies by Fine and Turner, of the medical college Ohio, show that a single session in a float room reduces the levels of ACTH, cortisol, noradrenaline and adrenaline (the stressie flight or fight hormones), and in turn levels of our own natural happy drugs, endorphins rise. This in turn allows high blood pressure to drop too. Many writers and artists have experienced enormous benefits from floatation therapy, when both hemispheres of the brain sync, operating at the same level giving whole brain thinking allowing for sub-concious problem solving and lateral thinking to occur. Athletes use the float room for pre-event visualisation, post event recovery and analysation of performance, and post training recovery.
Floatation Therapy Applications
Deep muscular relaxation
- Accelerates healing of injuries
- Enhances Performance using visualisation
- Complete physical & mental de-stressing
- Deep muscular relaxation
- Rejuvenates energy levels
- Enhances Creativity
- Promotes clarity of thought process
- Aids accelerated learning
Examples of floatation therapy
Fertility: Many women, after medical examination for physical causes, are advised to take significant lifestyle changes such as moving house or stopping work because stress is recognised as a factor in infertility. Floatation therapy is a useful stress reduction technique in many cases.
Insomnia: Loss of sleep or disturbed sleep patterns can exacerbate stress and floatation therapy is an ideal technique to reduce stress in anticipation of bed rest. Many floaters fall asleep in the float tank. This is considered safe in that there is no tendency to roll over when floating. Long periods of sleep are not usually possible in a commercial float center but the therapy has long lasting effects so the sufferer can go to bed after a float session and sleep naturally without drugs.
Perceived stress can be correlated with increased levels of cortisol and in floatation therapy there is a natural tendency for cortisol to be reduced. For this reason, floatation therapy is one of the few non-invasive techniques available to manage stress when it is a factor in reducing a person’s ability to cope with normal life. Floatation therapy is a fast technique in this respect. The Swedish research was based on 40 minute float sessions. This compares well with other management techniques such as long vacations.
Research in Sweden has demonstrated the therapeutic effect on stress and pain.
The technique takes advantage of an atavistic ability that seems to be common to all humans to relax when floating at a comfortable temperature. The temperature is that which allows natural heat generation to escape without the need for muscle action to raise body temperature in homeostasis. The floating posture, usually the supine position (although the prone position with chin supported on elbows is recommended for pregnant women), allows all the postural muscles to relax. The water pressure on the immersed skin is lower than the blood pressure and thus blood flow continues in skin capillaries. This is in contrast to normal bed rest where local contact pressure inhibits blood flow requiring regular adjustment of posture. When people cannot adjust their posture in bed, e.g. in some illnesses, bed sores can result. When floating there is no tendency to adjust posture and a person can float immobile for many hours.
The natural tendency of the body in the floating posture at the correct temperature is to dilate the blood vessels, reducing the blood pressure and maximising blood flow. The brain activity normally associated with postural muscles is reduced to a minimum. In this state, which we can call the floating state, natural endorphins are released reducing pain. Lactic acid removal is accelerated. Flow in the lymphatic system is increased.
New research undertaken at the Human Performance Laboratory at Karlstad University Sven-Åke Bood concludes that regular floatation tank sessions can provide significant relief for chronic stress-related ailments. Studies involving 140 people with long-term conditions such as anxiety, stress, depression and fibromyalgia found that more than three quarters experienced noticeable improvements.
Dr. Bood commented: “Through relaxing in floating tanks, people with long-term fibromyalgia, for instance, or depression and anxiety felt substantially better after only 12 treatments”. Research targeted the effectiveness of floatation treatment with regard to stress related pain and anxiety over the period of seven weeks. 22 percent of the participants became entirely free of pain and 56 percent experienced clear improvement.
Broken down to various symptoms, the results were as follows: 23 percent slept better, 31 percent experienced reduced stress, 27 percent felt less agony and 24 percent became less depressed or got rid of their depression altogether. The research also confirms the findings of an earlier thesis that floatation, after only twelve sessions, substantially improves sleep patterns leaving users more optimistic and with reduced nervousness, tension and pain. Relaxing in a weightless state in the silent warmth of a flotation tank activates the body’s own system for recuperation and healing, said Sven-Åke Bood. What researchers find particularly gratifying is that the positive effects were still in evidence 4 months after the floating treatment ended.