Floating For Anxiety or Stress
One of the primary benefits of floatation therapy is stress reduction. While this is not the only benefit, it is perhaps one of the most significant.
According to the American Psychological Association, chronic stress is linked to the six leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide. More than 75% of all physician office visits are for stress-related ailments and complaints. The sad truth is that stress is a complex and potentially dangerous risk factor that causes a lot of suffering in a lot of lives.
Stress can lead to increased risk of chronic disease, as well as simply detract from the quality of daily life. That’s why we believe floating is so beneficial. Both from personal testimonies from frequent floaters around the world and by delving into the scientific research, it’s evident that float tanks have huge potential to lessen stress.
“Floating provides a window into the lowest reaches of our brain: a window that allows us to see the rhythm of our life, a window that allows us to literally feel the flow of sentience completely untethered from the external world. … [Anxiety is] a rhythm that constantly outpaces the beat of life itself, and importantly it’s a rhythm that can be slowed down by floating.”
Most importantly, floating triggers the physiological relaxation responce. This can directly resolve the physiological arousal of an attack of anxiety, and can help take you out of a verbal mode, stilling the chatter in your head.
Further, floating quiets large portions of the brain. In particularly, all of these functions receive very little input while in a float tank, and get to rest:
· vision (since it’s dark)
· hearing (…and quiet)
· touch (the water is still)
· proprioception (since you no longer have to balance against gravity)
· motor control (you’re not moving)
· verbal control (…and not talking)
· thermal sensation and regulation (since the tank is already at body temperature).
Health & Wellness
Come float to relieve stress, recover from injuries, eliminate or better manage
chronic pain, shift addiction, explore and expand consciousness, or just unplug
from your daily grind. Floating naturally increases your dopamine and endorphin
levels, boosting your mood and leaving you with a pleasant afterglow that lasts
for days afterwards.
Without the need to fight gravity or take-in external information, you’ll likely experience the most complete relaxation you’ve ever felt.
Meditation
Everything you experience while floating comes from within yourself. It’s the
perfect time to reflect on your life, and reports of creative and personal
insights abound. Using a mantra like, “Let go!” while floating assists in
increasing mindfulness and shifting tension and constriction to peace and
possibilities.
Floatation can also be thought of as training wheels for meditation. After about 30-45 minutes of floating, your mind starts producing theta brainwaves, which are responsible for that ‘between waking & sleeping’ state. After years of rigorous practice, people can enter theta state through deep meditation. Floating gets you there effortlessly.
Self-Improvement
People have cut strokes off their golf game, developed complex scientific theories,
and drafted whole portions of books while floating.
With the left hemisphere of your brain turning off, your level of insight, awareness and knowledge absorption becomes accentuated.