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Floating

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Can Float Therapy Be Used as Preventative Medicine for Improved Quality of Life?

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Does spending time in a float spa help overall wellness? Here’s what the science says.

Is floating the preventative healthcare solution we’ve been overlooking for too long? Researchers have known for quite some time that floating in a sensory deprivation tank offers benefits for inducing deep relaxation. The positive health effects for patients suffering from muscle tension, pains, and similar symptoms are also documented. Plenty of studies also link floating to clearer thinking, relief for general anxiety disorder (GAD), and improved cardiovascular health. However, a lack of concrete studies on floating’s benefits for “total” mind and body support has caused many practitioners to stop just short of recommending it to patients seeking relief from various conditions. A trial published in 2014 is helping to change all of that.

In this study, 65 participants were randomized to either a control group or the float group. The participants selected for the float group participated in a seven-week flotation program consisting of 12 float sessions. Participants were then given questionnaires measuring psychological and physiological variables, including stress levels, energy levels, depression, anxiety, optimism, pain, sleep quality, mindfulness, and degrees of altered consciousness.

The results are pretty incredible. Participants in the float group reported significant decreases in stress, anxiety, depression, and pain. However, they didn’t just experience relief from symptoms. Floating participants also reported significant improvements in optimism and sleep quality. Both of these factors can contribute significantly to improved quality of life. However, the study uncovered that the benefits of floating go even deeper.

Researchers in this study found what they described as a significant correlation between mindfulness in daily life and the degree of altered states of consciousness achieved during a float session. Participants who reported that they obtained higher degrees of altered states of consciousness while in the tank also reported that they experienced increased mindfulness in daily life. This link between floating and mindfulness supports previously published work stating that floating in a sensory deprivation tank helps to increase originality, imagination, and intuition to help enhance personal creativity. Why is increasing mindfulness through floating so important for quality of life? According to the American Psychological Association, mindfulness can provide a variety of benefits for health and wellness that can include the following:

  • Stress reduction.
  • Reduced rumination.
  • Improved working memory.
  • Improved focus.
  • Less emotional reactivity.
  • Increased cognitive flexibility.
  • Relationship satisfaction.

Is Float Therapy A Life Hack for Wellness?

It can be easy to assume that floating is a “life hack” for living a more vibrant life. After all, these improvements can lead to a more productive life that allows you to tap into your creativity and potential using your fully activated mind and body. The truth is that floating is a life hack for many people. Doctors and researchers see a floating water tank as a potentially fantastic tool for preventative healthcare because it helps take the body from the stressed, reactive, and fight-or-flight state to a calm, balanced state.

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Stress Damages the Brain: Here’s How Floating Can Help

Floating is a natural way to lower your cortisol levels and decrease stress.

As we head into the third year of the pandemic, the incidence of stress and anxiety continues to be very high. Around 50 percent of adults in the U.S. say that stress has negatively impacted their life recently. The problem is that many people have just learned to ignore the stress because it’s such an everyday part of their life. This is unfortunate as doing so can have a significant negative impact on your life.

Chronic stress can put your mind and body at risk. This is because your body’s physiological reaction to stress is quite hard on your body. When you are stressed or anxious, the body releases a flood of hormones. Those hormones, cortisol and adrenaline, cause your breathing to quicken, heart to pound, and muscles to tense. Typically, these changes in the body disappear once the stress is gone. However, these responses stay elevated when you are under constant stress from things like financial problems or relationship issues. This results in negative impacts on your health. High levels of cortisol on a prolonged basis can damage your brain. Recent research suggests that high levels of cortisol cause changes to the brain’s structural circuity that essentially damages the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and attention.

The good news is that you don’t have to let stress impact your health. You can fight back. Lowering cortisol levels helps your body feel more relaxed. One way to lower cortisol levels is with float therapy.

Float therapy tanks are soundproof pods filled with warm water that’s the temperature of the skin. The tanks are filled with Epsom salt, which keeps you afloat with no effort required. Floating in the tank feels weightless like you are suspended in the air. This helps the muscles relax.

Float therapy, sometimes called Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST), has become really popular recently, with many people using it as a natural way to lower anxiety. Float therapy can help you lower anxiety without even trying. It promotes complete relaxation by lowering levels of cortisol.

How Float Tanks Help Lower Cortisol

Float therapy works by lowering levels of cortisol. According to researchers, it helps lower cortisol levels even on days when you are not floating. One study examined the effect of REST-assisted relaxation therapy on cortisol in healthy volunteers. The test group received five sessions of REST therapy. They were compared to a group that received a similar relaxation protocol but without the REST therapy. After just five sessions, the test group had significantly lower cortisol levels than the non-REST group. The researchers concluded that short, brief REST-assisted relaxation therapy sessions produce a relaxed state that is associated with lower cortisol levels.

If you’re looking for a natural way to lower cortisol levels, floatation therapy is definitely worth a try.

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Looking for Natural, Short-Term Relief of Depression Symptoms?

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Here’s how floating can help.

Can floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy) provide insulation against depression? There’s a reason why so many people turn to the tank for a mental reset. In fact, some researchers are confident that floating tamps down anxiety in the brain in a way that rivals some prescription drugs and meditation. The likely explanation for why floating does what other forms of “relaxation” can’t is that floating with sensory deprivation turns off the part of the brain called the amygdala that houses our fight-or-flight stress response.

According to a 2018 study, just one hour of flotation-REST was able to reduce depression levels substantially. In addition, a one-hour session also helped to decrease anxiety levels, muscle tension, pain, and negative affect. Participants also saw improvements in happiness, serenity, relaxation, and overall well-being. This research has caused many mental health practitioners to consider floatation-REST a viable option for short-term relief of depression.

As many people suffering from depression know, anxiety and stress often accompany depression symptoms. That’s why this 2018 study involving 50 participants with a cross-spectrum of anxiety and stress-related disorders is so interesting. Researchers conducting this study discovered that floatation REST appears to be a “promising technique for transiently reducing the suffering of those with anxiety and depression.” While this particular study focused on the short-term mental health benefits of floating, other studies show that it can help over the long term, as well.

A study from 2014 found that floatation therapy was powerful enough to help restore the quality of life for people suffering from pain, anxiety, stress, and depression. What’s more, many patients involved in the study were not new to alternative therapies for depression. In fact, participants who had tried yoga, massage, and physiotherapy reported never being “so successfully relieved” from pain, tension, and stress using any other treatment.

Final Thoughts

There’s still so much to be revealed about depression and floating. It’s too soon to say that floating alone can be used to fully treat depression in all people. However, the people who have already experienced the results feel that they have discovered a way to reduce depression by working with the brain instead of fighting against it.

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The Effect of Floating on Cortisol Levels

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Lower levels of cortisol equal lower stress levels. Here’s the Science Behind Why.

Cortisol is a killer. Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands. It is a “stress hormone” that works with the brain to control mood, motivation, and fear. While the purpose of cortisol is to drive us into a state of alertness when there’s a threat of danger, the body’s biological “alarm system” can quickly sabotage our health.

Cortisol isn’t the villain when it’s operating normally in our bodies. In fact, proper cortisol levels help us to properly use carbohydrates, stifle inflammation, regulate blood pressure, control the sleep-wake cycle, and provide boosts of energy when we need to handle stressful situations. However, a person with normal cortisol function will always “come down” to a balanced state after the source of stress is gone. This isn’t the case for someone with elevated cortisol levels.

When we are under extreme stress, our cortisol levels can stay elevated. This puts us at risk for:

  • Anxiety.
  • Depression.
  • Headaches.
  • Heart disease.
  • Memory issues.
  • Concentration/focus issues.
  • Digestive issues.
  • Sleep issues.
  • Weight gain.
  • Increased blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure.

“Elevated cortisol levels following acute stress may facilitate the consolidation of fear-based emotional memories and condition a sensitized physiologic stress response,” according to a study on chronic stress, cortisol dysfunction, and pain.

When cortisol levels are exhausted, widespread pain and inflammation often manifest due to adrenal fatigue. What’s more, high cortisol levels that are triggered from a stressful event can trap a person in a cycle of constant stress and exhaustion.

Floating and Cortisol Levels: How Time in the Tank Can Dilute the Cortisol Response

Many studies have confirmed the link between flotation-REST (restricted environmental stimulation technique) and mood improvements. However, it appears that there’s also a direct link between flotation-REST therapy and cortisol regulation. The most comprehensive study conducted on flotation-REST and cortisol levels to date found that repeated brief REST-assisted relaxation produces a relaxation state associated with specific decreases in pituitary-adrenal axis activity. In addition, researchers have also found that repeated REST-assisted relaxation is associated with a significant decrease in plasma cortisol.

What does the data mean for people seeking holistic therapies for anxiety, depression, exhaustion, mood issues, and suspected adrenal fatigue? Flotation-REST therapy may be valuable for helping to regulate cortisol levels when they are elevated following stressful events. In addition to improving mood in the short term, flotation-REST therapy may also insulate people from the long-term adverse health effects associated with sustained elevated cortisol levels.

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The Journey In

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Journey into yourself for yourself.

Floating is proven to reduce stress and anxiety and over time helps to cultivate stillness of mind. This power not only lies in the physical properties of the salty solution, but also in the inward reflection process and connection to the breath and life force itself. This transformation process also teaches us how to navigate stressful situations in everyday life.
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Book your next float online: www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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Stress Relief

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Floating Benefits

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Floating is easy, relaxing, and simply magical for calming the stresses of everyday life.

Nothing but you and the support of 1100Ibs of magnesium epsom salt is something truly to be experienced!

Watch as your mind begins to dissolve back into nothingness.

Watch as your body relaxes into calmness.

Let all things go.

This is the nature of the float.

Let all things go.

Surrender your worries, anxieties, and insecurities.

Let joy, peace, and love be your guide.

Be Still & Float On.

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www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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Solitude

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Solitude as a means of healing

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Comforting

Caring

Liberating

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To be alone

To see ones inner workings

To care for ones inner feelings

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Embraced by self

Embraced by all

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One journey’s into solitude

For great solitude

Comes great company

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www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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Embrace

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As the seasons continue to change, we are reminded of the beauty and balance of life.

Enjoy this deep dive into yourself.

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Light or Dark

Cold or Hot

Good or Bad

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One remains

Primordially centred

Among

Yet Beyond

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Observing

Watching

Existing

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Embrace this natural coming and going of life

Dive deep into the uncomfortable

For the comfortable will show itself once again

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www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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I Release Myself

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Enjoy this morning release for entering back into the present moment

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I release myself from all expectations

There is nothing I have to be doing right now

I allow this time and space to rest and regenerate

I smile and let my dreams run wild

And they can be dreams for a while

I step a little closer each day

I allow them to unfold

There is no rush

Only right now

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www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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Discovering Stillness

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A lesson From The Void

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Notice

In this moment

Do you feel at rest?

Notice

Do you feel content?

Notice

Do you feel at peace?

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Ask yourself

Who or what is in motion?

Who or what needs to change?

Who or what is not ok right now?

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In this moment

You have access to the power of discovery

Through noticing and inquiring, you are discovering

You are making conscious or bringing to light all that was previously hidden

Your true power lies in this discovery

Your true power lies in remembering your most authentic state

Your true power lies in unravelling your false reality and identity

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Travel inward

Unravel the mystery

Be Still

www.tranquilityfloat.ca

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