Tag: float therapy

Photo by Jaanus Jagomagi

Experiment: Try float therapy (aka sensory deprivation therapy) weekly for a month.

Ok, so why…

• Unlike giving up coffee for two months, this one will be a breeze to plan and implement, and I’m ready for it.
• I’m buoyed by curiosity. Since I first heard about this, I’ve wondered what it would be like to exist in total darkness with no real visual, aural, edible, or tactile stimuli, i.e. sensory deprivation.
• With the digital whack-a-mole lifestyle we lead, I welcome the idea of another natural tool to help tune out the chatter for a while.
• It’s all about the Benefits, baby…
  • Reduced anxiety, depression, fatigue
  • Pain relief, e.g. muscle tension and headaches
  • Improved sleep
  • Reported increased feelings of well-being, optimism and even mild euphoria
  • Potential cardiovascular health benefits due to reduced stress and improved sleep
  • Drastically reduces the effects of jetlag

Uh oh…

• Who’s to say my monkey mind is going to be a willing participant in this relaxation technique?
• Am I just going to be paying money to be isolated in a boring, dark pod for an hour? I’m seeing Scrooge McDuck locking me in his vault—except it’s filled with saltwater instead of gold coins—while he shuffles and sniffs the wad of cash I handed him for an hour.

About that…

• Some people have reported hallucinating during sensory deprivation sessions… good or bad, maybe this isn’t going to be so boring, after all!

I betcha…

• I love water. I drink a gallon a day and was one of those kids you had to drag away from the pool or beach after a long day of swimming, bodysurfing, and seeing how long I could hold my breath underwater—provoking great anxiety among the older women watching poolside. Feeling in my element in this element, I feel like I’m going to enjoy this… though I’m not sure exactly how or why yet.
• Still, I doubt this is likely to become a part of my regular routine given the cost and impracticality involved.

Tell me more, tell me more…

• How much does it cost? $45-79 / 60-minute session (depends on location and deal)
• How long is a session? Typically, 60 or 90 minutes; 60 was sufficient in my experience.
• What do you wear? Nada, as recommended… except the disposable earplugs they give you.

Do try this “at home”…

• Search Yelp or Google for float therapy or sensory deprivation tanks near you and check the reviews. You can often find discounts for multiple sessions. 3-packs are common, and I would recommend them. More to come on this…
• Minimize caffeine within 3 hours of a float. It’s hard to relax and clear your mind if you’re jittery.
• Don’t shave the day of your float. That saltwater can be a real pain in the pores, allegedly. I still shaved my neck in the morning before an early afternoon session and didn’t have any issues.
• Don’t pee in the pod, dude. For reals though. The first place I went to threatens a $500 charge for contaminating solution with bodily fluids, so no funny business y’all.
• Turn on your inner Elsa and…

Week 1-2 Notes…

• The first time you go is mostly about understanding how the experience works and how you’ll react when spending 60-90 minutes in quiet isolation with yourself… something many people have not done in a while (or ever).
• At some places, there are soothing sounds—you can choose the type and duration of these—that played for 10 minutes at the beginning with slowly color-changing mood LED lighting during the first 10 minutes, followed by 45 minutes of quiet darkness, and then 5 final minutes of the relaxing sounds and lights again.
• It felt like floating in a countryside lake at night, minus the chirping of crickets and twinkling stars. While the setting is neutral by design, the lack of distracting sights and sounds produces a relaxing effect.
• The idea is to be calm and still, but at least at first I enjoyed gently swishing back and forth like a piece of seaweed, savoring the idyllic experience.
• Time seems to move slowly at the beginning, but then you settle in, and all of a sudden the gentle lights and nature sounds come back on to let you know you’re almost done!
• You then saunter off slowly with softer edges and a glowing sense of calm. I’m laughing at my own phrasing here, but it is an accurate sense of how I feel afterward.

Week 3-4 Notes…

• What’s that smell though? Wait a second… my sense of smell isn’t being deprived. I want a refund! I kid, but there was a faint chemical smell from the bromine used to treat water between uses at one of the two places I went to. It’s easy to ignore this soon after the initial entry. (This was also way fainter during a morning session I did later in the month than during the ones I did in the afternoon, perhaps because fewer cleanings were required.)
• The 3^rd float was when it all really clicked. I had my initial busy barrage of thoughts—do I try to block these, do I indulge them like listening to a song stuck in your head in order to release it, do I try to focus on a specific issue I want to solve? And then, after about 10 minutes, when the initial music stopped and I hit a button to turn off the colored lights, I slipped into a deep state of blissful relaxation—like the black, watery void Eleven travels to in Stranger Things, just without any of the creepiness she encounters.
  • Now that I know the drill, I can get in, slip away, and more quickly reach that state of neutral Zen.
• By my final session, I reached the theta brainwave state—that border between the conscious and subconscious mind. I recall at one point having to blink in order to check whether my eyes were open or closed… and ended up repeating this a few times. Trippy, right?
• The post-float effects were more transformative and longer lasting too, giving me a calm glow that lasted beyond the day of my float.

Whoomp, There It is…

• Did I enjoy the experience? Definitely. Will I continue it regularly? Magic 8-Ball says “Don’t count on it.” While I enjoy the benefits, the time/money investment and convenience factor don’t justify them for me on an ongoing basis… but I do plan to try it after my next trip abroad to reduce the jetlag symptoms.
• As much as it is a sure-fire stress relief option, so are meditation—which is free and more convenient—and massage—which is similarly priced and bears additional physical benefits.
• Would I recommend it? If you’re looking for an alternative way to disconnect and recharge, go for it. If you are interested, I would recommend trying at least 3 sessions. It takes some time to get into the first time or two, and while you definitely reap benefits with each session, the real magic starts at session 3 for most people, myself included. This is why you often see floats sold in 3-packs.

A Year & Change of Change Here…

It’s been over a year since I started this blog and all my tinkering. Here’s a quick recap of what I have been and will be keeping up with regularly and those changes that were less sustainable for me:

Yas, you can stay:

• Repeating a Limited Set of Meals (with some quarterly tweaks)
• Meditation
• Intermittent Fasting

Sashay away:

• Wearing the Few Same Outfits (more conscious of not overthinking it now though)
• Giving Up Coffee (just had to prove it was possible)
• Float Therapy (felt the benefits, just hard to justify cost & time needed)

Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment with any feedback and/or what you think my next experiment should be:

1. Slow Carb Diet (from The 4-Hour Body)
2. CrossFit 2-3x/week
3. Daily Affirmations, e.g. writing out by hand a mantra 15x/day
4. Guided Breathwork
5. Your suggestion?

Reference: https://www.healthline.com/health/sensory-deprivation-tank