The Two-Minute Guide To Float Therapy: A Sensory Deprivation Tank or Float Tank cuts a person off from as many sensory inputs by creating a pitch-black, light-proof, soundproof environment heated to the same temperature as the skin.
What is Float Tank and Float Therapy?
-
Float Tanks can be known as an isolation tank, sensory deprivation tank, float pod, float cabin, flotation tank, or sensory attenuation tank.
-
The Float tank is soundproof and a person cannot see what is around them. The tank is filled with 10 inches of water which contains Epsom salts and 550 kg of magnesium, Epsom salts allow the float tank user to float by creating a specific gravity of approximately 1.275. This environment allows an individual to float effortlessly and also Epsom salts are an effective cure-all with benefits including easing aches and pains along with stress relief.
-
There is also evidence of physical benefits including reduced vital signs, cortisol (the stress hormone), and enhancements to blood flow. REST is additionally employed by many athletes who claim enhanced recovery and performance. The experience can make potentially easing anxiety, the person feels rejuvenated, and reducing pain relaxing muscles and are widely advertised as a form of alternative medicine.
History of Flotation Therapy
By neuroscientist and psychologist John C Lilly The flotation tank was first invented in 1954 to explore human consciousness .
He wanted to experiment with sensory deprivation and find out what would happen if the brain was bereft of senses and everyone external stimulation.
The first tank he invented involved wearing a diving mask to dam out light and sound whilst completely submerged in an upright chamber crammed with water.
First person who experienced flotation therapy with psychedelic drugs whilst within the isolation tank and even claimed that the tank allowed him to form contact with creatures from other dimensions.
He refined his tank within the following years and by the 1970s float tanks began to move closer towards the fashionable float tanks we see today. Now, the isopod has created a very modern flotation tank.
Why Only Epsom Salt And Magnesium Are Used In The Float Tank?
Because Epsom salts allow the float tank user to float. Epsom salts are an effective cure-all easing aches and pains. It helps with lymph drainage and promotes the absorption of magnesium. Mg is vital to good health and well being as it is second most abundant element in the human body . Magnesium Fights Depression and can Lower Blood Pressure.
Benefits Of Magnesium:
- Magnesium Fights Depression: Depression – a silent killer. Magnesium plays a critical role in brain function, it elevates chemicals in the brain that works to create a feeling of relaxation and well being. It helps you to get rid of depression.
- Magnesium prevents migraine headaches: Most researchers found that people who suffer from migraines are more likely than others to be magnesium deficient. Mg helps you to get rid of a headache.
- Magnesium improves insulin sensitivity: Most researchers found that people with low magnesium intake have a higher risk of DM.
- Magnesium improves bone health: Mg improves bone health by assimilates calcium into the bones
- Magnesium improves heart health: Mg improves heart health by preventing blood clots, hardening of the arteries, and maintaining high blood pressure.
Benefits Of Epsom Salts:
- Provides Magnesium: Epsom salt a chemical compound made up of magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen is also known as magnesium sulfate. It releases magnesium and sulfate ions when dissolving in water.
- Epsom salts Promote Sleep: Magnesium helps your brain produce neurotransmitters that reduce stress and also induce sleep.
- Epsom salts promote Stress Reduction: Magnesium helps your brain produce neurotransmitters that reduce stress and anxiety.
- Epsom salts Reduced Pain: Epsom salt helps reduce pain and it improves symptoms of fibromyalgia and arthritis.
- Epsom salts Reduced Swelling: Researchers found that many people with fibromyalgia and arthritis are deficient in this mineral.
How Sensory Deprivation And Floating Impact The Brain?
The science of sensory deprivation is understood as REST. REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy) during a float tank has shown a transition from alpha or beta brainwaves to theta brainwaves, which might ordinarily only occur before waking and sleep. during a flotation tank, theta brain waves occur whilst the user is fully conscious. for several users, this enables nice creativity and problem-solving. Isolation tank – an emergency therapy.
Sensory deprivation is the removal of stimuli from the senses, and there is evidence that sensory deprivation affects the brain, and Floating in a tank creates the perfect conditions for removing all external stimuli.
There are innumerable psychological effects of stress on human body and mind. so, take a break and go for flotation tank therapy. As it gives you certain benefits:
- Boost in creativity: A person may experience a boost in creativity.
- Boost physical and mental health: May benefit athletes and people who train intensively for competitions, to prepare himself for his gold medal long jump in 1988, Carl Lewis, a field athlete, used in-tank visualization techniques because its effects may be both physical and mental. For muscle recovery and visual training, Carl Lawson, a football player uses the tank.
- Possible anxiety treatment: And help reduce symptoms in people with anxiety. For allowing a state of deeper meditation Joe Rogan owns an isolation tank. John Lennon with the help of 90-minute floats in a cedar-wood box treated his ■■■■■■ addiction in 1979.
- Possible pain reduction: Marvin Jones, formerly wide receiver of the Cincinnati Bengals, to help him in his recovery from an ankle injury using flotation therapy.
Not Ideal Candidates For Flotation Therapy:
Floatation isn’t recommended if you’ve got the subsequent conditions:
- epilepsy/ seizures
- renal disorder/ kidney failure
- low vital sign
- any contagion, including diarrhea or gastroenteritis (and for 14 days following)
- open wounds or skin ulcers
- claustrophobia.
Check with your health practitioner before employing a floatation tank if you’re pregnant or are concerned about the subsequent conditions:
- heart conditions
- asthma
- sensitivity to chlorine, bromine, sulfate, or magnesium
- severe skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema
- psychosis
What To Expect From Your Flotation Tank Experience?
This is a tank filled with Epsom salt and water solution where a person lay on its back. This tank is used for isolation and meditation that helps a person to get rid of pain, anxiety, and depression.
A person lays in the tank ■■■■■ for sixty minutes and during these sixty minutes, he has no contact with other people. This process is also called REST therapy which is the abbreviation of restricted environmental stimulation therapy. Which is quite beneficial for curing traumas and depression.
The external environmental changes are bound that a person can’t feel the senses of touch, voices, and darkness.
The room is dark enough that you can’t see anything from outside.
Basically, it experiencing doing nothing to get relaxation.it means that you have to go date with yourself, try to explore yourself .when you spend time with yourself, you will definitely get a lot. Some people find it a much healthy way to get rid of sad thoughts from the mind.
You have to enter ■■■■■ in the tank so you may properly get into that atmosphere that is created to stimulate your inner senses. That’s why some people experience hollowness in the dark. And some heard the sound of ancient times.
Do You Have Hallucinations In A Float Tank?
Hallucination feeling is one of the strongest feelings in the isolation tank. It is like mediation in water. Some find its dungeon. Another fact about this tank is that it is the procedure that is adopted by NASA to train its astronauts for space where they have to cop up with the timeless timings.
It is a Reprocessing process that brought dimensional changes in humans. One can have the feeling of disorientation too after using it. Floating in-tank helps you to least the effects of gravity. It means another sense is made limited through this method.
It has positive and negative effects too. On the positive side, we see that it is a cure for traumas, depression, sadness, pain, stress, and anxiety.
But negative side we see that its benefits are often exaggerated, the risks of West Nile virus, hallucination, and nyctophobia.
Some people find it scary to closed in the tank without contact with external atmospheric stimulations.
How Much Does A Float Tank Cost?
If you want to buy your own float tank from an investment point of view then it’s cost around $10,000 to $30,000 and if you want to just experience it in office. It would cost around $50 to $60 which is quite reasonable actually.
Benefits Of Flotation Therapy:
Have you ever heard about dating yourself? some people love to spent time with themselves. Isolation makes them more vigilant and youthful. Such people are not afraid of being alone rather they spend time according to their own moods and enjoy their habits of reading, painting, etc.
This is a date with yourself in which no physical assistance of Books, Novels, TV, Radio, etc is required. It’s about the past, forgetting the present, and uncertain about the future.
Flotation can benefit everyone, from creatives to business people, the elderly, and and people with medical issues, and athletes. Floatation may be a sort of emergency therapy and boasts an in-depth wealth of benefits:
- Stimulates the discharge of endorphins
- Creates calm and total relaxation
- Rejuvenates the mind and body
- Alleviates mental and physical stress
- Helps with fatigue
- Improves sleep and insomnia
- Improves creativity, healing, and visualization
- Expands awareness and heightens senses
- Enhances mental clarity and deepens your psychological state
- Improves self-realization and discovery
- Helps with anxiety, depression, and motivation
- Helps with phobias and addiction
- Helps with PTSD symptoms
- Decreases the perception of pain
- Relieves bones, joints, muscles
- Relieves aches, pains, and strains
- Relieves arthritis, migraines, and rheumatism
- Relieves fibromyalgia
- Helps with pregnancy pain
- Increases blood circulation and lowers vital sign
- Improves immunity
- Helps athletes produce less cortisol, adrenaline, and carboxylic acid
- Helps athletes visualize their performance for fulfillment
- Helps athletes master the inner game and synchronize mind, body, and emotion
- Reduces the danger of further injury and overtraining
- Resets the body’s chemical & metabolic balance
- Accelerates the healing process and recovery
Float Tank Side Effects:
-
Users may experience a heightened sense of smell, sound, and lightweight after a float session.
-
First-time users may experience nausea.
-
The skin shouldn’t wrinkle as Epsom salts have an emollient (softening and soothing) effect.
Will You feel claustrophobic, drown, or become trapped?
Before use, the power will show you ways to open and shut the door to the tank, from within. Some people like better to begin with the door open and shut it when comfortable. All units are ■■■■■■ with an indoor call alarm and lightweight. you’ll get out of the tank at any time.
Controls are normally in situ which allows the power to watch the security of all individuals without compromising privacy.
If you nod off, you’ll stay afloat thanks to the buoyancy of the water. Some discomfort may occur if the saltwater gets in your eyes. While drowning during a floatation tank is feasible, it’s extremely unlikely.
Being under the influence of alcohol, and/or medications with a sedative effect will increase the danger of drowning and feeling of hallucinatin.
Frequently Asked Questions:
People are also wondering about following queries:
1- Are Flotation Tanks Safe?
-
Floatation tanks are often safely employed by most healthy adults but aren’t suitable for people under 16 or people with certain medical conditions.
-
You should not use a floatation tank immediately after shaving or if you’re sunburnt because the high salt concentration may cause discomfort.
-
You should not allowed to use a floatation tank even a commercial floatation tank, won’t be permitted you to do if you’re under the influence of medicine or alcohol. Industry practice only permits use by those aged 16 and over, however it is not allowed for younger than 16.
2- How is that the float tank kept clean?
Bacteria don’t generally grow in highly salty (saline) waters.
The following measures should even be in situ to make sure hygiene is maintained:
- All users should shower before entering the tank.
- The whole saltwater solution must be filtered 3 times between float sessions.
- Tanks are disinfected by employing a combination of ultraviolet and bromine or chlorine counting on the tank design.
- Regular physical cleaning of the tank’s interior surfaces.
3- Does This Apply To Non-Public Or Household Float Tanks?
-
This fact sheet has been prepared for members of the general public seeking information on the safe use of economic floatation tank facilities.
-
Households with private floatation tanks aren’t subject to equivalent conditions as commercial facilities.
-
On maintenance and safe operation of your flotation tank first refer to your operation manual or manufacturer for further advice.
-
Wastewater from flotation tanks shouldn’t be disposed of to sewer or septic systems.
Conclusion
What is a floatation tank?
A floatation tank or a float tank may be a dark,light proof, pitch proof, soundproof tank that is partially crammed with salty water and is heated to outer a human body temperature approximately 35°C.Other names include:
- isolation tank,
- float tank,
- sensory deprivation tank,
- Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) tank.>
What are floatation tanks used for?