Usually by the 20-minute mark, the body has absorbed enough epsom salt for it to start physically relaxing you, and it also naturally helps calm the mind, so you’ll start to slow down your thoughts, you’ll start to feel more relaxed. What commonly happens at the beginning when people first start floating is they get lots and lots of thoughts, so the challenge is to start quieting the mind. It’s like meditation in a sense that it’s a practice and you get better at it. How do you get the most out of a float experience?įloating can be used to help improve sleep quality, anxiety, depression, PTSD, back injuries and muscle recovery. So, when you shut down the five senses to the brain, it allows the brain to go into a very deep state of relaxation. There’s no light, it’s dark, there’s no sound, there’s no touch because the water is at skin temperature, there’s no taste because you’re not eating, and there’s very little smell because it’s just salt water. Essentially what we’re doing is we’re shutting down the five senses to the brain. The other part of floating is the mental part. You don’t need to know how to swim, you don’t need to know how to float there’s so much salt that it will push you all the way to the surface without you even trying. But the other thing is by having such a concentration of salt in the water, it creates a very high buoyancy, which also creates a zero-gravity environment, so there’s no pressure on the joints. Epsom salt is a muscle relaxant, so first of all, it’s great for muscle recovery and helps breaks down lactic acids. It’s a very high concentration of epsom salt. You’re in 1,000 pounds of epsom salt in just 10 inches, 160 gallons, of water. The first part is the physical aspect of floating. So once you’ve climbed into the float pod and closed the top, what happens next?įloating is a two-part process. So as these more prominent celebrities and pro athletes start to use them and talk about them, there are a lot of people catching on and realizing, “Hey, we can benefit from this too.” Tom Brady named floating as one of the top 10 things he likes to do in Forbes Magazine, and he actually has a float tank in his house. For instance, you’ve seen the latest Steph Curry ad-it’s him getting into a float tank, and he also did an ESPN special talking about floating and what it does for him. The sports and fitness industry has really understood what the benefits are and how it’s helping. Why is floating getting a lot of attention? If you’re intrigued by the idea of a sensory deprivation dip, here’s the lowdown from Andrew on what’s involved in going afloat. By the time he got through fighting traffic up to San Francisco and driving back from a session, he says, “any effects of relaxation therapy kind of disappeared.” Recognizing an opportunity, he opened Balance Float in Redwood City, one of several centers now in easy reach. After moving to Portola Valley in 2014, Andrew was disheartened to find no float centers on the Peninsula. Andrew discovered floating while living in Australia and it became his go-to way to recharge after a hard, physically demanding week. One person we can thank locally for that popularity surge is Andrew Dannaoui. Floating is clearly top of mind again, and in fact, for five consecutive years now, the number of float centers has doubled in the U.S. Nearly four decades later, we are seeing a new wave of float fascination-whether it’s helping Steph Curry find his focus in a TV commercial or creating a pivotal plot twist in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Back in 1980, William Hurt triggered a pop culture craze with his bizarre transformative journey in the movie Altered States.
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