The Wonders of Flotation Therapy

Can you imagine a world with no light, no sound and no gravity, akin to floating in your mothers’ womb?

What is Floatation Therapy?

Born out of the brain of a magnificent scientist, Dr. John C. Lilly, Floatation tanks have been around since 1950’s.
Developed for the original goal of the flotation tank was to explore and experiment with consciousness, and effects of no gravity on human beings, Effects of sensory reduction and the activity has had new age stigma ever since. But the research papers prove, that the float Therapy or R.E.S.T. (Restrictive environmental stimulation Technique) actually can aid in our daily well-being in an unprecedented way.

Floating – referred to as Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique – has proven by nearly 3000 Major research papers to be useful in treating stress and anxiety-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, ADD, ADHD, PTSD, Blood pressure, Fibromyalgia and a whole lot more. Others believe regular floating can enhance their mood, problem-solving abilities, super learning, and creativity.

This creates an environment similar to that of the Dead Sea; but sans the sensation of temperature or movement, which lets you float effortlessly on the surface of the water, enjoying a feeling of total freedom & weightlessness!

Floating has become highly popular, as more people have experienced floatation therapy’s remarkable benefits.
Your first float might feel like magic, however floatation therapy is the result of thirty years of mainstream scientific research in human
performance and wellness; And we prefer you floating regularly to reap its massive benefits.

Best of all, the effects of floatation are cumulative – the more often you float, the better it is for your health, happiness and performance.

Benefits:

• Promotes total calm and peaceful relaxation
• Eliminates fatigue and jet lag
• Improves sleep and cures insomnia
• Alleviates stress (mental and physical)
• Energizes, rejuvenates and revitalizes
• Increases motivation, diminishes depression
• Facilitates freedom from habits, phobias and addictions
• Stimulates left/right brain synchronization
• Shifts brain waves from beta to lower frequency alpha, theta and even delta
• Creates mental clarity, alertness
• Increases creativity, problem solving
• Heightens visualization
• Deepens meditation practices.
• Expands awareness, intensifies acuteness of all the senses, accelerates learning
• Enhances hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis.
• Decreases the production of cortisol, ACTH, lactic acid and adrenaline
• Increases production of endorphins
• Speeds up rehabilitation and recovery
• Relieves pain (arthritis, migraines, injuries and so on)
• Boosts immune function
• Improves circulation and distribution of oxygen and nutrients
• Reduces blood pressure, pulse, heart rate and oxygen consumption
• Improves athletic performance
• Helps prevent sports injuries, speeds healing process.

The Antigravity Explanation

The buoyancy afforded by the dense Epsom salt solution eliminates the body’s specific gravity, bringing the floater close to an experience of total weightlessness. Gravity, which has been estimated to occupy 90 percent of all central nervous system activity, is probably the single largest cause of human health problems – the bad backs, sagging abdomens, aching feet, painful joints, and muscular tension that result from our unique but unnatural upright posture. This theory asserts that, by freeing our brain and skeletal system from gravity, floating liberates vast amounts of energies and large areas of the brain to deal with matter of mind, spirit, and enhanced awareness of internal states.

The Brain Wave Explanation
More interesting than the well known alpha waves generated by the brain in moments of relaxation, are the slower theta waves, which are accompanied by vivid memories, free association, sudden insights, creative inspiration, feeling of serenity and oneness with the universe. It is a mysterious, elusive state, potentially highly productive and enlightening; but experimenters have had a difficult time studying it, and it is hard to maintain, since people tend to fall asleep once they begin generate theta waves. One way of learning to produce theta waves is to perfect the art of meditation. A study of Zen monks conducted by Akira Kazamatsu and Tomio Hirai, in which the monks’ brain-waves were charted as they entered the meditative states, indicated that the four meditative plateau’s (from alpha to the more sublime theta) “were parallel to the disciples’ mental states, and their years spent in Zen training.” Those monks with over twenty years of meditative experience generated the greatest amount of theta, the monks were not asleep but mentally alert. However, since many of us are unwilling to spend twenty years of mediation to learn to generate theta waves, it’s helpful to know that several recent studies (at Texas A&M and the University at Colorado) have shown that floating increases production of theta waves. Floaters quickly enter the theta state while remaining awake, consciously aware of all the vivid imagery and creative thoughts that pass through their minds, and after getting out of the floatation environment, floaters continue to generate larger amounts of creativity-promoting theta waves for up to three weeks.

The Left-Brain Right-Brain Explanation
The two hemispheres or the neocortex operate in fundamentally different modes. The left hemisphere excels at detail, processing information that is small-scale, requiring fine resolution: it operates analytically, by splitting or dissection. The right hemisphere on the other hand, is good at putting all the pieces together. It operates by pattern recognition – visually, intuitively rapidly absorbing large scale information. Just as in the sunshine of a bright day it is impossible to see the stars, so are the subtle contents of the right hemisphere usually drowned out by the noisy chattering of the dominant verbal/analytical left brain, whose qualities are the more cultivated and valued in our culture. But recent research indicates that floating increases right-brain (or minor hemisphere) function. Floating turns off the external stimuli, plunges us into literal and figurative darkness – then suddenly the entire universe of stars and galaxies is spread out before our eyes. Or as brain researcher Dr. Thomas Budzynski of the University of Colorado put it, “In a floatation environment, the right hemisphere comes out and says, ‘Whoopee”.

The Biofeedback Explanation
Because of biofeedback research (including Johns Hopkin’s researcher John Basmajian’s conclusive study of subjects consciously firing off single motor-unit neurons), we now know that humans can learn to exercise conscious control over virtually every cell in their bodies. Processes long thought to be involuntary, such as the rhythm and amplitude of our brain waves, healing, blood pressure, the rate or force of heart contractions, respiratory rate, smooth-muscle tension, and the secretion of hormones and neurotransmitters are now thought to be controllable. The way biofeedback machines work is by enhancing concentration’, by focusing on a single, subtle change in the body, which is being amplified by the machine, we are able to shut off our awareness of the external environment. This shutting-off of external stimuli is exactly what the floatation environment does best – almost as if in an “organic” biofeedback machine, in the tank every physical sensation is magnified, and because there is no possibility of outside distraction, we are able to relax deeply and focus at will upon any part or system of the body.

The Homeostasis Explanation
The human body has an exquisitely sensitive self-monitoring and self-regulating system that is constantly working to maintain the body in homeostasis – an optimal state of balance, harmony, equilibrium and stability. Considered in these terms, we can define stress as a disruption of our internal equilibrium, a disturbance of our natural homeostasis. Research now indicates that many of floating’s most powerful effects come from its tendency to return the body to a state of homeostasis. When we view the mind and body as a single system, it becomes clear that external stimuli are constantly militating against the system’s equilibrium, every noise, every degree of temperature above or below the body’s optimal level, every encounter with other people, everything we see and feel can disrupt our homeostasis. But when we enter the tank, we abruptly stop making constant adjustments to outer stimuli. Since there are no external threats, no pressures to adapt to outside events, the system can devote all its energies to restoring itself./ The normal state, of course, is health, vigour, enthusiasm, and immense pleasure in being alive.

Happy Soul Feedback:
It’s a truly an incredible experience. I’ve tried it and it was the sheer joy of weightlessness coupled with a deep sleep while floating that led to many awakenings

Amitabh Swetta