Benefits of Floating

Getting rid of all sensory input allows your brain to chill out, allowing the creative, relaxed part of your brain to come out and play. Without the constant pressure of analyzing the world around you, your body lowers its levels of cortisol, the main chemical component of stress. Your brain also releases elevated levels of dopamine and endorphins, the neurotransmitters of happiness.

Not having to fight gravity lets your muscles, joints, and bones take a well-deserved break. Your body suddenly has loads of extra resources (usually spent supporting your weight, regulating temperature, and trying not to get speeding tickets), which it gets to focus on things like healing and resting. Without gravity pushing you down all the time, your spine lengthens an inch, chronic pain is relieved, and your muscles get to fully rest. Unlike lying on a mattress, lying in water allows blood to flow freely all throughout your body. There’s no need to readjust your position to get comfortable.

About 40 minutes into your float your brain shifts its normal Beta (normal waking consciousness) or Gamma (hyperactive consciousness) wave state into the calm, serene  Alpha and Theta wave states. These brain waves are responsible for that ‘between-waking-and-sleeping’ state, and you make them naturally every night before you conk out. While it only lasts for a few sparse moments in your bed, you can achieve a prolonged Theta state in the tank, a state of consciousness that is usually only seen in children and people who have spent years practicing meditation.

Even the magnesium-based Epsom salt we use in the pods is good. It softens and replenishes your skin, and help counteract the magnesium deficiency that most of us have due to depleted magnesium levels in our soil.

A single floatation session yields immediate benefits. The detrimental effects of stress on the body are dissipated: tense muscles relax, and the mind is able to let go and relax into a state of deep calm. These effects can last for days or weeks, and successive floatation sessions have cumulative effects.

Three aspects of floatation therapy make it such a powerful tool for healing and/or helping so many different, yet related factors in the body. 

1. Floating in a gravity free state allows your skeletal frame, including spine, to relieve pressure as well as move to its natural position unaffected by the normal strains of standing up right or lying on a traditional bed with multiple pressure points. This gravity free floating for an hour can give tremendous relief from suffers of lower back pain and other skeletal related pain.
   
2. Floating with no sound, light, or body sensations in a gravity free environment for an hour can be euphoric. With these three major senses not being stimulated by sensory input your body’s cortisol (main chemical component of stress) levels are lowered. Your brain slips from Alpha wave production to a Theta wave state usually not experienced except in deep sleep or deep meditation. The brain starts to produce elevated levels of dopamine and endorphins, the neurotransmitters of happiness. The effect of reaching this deeply restful state relieves stress, relaxes the body, and leaves the floater with a deep sense of rest and well being after leaving the Pod.  
3. The effects of Epsom Salt(magnesium sulfate) combined with the above two effects make it a grand slam. The magnesium available in the highly concentrated solution is absorbed through the skin by the body. Magnesium is known to be an integral part of over 325 enzymatic functions in the body. Magnesium is best known for its ability to get rid of muscle cramps, reduce swelling and soreness and speeding the healing processes for athletes with muscle injury. The sulfate (sulfur) component is absorbed and starts working to flush toxins, help form joint proteins, brain tissue and mucin proteins, helps prevent or ease migraine headaches, and improves the absorption of nutrients from the food we eat.