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"Floatation"

Arthritis News

Floatation involves lying in warm water in specially designed tanks or pools at health spas and natural health clinics. The high concentration of Epsom or Dead Sea Salts in the water buoys the body, allowing you to lie back and completely relax without fear of going under the water.

Those that go for floats regularly say that it is one of the most relaxing and stress-relieving experiences that they have ever had and that it is also a lot of fun. 'I recently went for my first floatation experience' says Kate Johnson. 'Someone was on hand to help me get in and out, but apart from that, I was left alone, which was blissful and really relaxing. The Dead Sea salt in the water held my body so that I could just lie back and relax. Initially I was a bit dubious, but my muscles lost their tensions and I floated away to another dimension.'

When you participate in a floatation session you are deprived of external stimuli and your brain doesn't need to work on keeping you vertical. This lets the activity levels in the brain drop, allowing you to enter deeper states of relaxation. Your body actually emulates the state you are in just before you drift off to sleep. Floating also stimulates the release of endorphins - the feel good chemicals in the brain. This decreases the perception of pain and improves the frame of mind. The only other activity that stimulates this chemical in the brain is exercise.

The medical benefits of floatation include, amongst other things, the lowering of blood pressure, pain reduction and improvement of stress-related conditions including digestive problems. Floatation is also particularly good for people with arthritis as floating in the water eliminates the gravity on the joints and actually improves the blood flow, improving the general condition of affected joints.

Complementary therapist, Sally Hill, undertook a study to evaluate the effects of floating in some people with arthritis: 'I first became aware of the therapeutic effects of floatation therapy for people with arthritis while I was running a therapy centre,' she says. 'Because the body is weightless in the water, movement is incredibly gentle allowing the exercising and stretching of joints and muscles to take place effortlessly. People with arthritis can experience a range of movements that they are unable to achieve on dry land, which has a positive effect on their cell tissue and overall self-esteem.'

You may need to have a few sessions before you really benefit from floatation, but it is worth sticking with it. Some people go as often as twice a week, others three times a year.
If you're not sure which relaxation techniques or therapies will suit you, give it a few weeks before you decide whether to carry on or not. It's all about getting to know your body and what it responds to best. Before you know it, you'll be so relaxed that you'll have forgotten what stress is, and you'll hopefully notice an improvement in your arthritis too

 

 

"Float Away”

Pregnancy and Birth Magazine

For real water babies, a flotation tank session is a pregnancy must. The tank is filled with water only 10 inches deep, but the high concentration of salt means that your whole body is suspended, giving you a feeling of weightlessness and soothing stress, aches and pains - great for pregnancy backs and feet. While you're floating your mind produces slow theta brainwaves, which make you thought patterns clearer and more creative, as well as endorphins - the hormones responsible for happiness.

OK. So the thought of being shut in a dark tank of water sounds a bit scary, but you cam open the door or switch the light on at any time: therapists say it's rare to feel claustrophobic. And the best news is that floating is safe throughout the whole nine months of pregnancy. Just imagine an hour to yourself, resting in warm water with gentle music soothing your senses and nothing to think about but you and your baby. Just lie back and enjoy…

 

Also from "Pregnancy and Birth Magazine"

FLOAT THERAPY

What is it?

Floating is spending an hour or so lying quietly in the dark. Suspended on a warm solution of Epsom salt that is about 10 inches deep and so dense that you float effortlessly. You come as close to weightlessness as you can.

I went to …

The London Float Centre when I was 22 weeks pregnant.

What happened?

I arrived for my float feeling tired, stressed and suffering from a bad back and indigestion. I left feeling relaxed, like I had had a really deep massage, a sauna and a good kip - and I had no backache or indigestion!
I was shown to a private room where I showered, and then in my own time went into the float room - not a tank as I'd expected.(Excellent if you're worried about feeling claustrophobic)
I switched off the light, lay down and began to float. For the first five minutes new age music is played. Which lulls you into a relaxed state.
It's impossible not to relax when you're floating. When I first got in I had wondered how I would manage an hour, and worried that I was too tense (I'm not the most relaxed person you'll ever meet). But floating makes you feel like time is standing still.
At 22 weeks pregnant I hadn't felt my baby move very much. But as I relaxed I became aware of every move. Strangely, all the time before and since the float I've been convinced I'm having a boy, but in my relaxed state I felt the baby might be a girl, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
The music came back on after what seemed like no time at all, bot was in fact 45 minutes. I just didn't want to get out!
Quirky or really rather sensible?
Really rather sensible. Floating is well worth the money, particularly when you are pregnant. It reduces blood pressure and heart rate, and it's great for backache. It's great if you've got a stressful job, too, as it gives you time to relax and bond with the baby.
Score:
10/10

 

"Floatation for Recovery and Visualization"

Muscle & Fitness Magazine

In effect, the tank experience can duplicate the mental focus achieved through self-hypnosis or other forms of meditation. In this state, a person can employ the visualization techniques valued throughout bodybuilding. You can imagine your physique as you would realistically like it to look so you'll have a clear goal to work toward. Picture yourself handling heavy poundages or mastering form in a particularly difficult isolation exercise. This subconscious input - mental practice - affects the mind the same as physical practice. The next time you try the poundage or movement, your mind signals nervous responses as you imagined them, helping you achieve your goal. In fact, sports-performance training and other forms of superlearning are proven benefits of flotation tanks.

Determined to add density to your physique, you blast every body part with maximum workout intensity. It leaves you tired, and now you worry about overtraining when you need to concentrate on heavy reps. Sometimes you wish you could just float off into space for a while to get your second wind. Now you can. Floating on your back in a warm saline solution, shut off from light and sound, you are freed of 90% of your usual sensory stimulation. You're suspended in a state of deep relaxation. Healing, even from chronic pain, proceeds at a most rapid pace. Worries or hang-ups can be brought into focus and confronted; stress can be breathed away. Visualization techniques, so successful among body-builders, are now easy to employ. You even have the potential to mentally practice athletic skills or engage in other forms of advanced learning.

 

The Experience of Floatation – Stress and Pain Relief

The following is reproduced from notes by the Swedish Research Council 05.11.2003

Relaxation in a flotation tank brings peace and quiet, increased well-being, and reduced pain.

A new dissertation shows that relaxation in a flotation tank can serve as an alternative form of treatment to reduce stress or relieve persistent pain, and it has no side-effects whatsoever.

In times like these, we are surrounded by stress and troubled by burn-out. Stress seems to retain its place as the greatest enemy to good health, well-being, and self-esteem. A major international field of research is now focusing on neurogenesis, that is, the generation of new nerve cells. This is against the background of our losing an estimated several thousand nerve cells per day. It has been known for the last few years that the formation of new nerve cells is constant. The latest findings about neurogenesis indicate that stress blocks the new formation of nerve cells and that relaxation, regular exercise, and an interesting environment increase and optimize the capacity for this. In most studies that have appeared, increased neurogenesis has been related to enhanced creative and intellectual performance.

To lie on your back and float in a tank filled with salt water induces extremely deep and pleasurable relaxation. It is dark and quiet in the tank, which enables maximum relaxation and well-being. To sink into deep relaxation, 45 minutes is a suitable length of time in the tank.

Patients with chronic muscle flexing pains in their neck who have been regularly treated with flotation-tank relaxation for three weeks experience a reduction in pain. After this treatment they also feel much happier and have less anxiety, alongside finding it easier to get to sleep at night. Blood samples taken before and after this period of treatment indicate that the count of stress-related hormones (MHPG) has declined. These studies have been carried out at the Human Performance Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Karlstad University.

People in pain are not the only ones who can benefit from floating in a tank. Anyone looking for an environment that can help reduce stress or lend a moment of pleasant relaxation will find this technique helpful. It has been shown that after treatment in the flotation tank, subjects experience greater creativity: the number of new and original thoughts increases after a session in the tank. It has also been experienced as beneficial to spend some time by oneself in peace and quiet, perhaps to think thoughts or experience feelings that are crowded out of stressful everyday consciousness. Many people experience that they attain a pleasant state between dreaming and waking or a state of daydreaming and fantasy.

Almost everyone who has tried floating in a tank thinks that it is pleasant and agreeable, and they want to do it again. Problems associated with the fear of feeling closed in are extremely slight. For those who might be concerned about this, there is the possibility of leaving a light on in the tank or of having the door to the tank remain partly or fully open during the session. The knowledge that you can get up and leave any time probably also helps create a feeling of security.

Taken altogether, this raises hopes that relaxation in a flotation tank can become an alternative form of treatment to reduce stress or alleviate chronic pain, with the help of a method that is safe and entirely without side-effects. If the flotation tank reduces stress, then this must have major consequences for the rejuvenation of nerve cells in those parts of the brain (hippocampus) that are primarily associated with health and intellectual capacity.

Author of dissertation:
Anette Kjellgren

Title of dissertation:
The experience of flotation–REST (Restricted environmental stimulation technique):Consciousness, subjective stress and pain.

Doctoral dissertation at Göteborg University 2003
Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Sweden.