If there’s a silver lining to living under quarantine (apart from all the treats our stress baking may have produced), it’s our new understanding of the value of wellness.
Staying inside and isolating from others can exacerbate existing mental health conditions and induce feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and boredom. But because of these increased risks, people around the world are realizing how essential it is to invest time in their emotional, psychological, and personal wellbeing. From establishing a daily routine, to meditating more regularly, eating better, and starting a journaling practice, living under quarantine has encouraged us to look inward and recognize the importance of self-care.
The key now, of course, is to maintain our new wellness practices as we gradually begin to reopen public society and transition back to some semblance of our old lives. As our schedules begin to fill up again, prioritizing ourselves will become more difficult, yet even more necessary.
While you work on establishing your own wellness routine, know that you can enjoy a variety of physical, emotional, and personal benefits if you maintain a regular floatation therapy practice. As enlightening as a single float can be, float therapy is so much more than just a cool one-time experience. It’s a practice, and the more you practice, the more improvements you’ll see in your daily life.
Here are just five of the many benefits you can enjoy by making float therapy a staple of your wellness routine:
Stress Less
Float therapy is relaxing — and not just because entering a state of sensory tranquility for an hour inherently calms you down. There are several scientific explanations for this effect. For one, floatation-REST decreases cortisol (i.e., the stress hormone) levels while stimulating dopamine (i.e., the happiness hormone) production, a combination that reduces symptoms of stress and burnout.
Additionally, floating has been shown to activate the body’s parasympathetic nervous system. This is the body’s natural mechanism for healing, growth, and revitalization, and it works its magic when the rest of your body enters a state of deep relaxation. If the sympathetic nervous system represents “fight or flight,” the parasympathetic nervous system represents “rest and digest.” Inducing this state can do wonders for your physical and mental health, as it’s been shown to reduce stress, muscle tension, chronic pain, and depression.
Finally, float therapy helps to facilitate what’s called a theta state, a period of reduced electrical activity in the brain that results in a rhythmic, meditative mode of consciousness. As with meditation, the more often you practice floating, the more easily you’ll be able to slip into this dream-like state, and the more effectively you’ll be able to harness it to improve your sense of serenity and self-awareness.
Sleep Better
When it comes to maintaining a healthy, wellness-focused lifestyle, good sleep is just as important as eating a varied diet and exercising regularly. Whether you’re looking to enhance your concentration, lower your risk for heart disease, or improve your mental health, developing a regular sleep schedule is an essential first step.
Unfortunately, because we often prioritize productivity over personal wellness, sleep is often sacrificed in favor of longer work hours. This is despite the fact that better sleep has been linked to increased productivity. If you truly want to make the most of your waking hours, you need to invest time and effort into maintaining a healthy and consistent sleep schedule. One easy way to do this is through regular float therapy sessions. The deep relaxation achieved during floatation-REST has been shown to help regulate your sleep schedule and improve the quality of your sleep.
Prioritize Mental Health
Wellness means something different to everyone, but a core tenet of the concept itself is engagement with your mental health. In order to pursue a healthy and intentional lifestyle, it’s essential that you prioritize your mental wellbeing.
Fortunately, regular floating has been shown time and time again to do wonders for mental health. A single one-hour session in a float tank, for instance, can cause a significant reduction in anxiety and an improvement in mood in individuals with stress- or anxiety-related illnesses. One study found that people with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) experience reduced symptoms of depression, fatigue, insomnia, and irritability. Additionally, many veterans find relief from their PTSD through floatation-REST.
Whether or not you live with a diagnosed mental illness, float therapy’s ability to reduce stress, improve focus, increase optimism, and enhance creativity will help you to develop a more holistic approach to your mental wellness practice.
Promote Beauty and Self-Care
We’re often taught that beauty is only skin deep. While it’s true that your physical appearance has no relation to your inner character, and that trying to hold yourself to unrealistic beauty standards can be unhealthy and even dangerous, there’s also nothing wrong with developing practices that make you feel beautiful. Self-care is about maintaining a healthy relationship with yourself. So, as long as you’re not placing too high a value on your external image, it’s okay to invest in things like manicures or body lotions — products and practices that help you look good and feel good while boosting your self-esteem.
Floating on a regular basis is an effective way to enhance your self-care routine, as the act of floating in our Epsom salt solution offers wondrous physical advantages. Epsom salt, or magnesium sulfate, provides floaters with magnesium, adequate levels of which can exfoliate your skin and add volume to your hair. So, while you’ll exit each float session feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, you’ll also walk away confident that you are radiating both internal and external beauty.
Create Lasting Change
At the end of the day, the goal of a wellness routine is not to feel good for a little bit, but to develop healthy habits and create meaningful improvements in the way you live your life. This is exactly why float therapy makes such an impactful addition to any wellness routine. In addition to the benefits we’ve covered so far, floating will have lasting positive effects on your life if you carve out the time to do it on a regular basis.
Because you’ll be feeling less stressed, better rested, and more confident, you’ll be better equipped to deal with the hardships life throws your way. You’ll develop stronger, more meaningful connections with your friends, family, and co-workers. You’ll worry less about the future and live intentionally in the present. You’ll curtail your bad habits and develop healthy ones.
Adding regular floatation to your wellness routine is a simple and effective way to take a step back, soothe your mind and soul, and emerge renewed. Give yourself a gift, and book your next float today.
