It happens to almost all of us whether we are stay-at-home parents, college students, or executives. What are we talking about? The answer is simple - stress! We want to relax and get some much needed rejuvenation. But, it just doesn’t seem to happen no matter how hard we try.
For most people, getting to a point of deep relaxation is difficult. While wellness activities like yoga and meditation can be instrumental in the quest for balance and rejuvenation, they come with certain limits that make it challenging to get outside of ourselves. For people wanting to go deeper, sensory deprivation using a float tank in a secure, monitored environment is the game-changer. Recent studies on the physical, mental, emotional and cognitive benefits of floating are proving that this experience has the power to help people generate lasting changes in the mind and body that lead to whole body rejuvenation. Here’s more about the deprivation tank benefits.
How Floating Can Be Therapeutic for Anyone
Using a float tank is as close as most people will ever get to experience what it's like to drift like celestial bodies in space. The experience of entering a great nothing while in a sensory deprivation tank allows people to truly empty their minds.
What Are Deprivation Tank Benefits?
Here are just a few of the deprivation tank benefits:
- Reducing muscle tension. Want to soothe sore muscles? Float therapy is a great way to do just that. The practice is frequently used by professional athletes like Tom Brady to help relieve muscle tension.
- Reducing pain - Floating has been found to be extremely beneficial for people with pain issues.
- Decreasing anxiety and depression - One 2018 study found that spending just one hour in a sensory deprivation floatation tank helped reduce anxiety significantly. Participants reported a significant increase in happiness and relaxation.
- Decreasing stress - People report that nothing else works as well as floating in reducing stress, not massages, meditation or other activities. Floating helps you to achieve a whole new level of relaxation. That is because it helps clear your mind of those thoughts that worry you.
- Aiding with better sleep - Better sleep is just one more benefit of floatation therapy. Studies have found that it helps improve sleep quality for people who have insomnia.
A study published in 2014 on the beneficial effects of treatment with sensory isolation via flotation tank found that participants saw significant decreases in pain, stress, depression and anxiety. Participants also experienced increased optimism and sleep quality. People aren't just utilizing float tanks to support physical and mental health. Floating can also boost creativity and performance! According to a 2014 study, floating enhances intuition, creativity, originality and imagination. Additionally, research released in 2018 demonstrates that the cognitive benefits of floating help people to improve learning and performance with help from clearer, more precise post-float thinking.
Bringing the Joy of the Floating to Your Life
The good news is that sensory deprivation can be beneficial for anyone who experiences daily stress, which would be all of us! People are healing their bodies, opening their minds and going to places of awareness that simply can't be reached on "dry land" using flat tanks! The antidepressant effect of sensory isolation is helping many people to have beautiful breakthroughs through an experience that allows them to travel beyond the boundaries of what they already know. Floating is something that all seekers wanting to go deeper into the mind-body connection must try!
