Floatation Therapy is an effective and effortless way to enhance muscle and performance recovery throughout your training.
The Australian Institute of Sports has had their own float centre since 1983 and use floatation therapy extensively in their training and recovery of athletes.
You don’t have to be a top level athlete to enjoy the well documented benefits of floating, which include:
- Improved sleep quality – improving the ease with which you fall asleep and the quality of sleep you achieve
- Increased blood flow – improvement in circulation accelerates healing and recovery from workouts
- Pain relief – helps to quickly discharging lactic acid build up relieving fatigue and pain
- Reduced swelling – epsom salt helps reduce swelling in muscles and de-detoxifies the system
- Relaxed muscles – zero gravity helps the body heal faster by removing pressure from joints
- Lowered blood pressure – the calming effect of floating lowers blood pressure and cortisol levels releasing endorphins
How Float Therapy Helps in the Recovery Process
Top level athletes need any competitive edge they can get. Many use visualisation as a way to train their mind for an upcoming competition or to work through techniques they may be learning. The float tank is an optimal place to do this as it removes all external distractions. It provides an environment where true mental clarity can occur and athletes can focus their full attention on their performance goals.
Studies have shown floating helps reduce levels of lactic acid, pain and exercise induced cortisol; in turn stimulating the body’s self-healing ability. This is one of the primary reasons why athletes use floatation therapy for accelerated muscle recovery, especially after an injury or a demanding event.
Floating once provides an experience, the full benefits of floating are gleaned from a sustained float practice that’s incorporated into your well-being plan.
Over time floating helps to:
- lower chronic pain and lasting muscular tension
- release vast quantities of endorphins, the body’s natural painkiller
- increase your focus improve your physical performance
- strengthen your mind-muscle connection
In short, it optimises your recovery!
And it goes far beyond the float. Here’s how…
1. Better Sleep Quality
Floating further assists in the recovery process by helping you to fall asleep quickly and deeply. We all understand the importance of a good night’s sleep and how it impacts performance.
Floating assists individuals with:
- insomnia
- immune function
- body recuperation long after your float experience
- feeling a sense calmness, serenity and mental focus
2. Relieves Stress
In our fast paced, busy and noisy world, we turn to exercise as a proven stress reliever. However the gyms we go to are usually busy, hustling places with outcomes and goals to achieve – this can lead to stress in itself.
In addition to loosening your muscles and connective tissue, floating is an excellent solution for helping your mind cope with stress symptoms such as low energy levels, high blood pressure and even a negative mindset.
3. Relaxes Muscles
The Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) is a muscle relaxant and contains the building blocks for joints. Whilst floating your body will literally absorb the minerals in the water, which has a direct effect on the muscles you can feel immediately after the float.
Clients routinely report less tension and a sense of rejuvenation .
4. Enhances Clarity & Mental Focus
Regular floating sessions help create a more mindful, positive attitude in everyday life.
You will be able to feel the difference after a single session while other symptoms such as chronic fatigue and anxiety can be addressed more gradually over cumulative and consistent floats.
Dr Justin Feinstein, a Clinical Neuropsychologist, speaks on how floating lowers cortisol and calms the adrenal system in his study on the anxiety relieving and antidepressant effects of floatation.
By freeing our brain and musculoskeletal system from gravity, floating liberates large areas of the brain, allowing it to deal with matters of the mind and enhancing awareness of internal states.
How Floating Works
Enveloped in darkness you will float nude in a pod that is serene and soundproof. Seeing, hearing and feeling nothing, including the water you’re immersed in.
The 600kgs of Epsom Salts dissolved in 30cms of water inside the pod makes you effortlessly buoyant, thus creating a zero-gravity environment that allows you to melt into the water while being completely supported by it.
Floating is a safe way for those who are training, to recover from their tough workouts and will have them fighting fit for their next round, pain free.
Combined with an eating and exercise plan, floating will help to ensure that your muscular, nervous and adrenal systems perform optimally.
Floating can be used as part of your regular training program, in preparation for a specific event or for accelerated recovery after an intense sporting event.
It’s part and parcel of your training program.
Floating enables you to train more often and more intensely whilst facilitating natural rehabilitation and recovery.