Floatation Therapy: What to Expect When You Float

About 30 minutes into my 60-minute session, I was so relaxed I couldn’t tell if I was still breathing. Every once in a while, I’d have to remind myself that I had a body. Seriously.

I’m an eager guinea pig. When it comes to wellness-related stuff, I’ll try anything. If a friend swears by it, I’m in. I always learn something – even if it it’s “ummm … this is not for me.”

(My timing can be a little off, though. Case in point: trying a neti pot for the first time on my honeymoon.)

So when my sister told me how much she loved floatation therapy, I decided to try it. I had no idea there are so many float tank centers out there! I chose one nearby, a full-service spa where I could get a microdermabrasion facial after my float. (I should have scheduled the facial after the float – I’ll explain why in a minute.)

So if you’re curious about floatation therapy, here’s what to expect. You’ll spend 30 to 60 minutes submerged up to your chin (with your ears under water) in a tank of salt water that’s exactly 98.6 degrees (the same temperature of your body). It’ll be totally dark and totally quiet (unless you decide to have gentle music piped in). The idea is to drastically reduce environmental stimulation: temperature, touch, sight, sound – even gravity.
 

MENTAL BENEFITS

My Float.

About 30 minutes into my 60-minute session, I was so relaxed I couldn’t tell if I was still breathing. Every once in a while, I’d have to remind myself that I had a body. Seriously. You know that deep, heavy, effortless relaxation that you drift into right before you fall asleep? It was like that – only I never fell asleep. I hovered in that semi-conscious, in-between space. It was delicious.

That much said, the first 30 minutes were rough. I’m not claustrophobic, but I panicked when the lid came down over me. I felt like I was being buried alive. I’m not afraid of the dark, but the darkness spooked me. I kept opening and closing my eyes in the darkness. I love being in water, but at first I was flailing. The warm salt water was pleasant, but I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the water began. I know that’s the whole idea, but it freaked me out. I couldn’t get comfortable. My neck ached. My breathing was shallow and fast. I was a mess!

The key was surrender. I reminded myself to breathe. I slowed down my breath with simple pranayama, deepening each exhale. After a while, I calmed down. Slowly, slowly, I began to feel the weightlessness that float addicts rave about … it truly was a blissful out-of-body experience.

The Science.

Float tanks screen out nearly all external stimuli, giving your nervous system a break. It’s estimated that 90% of your brain function is spent dealing with environmental stimuli: everything you see, smell, taste, touch, and hear … all that stuff that’s busying your brain without you even knowing it. Studies have shown that when sensory stimuli is removed, your senses have less to process, and your mind is free to relax in a deep state of calm. It’s a powerful setting for meditation.

Here’s where it gets interesting: when the brain is deprived of external stimuli, sometimes it creates its own. This can result in the often-reported hallucinatory effects of floatation therapy. Some people report light dancing behind their eyelids; others hear a ringing in their ears or even music.
 

PHYSICAL BENEFITS

My Float.

When I got out of the tank, I felt like an alien taking her first steps on Earth. All those sensations that had been quieted were now very loud. The dim lights in the room were glowing magically. The sound of the water sloshing in the tank was tinkling in my ears. The firm pressure of the floor beneath my feet was like a massage. As I dried off with a super-soft sheet, my skin prickled and tingled and my muscles came back awake with fresh exuberance. It astonished me. I wondered how long this high would last.

Turns out, it lasted right up until the microdermabrasion started. It was a great facial, but I was literally gritting my teeth the whole time. With all my senses on fire, the “sanding” of my skin was almost excruciating. By the time I checked out and got back on my bicycle, that blissful otherworldly feeling I had when I rose from the tank was completely gone.

The Science.

Some argue that deep muscle relaxation and other physical sensations experienced in floatation therapy is due not to the tank or the sensory deprivation but to the magnesium salt solution of the water. (Think of the way an Epsom salt bath soothes aching muscles, and then multiply that times 10.)

As a holistic health treatment, athletes and people with minor physical injuries use floatation therapy to speed up the healing process and promote tissue regeneration. There’s also evidence that transdermal magnesium absorption promotes detoxification, stimulates hydration, relieves joint pain, and improves respiration.
 

THE VERDICT

Yay or Nay?

YAY! Floating was intense – more so than I thought it would be. It was an exploratory experience. I plan to try it again – my sense is that you need to try several floats before you know if it’s for you.

Tips & Tricks.

Follow your breath to calm yourself as soon as you get in the water. Use slow, deep breaths – especially on the exhale – to ease out of any mental anxiety or physical discomfort. And don’t schedule anything after your float – give yourself plenty of peaceful, uninterrupted, sensory-soft time to enjoy the effects.

This article originally appeared on booksforbetterliving.com and was written by KIRA ROARK. 

Float Therapy For Fibromyalgia Can Help Relieve Pain And Stress

Fibromyalgia is a pain condition that affects between 2 and 10% of the population in the U.S. It generally affects more women than men at a ratio of 9:1. One way to treat not only the fibromyalgia pain, but also the stress and anxiety that may accompany it is trying float tanks for fibromyalgia.

How do float tanks for fibromyalgia work?

Flotation REST (reduced environmental stimuli therapy) was developed in the 1950s by John C. Lilly, M.D. It uses a water-filled tank that is approximately the size of a bed and heated to skin temperature. The water is saturated with Epsom salts so that the patient can float without any effort.

Patients remove their clothes, enter the tank, turn off the lights, and relax. The idea is that this sensation of zero stimuli will help a person focus inward, eliminating distractions and calming the mind and body.

The Fibromyalgia Floatation Project (FFP) believes that spending an hour in a float tank will help sufferers reduce pain significantly. The project selected fibromyalgia as the condition for their case studies because the symptoms of fibromyalgia match the potential benefits of REST.

Benefits of float tanks for fibromyalgia

The benefits of float tanks for fibromyalgia have been studied for several decades. They have been shown to include the following.

Relief of stress

Thomas H. Fine, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry of the Medical College of Ohio and Roderick A. Borrie, a clinical psychologist at South Oaks Hospital in Amityville, New York, co-authored a seminal article examining the clinical effects of REST on the stress response.

They identified blood pressure, cortisol production, and muscle activity as key indicators of stress in the body. Their findings indicated that cortisol production decreased during floatation REST sessions and that:

“[There exists] the possibility of a resetting of the regulatory mechanism of cortisol across sessions.  Furthermore, cortisol, which has received more attention than the other hormones [in its role as an indicator of stress], and blood pressure, have been shown to maintain the REST effect after cessation of repeated REST sessions (Turner & Fine, 1983). This phenomenon suggests that the REST effect may be more than a simple, immediately reversible response.”

Alleviation of depression and anxiety

Float tanks for fibromyalgia have been shown to alleviate depression and anxiety with the mood elevation effects of deep relaxation. Fine and Borrie found that the effects were most pronounced when flotation REST was utilized in conjunction with other forms of counseling.

They caution, however, that severely depressed patients may need close monitoring due to the sometimes obsessive nature of thinking that can occur in the flotation tank.

Promotion of better, more restful sleep

Relaxation alone equals better, more restful sleep, and the deep relaxation of float tanks for fibromyalgia can help. Many fibromyalgia patients also suffer from restless leg syndrome, so getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult.

Since fatigue can exacerbate symptoms of fibromyalgia, the sleep-promoting deep relaxation can be a vital benefit of flotation REST.

Pain relief

Perhaps one of the most important benefits of float tanks for fibromyalgia is relief from pain. Fine and Borrie noted that:

“Flotation REST can have an important role at several stages of the pain management process. By reducing both muscle tension and pain in a relatively short time and without effort on the part of the patient, flotation provides a dramatic demonstration of the benefits of relaxation. Relief is immediate and, although temporary, offers promise of further relief from REST and other relaxation-based strategies.”

Many patients who have dealt with fibromyalgia for a long period of time give up hope for new treatments. When they realize that float tanks can help manage pain, their mental outlook may change and they may be more confident in their treatment plan.

Relief of muscle tightness

The stiffness and muscle tightness of fibromyalgia can be addressed by float tanks. A small 2012 study found that pain due to tightness of muscles was decreased significantly after just three sessions in the float tanks.

The pain-relieving effects lasted for a significant period after the treatment, which also helped to alleviate mood and make the study participants more hopeful. This increased optimism translates into better opportunities for successful treatment all around.

Corrects magnesium deficiency

Magnesium is essential to over 300 functions in the body, but people in the U.S. are chronically lacking in this important mineral. Transdermal supplementation of magnesium is the most effective delivery system. Fibromyalgia sufferers may have a magnesium deficiency that actually causes or contributes to their pain.

The magnesium solution in fibromyalgia float tanks can be absorbed through the skin. This helps to alleviate that deficiency without taking additional supplements. This can be a benefit to patients who have difficulty taking pills or who simply don’t want to take anything else.

Performance improvements

While not directly related to fibromyalgia, float tanks can also have some performance benefits.

Researchers Oshin Vartanian of the University of Toronto and Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia found that musicians who floated in the tank for one hour per week for four weeks showed better technical ability at the end of the research. The researchers compared two-minute recordings before and after from the study participants and the control group. They found “a significant difference between the treatment and comparison groups on technical ability, but not on any other dimension.”

When float tanks are combined with positive imagery, athletic performance also improved without any other adjustments to amount or duration of practice. Simply floating in the tank and allowing the body and mind to fully relax seems to be what athletes need to recharge and regroup.

Float tank testimonials from fibromyalgia patients

The Fibromyalgia Flotation Project was designed for patients and interested medical professionals to test the efficacy of flotation REST treatments for fibromyalgia specifically. Two patients in particular are highlighted on their website.

Tina suffered from pain and bruising as a lasting reminder of a car accident in 1998 but couldn’t figure out why she was still in so much pain. Doctors attempted to control her pain with prescription opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), with disastrous results. After nearly overdosing, she finally tried flotation REST while visiting friends.

Tina describes her first experience in the tank like this:

“[It was] like stepping into a warmth that was hard to describe. I felt held, secure, safe, enveloped and surrounded by this wonderful water that was so good to feel against my painful body. I had immediate pain relief and no breakthrough pain for 17 hours after my first float.”

After seven floats, Tina puts her pain level at just 10% of what it used to be.

Float tanks improve overall quality of life

Brigitta’s fibromyalgia was not traced to any one particular incident, but the pain and dizziness made it difficult for her to really function effectively. She was unable to take pain medications because of their side effects, so she utilized acupuncture, warm baths, and exercise.

She was recruited by the Fibromyalgia Flotation Project at 70 years old and had this to say about the results:

“Flotation has made my life considerably better. I feel that it’s easier for me to take each day as it comes, which means that life gets easier. I feel much more positive and happy, and many of my friends confirm that.”

Frequently asked questions about float tanks

For first-time floaters, float tanks may be intimidating. The space is enclosed, and the act of floating is a foreign one. Some frequently asked questions about float tanks for fibromyalgia include the following.

What should I expect during my session?

People who utilize float tanks are often referred to as “floaters.” Floaters shower before entering the tank, either floating unclothed or in a bathing suit. Float sessions can last anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes.

First-time floaters may need some time to adjust to the environment of the tank, so a session of at least one hour is recommended.

Are fibromyalgia float tanks hygienic?

The water in the float tanks is saturated with magnesium sulfate nearly to the point of crystallization, just like the Dead Sea. And, just like the Dead Sea, this is not an environment in which bacteria can live.

In addition, float tanks come with a filter system that automatically filters the water after each session. Finally, floaters are asked to shower before they enter the tank, further minimizing the amount of bacteria or dirt they introduce to the tank.

Is there anyone who shouldn’t float?

Because a float tank is small and enclosed, floating may be difficult for people with claustrophobia. There are float tanks that have small windows that may help with this, but for some that might not be enough room. Those who suffer from anxiety may also find the initial sessions difficult.

How many sessions are required?

There is no perfect number of sessions, but for first-time floaters it is best to schedule a series. The sensations experienced in the tank (e.g., deep relaxation, minimal sensory input, weightlessness) may be strange and take some getting used to.
 

Reset Wellness recommends starting with a series of three, offering a reduced price for first-time floaters. Ultimately it is up to the floater to decide what works best for them.


This article originally appeared on paindoctor.com

Sleeping Around: How to Sleep in a Sensory Deprivation Tank

“Sleeping Around” is a recurring blog post series where Dr. Winter, a sleep specialist, goes beyond the typical questions about healthy sleep and seeks out the most unique sleep circumstances to offer his assistance in how to tackle them. Even if your problems are not as extreme, hopefully the experience can help shed some light on your own sleep difficulties.

In 1953, neuroscientist John Lilly constructed the first sensory deprivation tank. This vessel was devised as a way to study the brain’s response to limited sensory input. The tank immersed the user into a totally dark and silent environment in which sound and vision as well as other sensory inputs were virtually eliminated. The theory at the time was if all sensory inputs were cut off to the brain, the brain would reflexively go to sleep. Lilly, a self-described “psychonaut”, used the tank to study these and other kinds of theories. Today, the study of sensory deprivation, or Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (R.E.S.T.), has led to a more widespread use of these techniques to promote health and well-being.

Being the somnonaut that I am, I have always been interested in trying to sleep in a R.E.S.T tank. While I was never convinced that I would emerge from the experience transformed into a short, hairy primitive being as in the 1980 William Hurt movie Altered States, I have always believed that the experience could be transformative.

Float tanks have been around. As someone who deals with professional sports teams, they have been used sporadically by both college and professional teams since the early 1980’s. Recently, members of both the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks utilized float tanks with their athletes. Their use has seen resurgence in popularity owning to their proclaimed abilities to promote relaxation, physical recovery, and pain relief.

Sign me up.

Every somnonaut needs a mission control, and AquaFloat in Charlottesville, VA filled that role perfectly. Owner and float expert Ted O’Neill met me at the facility the night of my experiment. I chose the 10 p.m. slot as I thought my chances of sleeping would be best. Slots were two hours long, but Ted does not like to interrupt a good float if nobody is signed up behind the floater.

Ted was clearly excited to be a part of yet another maiden voyage. He was enthusiastic, but calm and professional. As a pharmacist who stumbled upon floating by chance, Ted’s life was forever changed by the encounter. Put it this way: If Ted owned a corn farm, he would have plowed it up to build a baseball field. The facility was gorgeous. I expected a Spartan warehouse with industrial tanks scattered about. The aesthetics featured gentle sweeping architectural curves and local artists’ sculptural interpretations of floating. I can definitely sleep here.

After surveying the lounge, he led me to the various tanks, explaining their strengths and drawbacks. He was also careful to demonstrate the filtration systems servicing the tanks (as if something could live in an environment that is 25 percent Epsom salt!) That salt produces the magical buoyancy not unlike what you might see when tourists swim in the Great Salt Lake. “You are not going to sink,” Ted said. “When you get into the tank, I want you to fully relax your head and neck. Release those muscles completely.”

Time to get into the tank.

The tank had quiet lighting that was slowly changing color. “The light can be left on or turned off. “ He strongly recommended dark. Likewise, the hood of the tank can be left open or closed. He suggested leaving the hood open slightly if I started to feel to warm during the float. The room was dark enough that cracking the hood open a bit would not make a difference in terms of light.

“Do I wear a swimsuit?” I asked, shorts in hand.

He shook his head. “Naked. It’s the only way.”

It was time.

After a quick shower, I ventured into the tank. The temperature was perfect. Not hot, not cool. Perfectly comfortable. It was so on point that the water almost disappeared.

As I lay back, I floated effortlessly. I stretched my head backwards to the point of my eyes almost being in the water, and then let gravity slowly relax me to a neutral position. This is so easy. I loved it immediately.

With the hood down, it was time to cut the light. Immediately I was swallowed by a dense darkness. Floating there, I became aware of my first obstacle. What in the world am I supposed to do with my arms? Initially I had them down by my sides, but found that they kept floating around like pieces of driftwood. As my thumbs bumped into my legs, the floating experience was diminished. I quickly assumed the “robbery-hands-over-my-head” position and found it to be much more pleasant.

Within minutes of my positional decision and a quick mental toe to scalp muscle survey, I was floating...REALLY floating, and to borrow a phrase from Bowie, “in a most peculiar way.” Unusual experiences quickly followed. My first was an intense sensation of being pulled upward. Imagine a cord being attached to your abdomen at a point where you would be perfectly horizontally balanced. Now imagine that cord being rapidly pulled upward. The experience reminded me of the unknowing sleeper being pulled up into the UFO from the comfort of his bed. Maybe that sensation underlies the feeling people have recounting UFO abductions? What accounts for the subsequent sensation of being probed, I have no idea.

As the feeling of upward motion continued, I started to feel as if I was moving within an infinite space. An individual preparing to float for the first time might be anxious about claustrophobia. My sensation was exactly the opposite. I felt a sensation of endless space around me, like the drifting disconnected astronaut in 2001 as he floats silently away from the spaceship and HAL.

As I worked to adjust to sensations I frankly was not prepared for, I began to focus on my task at hand: sleeping. Sleeping is not typically the goal during the actual float. That said, many people who regularly float report significant sleep improvements after the float. I worked to clear my mind, although I was instructed to simply let my thoughts flow and perhaps try watching them from afar. As I became more accustomed to the physical nothingness I was within, the state began to seep into my brain. I was relaxed and at times felt nothing.

Suddenly soft colored lights came on. My first emotion was annoyance. Can somebody here not figure out how to set a two hour timer? As I reached for a towel hanging to my right so I could wipe some water off of my face, I became aware of how laborious it was to perform a simple movement. It felt awful. My body did not want to engage the muscles of my arm and back and was pointedly letting me know. Pushing through the resistance, I reached for the non-existent towel. In the soft purple light, I searched for it (without my glasses) and found nothing. Had it fallen in the water? In my search I found the towel hanging to my left. I grabbed it, and tried to push the lid of the pod open to exit the tank so I could find Ted and tell him to fix the timer. At that point I realized I was sitting backwards in the tank. The hatch was behind me.

I had turned 180 degrees in the tank.

I gracelessly turned my body around which had the coordination of a wobbly toddler, opened the hatch and stepped out. “I hate being upright,” my brain whispered to me in a bitchy voice as I looked for my watch.

12:15am. What?

As I showered and dressed, thoughts were racing as my body once again reassumed the burden of gravity similar to Atlas being tricked into bearing the weight of the world again by Hercules. Walking out into the lounge for tea, Ted was ready to listen and explain. Everything I mentioned he accepted with a knowing curiosity. He’s heard these stories before.

Did I sleep? Under no circumstances do I feel like I slept in the tank. However, it was very clear that I lost tremendous chunks of time in the tank. It did not feel like two hours. As a sleep specialist, one phenomenon that never ceases to amaze me is how much individuals with sleep problems can radically underestimate how much they are sleeping at night. People who sleep hours at night can truly feel that they are awake and conscious for the entire duration of their slumber period. It is not a fun way to spend a night. This twilight sleep (now called paradoxical insomnia) is a common issue among my patients.

“Promise me you’ll come back. You’ve just scratched the surface. It gets much better.” I felt the effects of the session for days. Even my wife said I looked different when I came home that night. I felt like a cooked noodle. While I have not returned as of writing this article, I think it’s only a matter of time before the weight of my clinical practice, raising three kids, flying around the country trying to help athletes sleep better lead me to dash out the door for a float. I can almost hear my wife calling after me, “Don’t you need a swimsuit?”

“Nope. Naked is the only way!”

This article originally appeared on Huffington Post and was written by Dr. Christopher Winter

How Floating is Treating Anxiety

They started late one night, the tremors that shook Michael Harding’s whole body when he lay down to sleep. “A bit weird,” thought Harding, then a 23-year-old Australian soldier stationed in Afghanistan. Just days before, he’d been in an hours-long siege in which his second-in-command was shot and killed.

Harding soon started shaking so much that he had to ask a friend to light his cigarettes. He couldn’t drink water from a bottle without pouring it down his shirt, and in the mess hall, his twitches got so spastic that he’d sometimes flip his tray.

He was medically discharged from the army in 2012 with severe PTSD and left with a new personality: withdrawn and unemotional. His sleep suffered, too. He had nightmares and night sweats.

To handle his worsening symptoms, Harding tried two kinds of talk therapy, four kinds of medication, and large nightly doses of scotch and Coke. When each of those failed, he turned to yoga, juicing, meditation and medicinal pot. That helped a little, but Harding’s anxiety and muscle spasms still hadn’t abated.

Around that time, his wife did what any desperate person would: she started poking around in online forums for something else that may help with his PTSD. She found glowing testimonials for floating, the practice of lying belly-up in a tank filled with warm water so salty you float.

– At the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, OK, Feinstein uses a NeuroVerse brainstation EEG device to measure brain waves, wirelessly –

“To me, it seemed like a sham,” Harding says. But in March last year, he decided to try it anyway. He fell asleep in the tank, he says, and woke up an hour later feeling refreshed. By three floats, Harding says his anxiety and hyper-vigilance had subsided. By three months of floating, so had his night sweats. “After floating, I was really mellowed out,” he says. “I’m not really sure how it does it, but I do know that floating has allowed me to feel in a more confident, comfortable headspace.”

While floating has always had fans in the wellness world, it’s undeniably grown in popularity. In 2011, there were 85 float centers in the United States, according to Aaron Thompson, who runs an online directory of flotation centers, and now there are more than 250. Floating has also attracted the interest of a small group of scientists who are trying to figure out if it has a place as a kind of therapy for some kinds of distress, including PTSD. Any proof that this helps people with stress disorders is anecdotal at this point, but something special appears to happen in brain while the body floats. Now, some scientists, like the neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein, are trying to find out what.

Feinstein believes so deeply in the therapeutic potential of floating that he built his whole career, and laboratory, around trying to prove it. This year he opened the only float lab in the country: the Float Clinic and Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Inside, you won’t find the claustrophobic coffin-like pods that make up most of the float tank market. His custom-made float pool has no enclosure, ensuring that people with anxiety disorders won’t be afraid to get in.

Then you open the door to the float room, you’re hit with warm air heated to the temperature of your skin. In the middle is a small, circular pool the size of a hot tub filled with 2,000 pounds of Epsom salt. Sit down, and you’ll bob like a buoy; lie back, and you’ll float without tensing a muscle. Press a button on the side of the tank, and the blue lights fade off into black.

You can’t see anything while you float. But what Feinstein can see going on in your brain is astounding.

In his research, he has floaters stick small waterproof sensors and an EEG device on their forehead to measure their brain waves, wirelessly. Down the hall is an MRI machine that people enter after they float.

Feinstein and his team are more than halfway through the first experiment ever to combine fMRI brain imaging and float tanks. They’re scanning the brains of healthy people before and after they float, and by comparing the two images, they’ll see how floating changes areas of activation in the brain.

Recent advances in neuroscience have allowed scientists to look inside the human brain during practices like meditation and see how brain activity changes. Research from fMRI studies show that meditating activates parts of the brain associated with attention and decreases activation in the amygdala, the part of the brain that kicks off the fight-or-flight response to a real or perceived threat—though the changes are more pronounced in expert meditators than beginners. Plenty of other research demonstrates the benefits of the practice, and its acceptance by the medical establishment has followed. The stance of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is that research supports meditation for lowering blood pressure, easing symptoms of anxiety and depression and more, and the agency funds research on the topic.

NIH has yet, however, to provide funding for the investigation of flotation. Feinstein believes floating could be a shortcut for many people to reach a meditative state, and reap some of its proven benefits. “Floating has given me hope that a whole chunk of our population that normally would never be able to meditate could now achieve those sorts of deep meditative states,” Feinstein says.

The ongoing research is in its very early stages, but Feinstein and his team are seeing that floating tamps down anxiety in the brain in a way that rivals some prescription drugs and meditation. Back in 2005, Feinstein and his colleagues wondered what happened to the brain when a person took lorazepam, a drug sold under the brand name Ativan. It’s highly effective at reducing anxiety, but it can also be addictive.

They tested the drug on healthy volunteers, and neither the researchers nor the participants knew who was given lorazepam or a placebo. But the differences in their brains were unmistakable. On lorazepam, Feinstein says, the amygdala—where the fight-or-flight stress response originates—“basically shuts off,” which doesn’t happen with relaxation alone.
Now, a decade later, his current study replicates the lorazepam experiment using flotation instead of drugs. He scanned everyone’s brain before the experiment started, and then split his group of volunteers in half. Both groups got what they believed to be the intervention: either a 90-minute float or the same amount of time in a relaxing reclining chair. He gave everyone two sessions to let the novelty of the interventions die down, and then scanned their brain after the third session.

“Essentially what we found in the preliminary data is that the amygdala is shutting off post-float,” Feinstein says. “It’s nice to see that that can be done in a way that doesn’t require medication.”

Of course, for the scientific community to embrace floating, reproducible results—and many more studies—are needed.

Feinstein isn’t the first scientist to be fascinated by floating. Isolation tanks were invented and developed by scientists in the 1950s. But the widely credited founder, neuroscientist John C. Lilly, was “kind of a wackadoodle,” as Feinstein puts it, making the potential of the science harder to take seriously.

The 1980 Hollywood movie Altered States, inspired by Lilly’s life, didn’t help. In it, a scientist experiments with drugs and sensory deprivation tanks, eventually going mad. It was an instant cult classic—and a huge pain for research. Thomas H. Fine, who started researching flotation in the ’70s, says that when he would submit an experiment for funding, he remembers the typical response he’d receive: “This is a hippie fad.”

Through the ’90s, Fine, who now does PTSD research at the University of Toledo College of Medicine, published studies on floating, including one where subjects were given eight 40-minute float sessions. After drawing their blood throughout the intervention, he found a 22% drop in their levels of the stress-signaling hormone cortisol.
Though it’s almost exclusively in small sample sizes, research from Fine and others has shown improvements in blood pressure, mood, pain, muscle tension and stress-related hormones from floating.

“I think floating has a strong role in good therapy for a number of disorders that we really struggle with in terms of effective therapies,” Fine says.
One of the only studies that suggests people with anxiety could gain therapeutic benefits from floating was published in 2006 in the International Journal of Stress Management. It found for a group of 70 people with stress-related pain, 12 float sessions reduced pain, stress, anxiety and depression while improving sleep and optimism. Those positive effects stuck around four months after treatment stopped.

Next year, Feinstein says he’ll repeat his current experiment with pre-float and post-float brain scans in people with PTSD. “Our expectation is that all these effects would be heightened in a population with clinical anxiety,” he says.

There’s a lot more to study, and in the future Feinstein wants to research how long the mellowing effects last after a float and how the brain changes over a sustained practice, when you float, say, a dozen times a month. But in spite of the research gaps Feinstein is trying to fill, the pricy practice of floating continues to gain disciples. An hour-long spa session will set you back anywhere from about $50-$100.

But to true floating devotees, like Michael Harding, it’s worth it. Harding bought a secondhand tank six months after his first float, installed it downstairs in his home and now floats every week for two or more hours at a time.

He’s tried to convince his army buddies with pain—both physical and mental—to hop in his tank. But so far, despite proof of Harding’s improvement, only one has taken him up on it.

This article originally appeared on time.com and was written by Mandy Oaklander