How floating naked may offer relief from pain, stress

How floating naked may offer relief from pain, stress

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By Lindsay Carlton Published April 14, 2016

Forty-eight-year-old Christine Jagde thought she had tried everything to relieve her debilitating migraines, until she stumbled upon a simple holistic therapy: floating in a tank.

“When I walked out of the float the first time, I felt relaxed, my headache felt better, and I thought, ‘OK this is something that I can do as a practice,’” Jagde, who works as an attorney in New York City, told FoxNews.com.

Floating, or flotation therapy, is one of the latest alternative medicine trends, and it works by depriving the senses to ease stress and aches. Over the past few years, more businesses that offer the therapy have emerged, and some companies are now selling personal tanks that can be used at home.

At Lift Floats in New York, clients float naked for one hour in a water tank filled with 250 gallons of water at body temperature and 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt.

“[It’s] a concentration of salt greater than the Dead Sea so clients float effortlessly,” Lift Floats co-owner David Leventhal, told FoxNews.com. “Most of our clients have the sensation of not being able to feel hot or cold. They literally can’t tell if their limbs are above or below the water line.”

While growing in popularity, floatation therapy isn’t exactly new. Behavioral scientist John C. Lilly started experimenting with an isolation tank in 1954. In 1972, the first commercial tanks hit the market thanks to computer system programmer Glenn Perry.

Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, a psychotherapist based in New York City and Malibu, said when the mind is deprived of senses, it goes into a state of hyper-arousal.

“It generates a barrage of thoughts, feelings and emotions that emanate from both the conscious and unconscious state of being,” Hokemeyer told FoxNews.com. Questions that an individual may have during this heightened state of awareness include ‘Where am I’, ‘Why am I doing this?’ as well as questions with deeper conflicts of being like ‘Who am I?’, and ‘Am I safe, loved and lovable?’

Research on floatation therapy has been limited to small study groups, but some reports suggest floating can relieve muscle tension, enhance creativity and induce instant relaxation.

Dr. Teo Mendez, an orthopedic surgeon from Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, has floated three times before and said he was skeptical about its mental health benefits at first.

“For about 20 minutes, I was pretty bored, but then I started to get a little bit in-tune with my body,” Mendez told FoxNews.com. “I felt very creative afterwards, like I was easily able to solve problems. A lot of times in surgery, what we’re doing is trying to solve problems, and being able to think outside the box and think of new ways to do things is critically important, so it’s helped me in that way…Continue Reading…

via: FOX NEWS Health

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