Compared to traditional saunas that use either dry hot rocks or steam by adding water to hot rocks, infrared saunas use light waves to heat up the body directly. The result is cathartic sweating and an increased heart rate, with benefits extended as most find infrared saunas a much more comfortable environment than traditional saunas.
The beginning of a new year is often a time for making plans and inspiring change, but 2021 has just started and already it has a lot of expectations being placed upon it. With the pandemic, 2020 felt like a global “timeout” for a lot of people, so we’ve all had to push things off and are banking on this year being an opportunity for new beginnings.
Paul Selig is a psychic medium whose work is channeled as dictation from spiritual guides that speak to him with the goal of teaching and shepherding humankind into an awakening of our divine nature or true self.
Three misconceptions that hold people back from using this effective form of therapy.
“But what if I’m claustrophobic?”
This is probably the most common fear that stops people from starting. To dispute this concern, let’s look at claustrophobia and floatation tanks.
This is the first of a 3-part blog series dedicated to the new floater. In part 2, we’ll cover preparing for your first float, and in part 3 we’ll discuss the learning curve and accumulating benefits of floating.
It can be really hard to 'find the time' to do anything these days and when you do, it's important to find the right time. Especially with floating, where there are so many factors that can affect your experience within the tank, setting time aside and preparing for your session helps optimize your float. Here are a few tips I've learned in my own life and floats.
As an avid floater and hair stylist, I understand a big concern out there in the float world is damage to the hair and color fading due to the salt water. I would suggest waiting a few washes after your fresh color to float as with most semi/demi permanent hair colors out there, the color molecules are large and sit on the surface of the hair. This means the first initial layers of color are likely to wash off the most in the first few washes. Here are my Top 5 tips to take care of your hair before & after your floats to maximize your color & keep your hair looking shiny and healthy!
If there was to be a major theme taken from all of my floats, it would be time. Time is always on my mind, whether I'm in or outside the tank, so it makes sense that my thinking would be focused on it throughout my floats. All of these thoughts and more flow throughout my mind, but what the sensory-deprived environment of the floatation tank allows me is a space where I can start to examine these thoughts and where they may stem from. Why am I so focused on and anxious about time?
You may have heard of floating and floatation tanks (also known as sensory deprivation or isolation tanks) and if you have, you may also have heard fascinating stories of what can occur in the tank. I happened to have one of my most powerful experiences in the early stages of my first float and it helped me restore a healthy relationship to water.
“After about 10-15 minutes, I decided to fully close the door to the tank. A few minutes later I was seeing rainbows of colour swirl and stream past my body. I felt like I was slowly flying upward through the solar system. It was so real. I saw stars and planets, each direction I turned. I wasn’t sure where I ended and the rest began, but it made me realize that I am not my possessions, or my thoughts… I realized that I’ve gone my entire life without really letting go… I never let go… I’m always trying to hold on…”
This is the account, admittedly a rare one, of someone’s first session in a float tank. Responses to an hour and half in sensory restriction range from psychedelic, mystical and out-of-body experiences, such as the one described above, to the arousal of primal fear and general discomfort.
The human experience is a fascinating thing. We are born into this world; we have no conscious choice of our parents, nor of the city or country we live in, nor the time in history in which we appear. We are born, we grow and mature, and we have experiences. Everything we are exposed to on every level of what we are, seems to affect us throughout the course of our existence. It seems that we are like these infinitely dense bio-psycho-social-spiritual sponges that absorb everything, whether we are conscious of it or not.
For the past three months, I have been dreaming about booking my first float session. I have intentionally kept my eyes from wandering through “what to expect when floating” type articles because I knew that I would be writing about my first time floating for this blog. I wanted my experience to be authentic; I didn’t want other people’s experiences to become my preconception about what floating would mean for me. I only kinda succeeded in that effort because…well…I was terribly interested to know what it would be like to float for the first time! Most of what I read said that it would be relaxing and meditative.
Yesterday, the day arrived when I realized - hey! - I am going to have some time, tomorrow mid-day, to FLOAT!
One of the most important realizations I’ve had in a float tank is, that floating is ALL about the individual! We’ve all heard the phrase,“Only boring people get bored,” this is most definitely true about our time spent in the void. The float tank is an inanimate object; the pitch-black environment doesn’t care how hard my workweek was. The 900 lbs. of Epsom salts is completely indifferent to what my significant other/boss/friend/co-worker said or didn’t say. And when I close the hatch, the tank isn’t smirking about how it’s captured another self-proclaimed claustrophobic person. After facilitating over 26,000 floats, I can safely say most people who thought they would be claustrophobic, actually have no problem being inside a float tank.
