New Research Supports Float Therapy For Treatments of Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia is a notoriously difficult condition to treat but new research into float therapy has opened up a promising solution for supporting those with anorexia.

While much of the news and many scientists around the globe are still inundated by the pandemic, research continues to go on towards quieter pursuits. And as we continue to face stress and feelings of overwhelm, there’s some good in knowing that all hope is not lost for the things that make us feel good.

Floating is known to be an effective treatment for reducing generalized and acute anxiety and new research into the depths of float therapy is now looking at its effects on helping with anorexia and the immune system.

Dr. Sahib Khalsa has been looking at long-term research on anorexia nervous a patients over the last four years at the Float Clinic and Research Center at the LIBR (Laureate Institute for Brain Research). Anorexia continues to be one of the most severe mental disorders in terms of mortality rate and difficulty of treatment. Looking at the effects that floating might have in the treatment of anorexia nervous is highly important and shining a spotlight on the great benefits that natural and safe therapies like floating can have.

So far what the research is uncovering is that floating seems to benefit anorexia patients in two main areas - anxiety levels and body image.

The most significant findings from the research has been showing that floating helps in reducing the anxiety levels in patients, which reflects similar results on float therapy done in studies on healthy individuals as well as those who are dealing with chronic anxiety.

Anxiety levels in the patients with anorexia were reduced by up to 20%, and the biggest effect happens on those with the highest baseline anxiety levels. So floating is great for everyone with anxiety but has the most pronounced effect on those who are in need of the most relief. This is consistent with other research that regularly finds the greatest reductions in anxiety come to those dealing with the most severe anxiety.

The findings on adjusting perceived body image, while not at dramatic as the changes in anxiety levels, is still a significant result coming out of this research. Anorexia tends to be a long lasting and chronic condition in part because there’s a misalignment between the patients’ perceived body weight and real body weight and image. The patients incorporating float therapy saw a shift in how they viewed their body and their idea body type started to realign with a healthier body type. This change was viewed after only a few floats so as further evidence comes out, this result may become even more significant for what long-term float therapy can do for patients with anorexia and body image disorders.

Because of the nature of long-term research, the full results of Dr. Khalsa’s research won’t be complete until 2023 at the earliest but this information is still promising enough at this time to take note of.

If you know anyone with anorexia, consider inviting them in for a float or sharing this article with them to explore float centre’s in their hometown. Dr. Khalsa spent much of the early work into this research establishing the psychological and physical safety of floating for patients with anorexia to be assured there weren’t any contraindications.