Floating Your Way To A Better You In 2021
The new year brings about a desire for change and a renewal of energy towards the goals that we have for ourselves.
Many of us saw our goals and ambitions grind to a halt in 2020 due to the pandemic. We had to push things off or delay our dreams, whether it was seeing a business take off, travel around the world, or compete in a sports event.
So as we get started with 2021, we mostly want to approach things with optimism that this year will be brighter for our ambitions.
So as you set out with New Year's Resolutions and hope this year, here are some of the benefits of floating that can help you along the way with your resolutions.
Sleep
Sleep and getting a good night's rest is at the root of all of the goals that we have for ourselves because none of it is possible without sleeping well and restoring our energy.
Enhanced Learning and Performance
The relaxing state that we get in with floating can have a beneficial impact on our emotional state, which also helps us with memory and retaining information. We've all experienced the brain fog that comes from intense emotions. When we are stressed or in a negative emotional state we can have a hard time with remembering positive experiences and recalling specific details.
Partly through reducing stress and anxiety and partly because of the deeply restorative state our brains get into while floating, researchers have found that memory recollection is more vivid in people who have floated versus control groups that didn't float.
Floating is also used by athletes and high performers as a way to break through plateaus and reach greater states of performance. When it comes to mental training for sports and creative pursuits, the distraction-free environment of the float tank can help many people with their visualization practices and rehearsal.
Addiction
Even a short time away from triggers for cravings and addictions can be beneficial when trying to break away and prevent relapses.
Sensory isolation has been used in studies of combatting addiction with nicotine, alcohol, and narcotics. In these studies, it was also shown that prolonged isolation can help with withdrawal systems, lessening their intensity and making them more manageable.
Certain recovery programs have even begun integrating floating into treatment programs as a way to lower the risk of relapse in drug addiction.
There are also many personal stories of people who have used floating as a way to help with addiction. John Lennon shared in his biography Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman that he used floating to help him overcome his heroin addiction.
Mindfulness and Meditation
Practicing mindfulness is a more trendy and newer resolution for a lot of people and floating is the best training wheel support for your meditation goals that you can find. Float therapy is gently-forced meditation. When you are floating, your brain and body can't help but get into the same state as experienced meditators do. The theta brainwave state used to be only accessible to monks and people in REM sleep but float therapy has opened up this realm of relaxation to everyone. Because the float tanks have audio in them, a float session can also be coupled with a guided meditation to facilitate this learning process.
Unless floating is the healthy habit you're looking to do more regularly this New Year, it can't help directly with the habits but it can help to support you with your New Years Resolutions in many ways.
Goal Setting and Finding Your Purpose
Even if you haven't figured out yet what you want to accomplish for yourself in 2021, floating offers the perfect escape to find some time with your thoughts to sort things out. Use this time during your next float to think about what goals align with your deepest values and what you would like to focus on this year.
Setting Lofty Goals While Making Sustainable Changes
Whether you're part of big business, a small, locally-owned business, or an individual setting and striving for your resolutions, the threshold of passing from one year to the next sparks a lot of latent energy for most people.
Businesses often use the start of the new year to look forward to setting lofty goals, although the year often cycles around the financial calendar and need not be based on January 1. It's in the sustainable little changes that we see our greatest goals accomplished.
Colleen Hunt gets into this on the FlowCast this week. With her business partner at Naturally Nested, she has lofty goals for her young business but is focussed on what she can do at the macro scale to keep moving forward.
She first had a vision for what the future held for herself and her business last year when she dreamed up the idea to hold an exhibition where people could go to meet the business owners providing different wellness opportunities in the city, supporting not only her own business but the whole health and wellness community in Peterborough. Step by step, Colleen gathered the sponsors and support of other businesses to make it happen at the start of March of this year for the inaugural Peterborough Wellness Expo.
The bigger goals and the steps to get there will be unclear to you in the beginning. It takes practice and experience to figure out how you're going to accomplish what you've dreamed up. But the more that you can look at what sustainable changes you can make right now, the better you'll be at doing things that stick long-term.
As Colleen says, picture it like this: if you look at making the smallest, sustainable change once per week, you can build up many new habits over the course of the year but it will feel vastly different than the overwhelm of trying to do it all at once.
52 new changes or habits essentially makes you a new person in a year.
It's the same when looking to be 1% better. Strive to be just one percent better each day or each week and you'll 100% different before you know it.
We all envision this perfect future life and the simplest way of achieving the perfect future life is to start with a perfect day, and then a perfect week, a perfect month, and so on.
To get to the perfect day you just have to start by making your day 1% better.
So get in the routine of reflecting on your day before you go to sleep and ask yourself how you can be 1% better tomorrow?
How To Achieve Your New Years' Resolutions with Floating
We know it seems inevitable the most New Year's resolutions fail. The resolutionists that fill the gym in the month of January are known to be out of the door within four weeks, statistically speaking.
The problem with resolutions, as well-intentioned, as they may be, is that there's not a plan in place to go along with them.
Including float therapy as part of the plan for a new you in 2020 can help to support your vision and accomplish your resolutions.
It's no surprise that most New Year's resolutions fail. The gym-goers and crash dieters who make resolutions in January are usually throwing in the towel within four weeks.
The issue with resolutions as well-intentioned as they may be is that they lack a plan. We often set goals and resolutions to break old habits and create new ones. But when we're stressed or busy, we often revert to our old habits instead of rising to the challenge.
Adding float therapy to your plan for a new you in 2023 can help you achieve your resolutions.
Here are 6 ways floating can help you to accomplish your New Years’ Resolutions.
Exercise and Recovery
Hitting the gym more is a popular resolution for many people but the problem that most of us face is dropping off from our goal too soon to see any real results.
Floating is one of the best sports recovery methods ever. The effects of floating effortlessly improve circulation and helps to remove the lactic acid that builds up from working out. The decompression on your back and muscles is also great if you're feeling sore or pushed yourself a little too hard with your workout.
The 1,000 lb. of Epsom salt in the float tank solution is also an athlete's dream, Magnesium is an important mineral for muscle function and Epsom salt soaks have been used by athletes for centuries to aid in recovery.
You may find yourself getting sore a lot at the start of your new adventures at the gym. Try to find the right balance so that you're not hurting too much to keep going to the gym on your planned schedule.
Weight Loss Support
This benefit of floating will be important to you if your New Years’ goal is to lose weight.
Getting control of your hormones through healthy choices is going to make a big difference in your weight loss. Cortisol is affected by our stress levels and when we're stressed all the time, cortisol remains elevated. This can lead to higher blood sugar levels and more fat being stored instead of burned.
Floating helps to drastically lower cortisol levels, supporting a healthier hormone balance in our bodies and improving our ability to burn fat, instead of storing it.
De-Stress
Maybe your resolution is to simply stress less this year and floating definitely helps with that. Floating is one of the most powerful treatments for reducing the stress hormone cortisol but the de-stressing effects don't stop there.
The physical relief of pain and the alleviation of anxiety also help to make a big difference in our stress levels, leaving you in a blissful state of relaxation.
Before you burnout, this New Year, consider floating away your stress. We find that most customers see the best de-stressing results when floating with one of our memberships every two weeks or monthly.
Addiction Support
Reducing your stress levels is also one of the most effective ways to prevent relapse when quitting smoking, drugs, or alcohol.
Researchers have effectively used float therapy as an anti-smoking intervention and the same efforts can be applied to supporting the recovery from other vices. The reduction in stress and anxiety can make a big difference in reducing cravings.
More Sleep
Most of our New Years’ Resolutions include resolving to do more.
More exercise.
More weight loss.
Making more money.
More, more, more.
And when we strive to do more, our bodies need the support and rejuvenation of more sleep. Floating relaxes the brain to the slower theta brainwave state that we also experience in REM sleep. This is one of the reasons why everyone likes floating for feeling refreshed and reinvigorated like you just came out of a great nap. Some people do indeed sleep during their float while others get this deep relaxation that allows them to then sleep better at night.
Meditation
Practicing mindfulness has become a recent resolution for a lot of people and floating is the best training wheel support for your meditation goals that you can find.
When you are floating, your brain and body can't help but get into the same state as experienced meditators do. The theta brainwave state used to be only accessible to monks and unconsciously while we are in REM sleep but float therapy has opened up this realm of relaxation to everyone.
Because the float tanks have audio in them, a float session can also be coupled with a guided meditation to teach you how to meditate while in a relaxed state.
Maybe you resolved to float more this year, but for all your other goals, the many benefits of floating can help you better achieve them.
Book a float session today to help you with your New Years’ Resolutions.