Career coaching aims to promote well-being and resilience by developing and using your strengths everyday. It is not an instant solution to the episodes of extreme stress you can encounter as you make your way in your career. If that is what you need, getting into a float tank is a reliable technique for dealing with toxic stress levels and returning to work life balance. To minimise or eradicate chronic problems try a program of relaxation sessions in a float tank. Programs of float therapy are safe, powerful, self-managed therapies that allow you to take control of your health and well-being.
All flotation therapy programs share a few things in common: they are easy to use, compliment your other healthy habits, provide an unmatched feeling of relaxation, and use tanks or pods that restrict the amount of sensory input you can experienced during sessions. All programs generally provide the following benefits: reduced stress and stress related pain, improved sleep quality, growing optimism and self-acceptance.
Not sure which float therapy is right for you?
Trying to choose a program that is best for your needs?
Here’s what you need to know about float therapy programs
The Mechanism
You may have heard about floating in a tank or pod. Many people go along to a recreational or commercial float centre where they lay in the tank listening to music for 60 or 90 minutes. Float tanks offer more than just a recreational experience where you can listen to music and nod off to sleep. Used therapeutically, they can re-regulate dysfunctional systems in a calm and restful way.
Unlike other mind body techniques — like Tai Chi, meditation or Yoga — a deep relaxation response is a benefit of float therapy that occur after only a few sessions, usually between 4 and 10. While holistic mind body techniques help to integrate your experiences, and take control of your well-being, they are not all the same. A program of float therapy moves rapidly to re-balance the hemispheres of your mind so you benefit from healthy changes sooner.
How to Float Therapeutically
Float therapy is easy to use. You get into a float tank with a few centimetres of water and loaded with 500 kg of Epsom salts. You lay down and relax for 45 minutes. Afterwards, you shower off the salty water and head back into your day. Before floating, you ease back on caffeine, which is often the hardest thing to manage in a float therapy program for solopreneurs.
There are a couple of differences between floating therapeutically and recreational floats. Firstly, you do not listen to music in therapeutic floats. This acknowledges the importance of a restricted sensory environment for the benefits of float therapy. Secondly, you do not use any other techniques like meditation, biofeedback, autogenics or self-hypnosis in the tank. Float tanks are not just an environment you can do those things, you can also use it for float therapy. Tanks and pods on their own provide the specific treatment that creates the specific effects that all the benefits emerge from to satisfy your needs. There is no need for any other tool, and for float therapy they can be counter-productive.
What Are The Options
There are three grades of therapeutic float programs: short, medium and longer-term configurations. Here’s the difference between the three.
Short Programs
45 minute floats
One or two times a week
For seven to ten weeks
The most tested model of short-term flotation therapy by the Karlstad University High Performance Laboratory is two floats a week over seven weeks. The fourth week is a non-float week. It has been demonstrated to provide the most benefits of floating in a concentrated period of time. These programs are also the least flexible. You need to float twice a week for 45 minutes each time for six weeks to get the benefits. Suitable for most stress related conditions.
Medium length Programs
45 to 90 minute floats,
Fortnightly, or
Monthly after a 3-6 week period of one or two floats a week.
Twelve to eighteen months duration.
A medium term float therapy program with fortnightly 45 minute float sessions has been shown to benefit people with chronic stress problems. They offer much more control. You start off with several floats in the first couple of weeks then gradually shift from 45 minute floats once a week or fortnight. Some people also shift from 45 to 90 minute floats when they start floating fortnightly or monthly.
Longer Programs
45 to 90 minute floats
Fortnightly or monthly
2 to 4+ years.
Longer-term programs of float therapy have been successfully used by people to take control of their own health issues. Often beginning with weekly or twice weekly floats for several weeks these programs settle into a habit that routinely injects the changes and benefits of floating into challenging lives. Longer-term programs offer the maximum amount of control and can be responsive to your needs, results and plans.
To start your program choose the duration of your program, then the frequency. If you choose a medium or longer-term program you are able to control how often and how long you float.
Combining Float Therapy with other Therapies
Flotation therapy on its own has proven to be a powerful tool to help people regain health and control over their well-being. When you float therapeutically, it is important not to do anything other than floating in the tank. However, when combined with other therapies that you do outside the pod or tank, these combination can produce astonishing results.
Studies show people who do a course of conversation treatments like existential coaching or counselling alongside a float therapy program for a specific issue, experience remarkable outcomes. This has also been shown to work in short and medium term programs.
Float therapy has worked in combination with pharmaceutical therapies too. However, people who completed a medium or longer-term program often find they can live healthy and normal functioning lives without prescription medications. This is a boon for those with chronic stress conditions who are concerned about the potential biological problems that could arise from using medication for decades.
The Bottom Line
Flotation therapy is a safe and easy way to initiate and support the transformational changes you want to take control over your health and well-being. It is a holistic way to treat chronic stress related problems. Float therapy is a great tool for naturally improving your health and well-being.
Please seek medical advice if you are going to use the information provided here to treat a medical condition. I am not a doctor. This post is for informational purposes only.
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