What to Expect
on your first float
We recommend at least 3 floats to experience the accumulative benefits of float therapy.
During your float, your Amygdala and Default Mode Network in your brain goes into a state of rest.
This will be a new experience for many and the more you practice, the more you get to rewire your brain.
Floating Helps Build Resilience
We thrive when we make decisions from a resourceful emotional state.
Studies have shown that floating elicits a state of deep serenity and short‐term reductions in anxiety, depression, and pain. Muscle tension lowers, sensory information about the outside world, your body and even the parts of your brain where your sense of self comes from is reduced, helping you to enter a state of REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulation Therapy). See the latest published research here.
Serenity is a very resilient state from which we can respond to life situations unfolding before us. Even in the midst of very stressful situations, resilient people are able to enter into a calm serene state to make the best decisions. At Serenity we are of the belief that you can train yourself to be able to move from unresourceful emotional states to resourceful emotional states and we have a 6 week Resiliency Program to help our clients develop emotional, mental and physical resiliency. For more information about our 6 week program, please contact us.
Irrational fears are the lowest hanging fruit for building resilience.
When it comes to building resilience, our thoughts and the language we choose play an integral part to our emotional state. By overcoming some of the fears that keep us from growing we build the confidence to expand our fear bubbles and learn to take on bigger challenges. Some of the most common irrational fears that we hear from people who have not yet floated include claustrophobia, fear of the dark, boredom, even the fear of being alone with their thoughts. While these thoughts are completely understandable, once someone has floated these fears no longer make much rational sense. As our clients relax into a restul state, these fears subside and a feeling of serenity increases allowing our clients to just fully surrender – to be fully present with themselves with no judgements attached to their sense of self. We cannot be stressed or anxious and fully relaxed at the same time – fully relaxed wins the battle of the mind in the float tank.
What makes irrational fears such great low hanging fruit to build resilience is that they already don’t make much rational sense.
We have the largest float tanks in New Zealand
No need to worry about claustrophobia – in fact we help people overcome a large range of phobias – find out more about out Resilience program here. You amygdala, the part of your brain that controls fear and anxiety, quiets down while you float. One of our owners used to struggle with claustrophobia and bought the biggest float tanks he could find in the industry. In fact, our tanks are so big that we often have couples float in them. If you get nervous in small spaces, we’d love to work with you to overcome this fear. See Clinical Research for anxiety
You WILL float
Our body temperature water is almost twice as dense as the dead sea due to a very high amount of Epsom salt (Magnesium Sulphate). You’ll feel neither hot or cold – in fact your brain eventually loses track of your external body and only focuses on what’s going on inside – PURE mindfulness. This is called active interoception and is the driving force behind much of the peer-reviewed research currently underway examining why floating is such an effective natural therapy.
Bring your journal
No need to bring anything else. We provide earplugs, towels, a facecloth, makeup remover, vaseline, shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Please arrive 5 or so minutes before your first appointment so that we can go through our induction. Here’s our step-by-step Quickstart Sheet:
First time floating? Here’s a visual of our induction process
What Is Floating?
Understand the clinical neuroscience behind it
Who floats?
%
Corporate Clients
%
High Performing Athletes
%
Pregnant Mummas
%
Everyone Else
- Stress Reduced By 80%
- Anxiety Reduced By 70%
- Pain Reduced By 65%
Our Research Results
From time to time we conduct some of our own internal research with some clients and the results have looked really promising. While this isn’t clinical peer-reviewed research you might be interested in some of the research done by clinical neuroscientists, psychologists and universities.
