What is floating?

Floating literally means to float in a pool filled with salt water, where you can experience the feeling of complete weightlessness similar to that experienced in the Dead Sea. You float in a saturated saline solution gently heated to the temperature of your skin (35.5°C). It is also completely dark and quiet. Up to 80% of the workload of the human brain is caused by processing and reflecting on external environmental stimuli. Floating screens out external stimulation. The mind has room to be more creative and self-aware and allows all muscle groups and tissues to relax completely. Nowhere else is it possible to attain such a deep state of relaxation at all levels.

How does it work?

The scope of effects and benefits of floating have been researched in more than 600 different university studies. Floating was first developed between 1954 and 1956 at the National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland, USA. The scientists were intrigued to research the reactions of the human organism when in an environment free of external stimuli and in deep states of relaxation. Based on the positive effects discovered during this time, numerous other scientific investigations were made at other renowned universities in the US. Here a selection of benefits they discovered:

At a physical level, floating

• Relieves spine, muscles and joints
• Releases acute and persistent and/or chronic tension
• Advances the healing of herniated discs, joints, sciatica, lumbago, pulled muscles and sprains
• Clearly reduces chronic pain symptoms (e.g. migraine)
• Supports healing processes (e.g. whiplash, bone fractures, etc.)
• Reduces high blood pressure, slows the pulse rate
• Dilates blood vessels including capillaries, increasing the supply of blood to every cell in your body.
• Noticeably reduces stress related chemicals
• Has a positive, and soothing effect on the skin (reduces psoriasis, neurodermatitis, acne)
• Eases rheumatic pain
• Relieves jet-lag
• Releases endorphins creating an increased feeling of well-being

At a mental level, floating

• Synchronises the hemispheres of the brain
• Reduces the brain wave frequency
• Balances overstimulation caused by the environment and slows down the metabolism
• Supports meditation, autogenic training, and super-learning.
• Reduces stress and strengthens the resistance to the effects of stress in the days following your float experience

When was it discovered?

The floatation tank was developed in the mid-fifties by the renowned neurophysiologist Professor Dr. John C. Lilly (1915 - 2001) on assignment by the US government for the National Institute for Mental Health. At this time, there were two contradictory hypotheses regarding how the human brain reacts under sensory deprivation. One side argued that the brain would reduce its activity and that brain cells would even die off, if deprived of external stimulation. Lilly was convinced of the opposite to be true and proved his theory by devising the first isolation tank in 1954. In the many experiments that followed, he proved that certain activities in the brain are triggered when the senses are deprived and that during longer periods in the tank the individual may experience many moments of increased creativity.

Lilly studied the effects of the tank for several decades on himself and his staff, but eventually distanced himself from his employer. He made the tank and its beneficial effects known worldwide and continued his studies in an institute he founded for this purpose. Lilly spent the remainder of his life in Maui, Hawaii where he researched dolphins. He died in 2001.