From its portrayal in popular culture, like 'The Simpsons,' to personal accounts of what it feels like to be cocooned in this unique environment, we'll explore the myriad benefits it brings to both body and mind.

Whether you're a seasoned floater or a curious newcomer, join us as we navigate the buoyant waters of this therapeutic technique, and even delve into its role within the Survival Fitness Plan.

So, sit back, or better yet, lay back, and float with us on this enlightening journey.

This podcast is available from most major podcast hosts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

00:00:00 Introduction

01:51:08 Float tank therapy

02:18:89 The Simpsons

04:12:72 How you do it

06:05:22 How it feels

09:01:81 Benefits of Float Tank Therapy

12:37:34 The Survival Fitness Plan

15:54:83 Closing

Your safety and those you care about are paramount. Don't wait until danger strikes; gear up with our 6-week Survival Fitness Plan Challenge now! https://www.survivalfitnessplan.com/challenge

Hi guys, Sam Fury here with another episode of the Survival Fitness Plan, your ultimate flight and fight fitness training program. Today we're going to talk about float therapy. For those of you who don't know what it is, I'll get into well, let's, let's start from the start. So I'm in Phoenix at the moment.

It's winter, it's pretty cold and wait, that doesn't matter. It's been kind of a month of firsts for me. So we're doing some things and With my friends that we, things that I've never done before and we've got, we've got a whole list of things that I, that I want to try to do and that she wants to try to do as well.

So like cryotherapy, and float tanks, I got a pedicure for the very first time, which was actually really good. I thought a pedicure, I always thought a pedicure was this, they just play with you and you get but it was kind of like, you get a, you sit in the chair massage and you get it's like foot therapy.

I mean, they don't give you a full foot massage, but I had a hot stone massage and I think like if you're just going to go get a massage, like a Swedish massage, just relaxation massage and it costs you like 70 bucks right in America in the USA, or you can get a pedicure and they like to do all this stuff to your feet, which is actually really cool.

You get to sit in the massage chair, which is just as good as a, well, it's probably not just as good, but it's comparable. It's not like a Thai massage or or what do they call it? A recovery massage or whatever, like a remedial massage. It's not like that, obviously. It's just you're sitting in a chair and it gives you a massage.

But if you're only going for a massage just for relaxation, you might as well get a pedicure because you get the massage and you get the play with your feet. So that's pretty cool.

 Anyway the other, so the other thing that we did on the weekend was flotation therapy. Now flotation therapy is like sensory deprivation, that's, that's the deal with it, that's the whole thing, right?

But you're also floating in a tank of Epsom salt, so it's kind of like floating in the Dead Sea, right? You're just weightless. So it's a pretty spun-out experience and the first time I ever heard about this was actually on the Sims like 30 years ago. 25 years ago, maybe, right?

On The Simpsons, where Homer gets into, like, he goes with Lisa to, like this thing, and he gets in the pod, and apparently they hallucinate from it, right?

Lisa has insights into life, or whatever. I think she becomes her cat, or whatever. But, Homer, he he actually gets taken away, like, physically taken away somewhere, because it's The Simpsons, obviously. And so, that's the first place I heard of it. But I've never tried it. So my friends suggested that we do it because they've got one here like close by. So we did. And it was pretty cool. So I'll tell you about my experience and then I'll go over some of the benefits of it. And then just my final thoughts about flotation tank therapy.

So basically we rocked up. And they gave us a quick tour of how everything was going to work, right? So the guy was a bit of a hippie, he was, he was definitely a stoner but that's cool.

He gave us all the information we needed and, it's not surprising that someone like that will work there. Nothing. Yeah, he was he seemed like a good guy He commented on my shoes because I'm aware of barefoot shoes obviously cuz I'm I do that sort of stuff and now we're having a good discussion about that, and then is Super Bowl week Super Bowl weekend here in Phoenix I don't follow the Super Bowl, but they had both the Super Bowl and some Golf tournament, which is pretty famous. Apparently like, you know, usually golf tournaments you have to Be quiet when they make the shot. Apparently in this one, so my friend tells me, who lives in Phoenix, that you are allowed to like, drink alcohol and jeer at them and like, whatever, like make heaps of noise, right?

So it's kind of a more famous golf tournament for that, for the loudness of writing. Anyway, that doesn't matter. So anyway, what happens is you're on the little tour, he tells you all about it. And this is what happens.

 So the first thing you do is take a shower, a nice long shower, 10 minutes. He said the shower goes for 10 minutes.

You can stop earlier if you want, but you're going to get like the full 10 minutes and you're going to get an hour in the tank no matter what, no matter what, anyway. So if you end the show early. You still get an hour in the tank, but if you take the full show, you still get an hour in the tank. So just, he's, he's like, take as long as shit, like take the whole 10 minutes.

It's a nice shower. And like really just wash, you want to rinse all the oils and everything. So you completely, whatever.

One good tip he did give us was to make sure you dry your face really well before you get in the tank, because it may not seem like anything now, but when you're in the tank, you've got one drop of water on you, on your face.

And like, you can really feel it because of sensory deprivation, right? So you take this long shower, goes for about 10 minutes, there's music playing or whatever. And then a little voice recording comes out and says, Oh, your shower's finishing get in the tank. Right? So you get into this tank and in the Simpsons, there's like, it's like a pod, right?

Which is, I heard some guy that was also there with us and he was like, Oh yeah, my daughter went in the pod, but she started freaking out cause whatever, but she couldn't get out. And he's like, is that like this? And like, and this one is not, this one was a massive Like, huge, but it was like, it was, like, there was, it was bigger, so it was like a, a small room, like, the size of a small bathroom, I guess, and it's like, and you got room to move around.

So you get in the tank, and it's filled with Epsom salts, and you just, I was like, I was like, how's this gonna work? I was afraid of drowning, right? Because, because I'm like, you're floating in the water, and it's definitely enough to To if you sync underneath, like, you can track. So, and if you but you just, you just float there, because it's got that much sort of auto in it.

So you just float there. So it's pretty smart. And you can put a little pillow underneath you, and you can choose to have the light and the music. He's like, the guy's like, you can keep the music on if you want, or you can connect your Bluetooth to it, and like play whatever you want to play. Or you can just have total deprivation, which is good.

 The light, he's like, you can keep the light on if you want, but to be honest, that's weird. So, turn the light off, because... You get more relaxed when it's like total blackout, right? So I went in there, I turned the light off. I'm sorry, there was still a little bit of light on the things, cause I forgot to turn the bathroom light off.

So I have to get back out and turn the And then I get in there and then it's like total deprivation, right? And the first thing I experience is stinging because of all the Epsom salts. And I think it's not, I think I'm pretty sure it's because I haven't been in salt water for a while. Like I haven't been to the beach since Australia, which is at least three weeks, right?

And you know, if you like to get into salt water, you haven't been in there, you can feel it because like all the salts attack all the like little cups and stuff on your body. And which is really good for you. Oh, I assume. And then maybe I have to do a podcast on that. And then And so I felt that, right?

Which is good, I like that because I know it's doing something good for me. So you get all that stinging from the Epsom salts. I mean, that's just a personal thing. I don't know if everyone gets that, but whatever. And then the next thing I noticed was I got a bit of neck pain. I think just so I'm not sure if it's actually Good for your posture or not.

And My friend got it as well but she said she did it last time she didn't get it or maybe it was so long ago that she didn't remember But I remember it was like, ah like And so the first 10 minutes with this neck pain and like the difference, like it was, it was quite uncomfortable. I didn't really like it that much.

And I was like, ah, am I going to last an hour in this? Like I've got, I could last an hour, like in my head, I'm like, yeah, I'll definitely be able to stay for an hour. But is it just going to be an uncomfortable hour? So then you get the sensory deprivation and then the first 10, so the first 10 minutes was a bit but then after that, I just went into like the neck pain kind of stopped, and then I went into, and I think a lot of the neck pain is cause I was like kind of tensing, like I didn't trust the water.

So I was like tensing up a little bit and then after a while I got used to it and then I just went into deep relaxation and it was really nice. Like it, it was. It's kind of like, I've never felt like that before except for when I go into deep meditative states. Right. And it was like, so it was really cool.

And I did doze off a couple of times. And then at the end, like, after, like, so an hour went up, and when the lights come back on, and the and the voice came back and said, Oh, your time's up. I was like, Oh, was that really an hour? Like, so at the start, I thought, when am I going to be out last night? And at the end, I'm like, that didn't seem like an hour.

So, like, I must have dozed off and slept through some of it. But then also I think the experience is a little bit surreal. So, like, the time just passes. So it was really cool. I enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I'll do it again, but anyway, so when I went in there, I wasn't really, I didn't, I didn't really read up about it.

I just went in there. I knew I knew it was probably something good, a little bit of therapy or whatever. But, so just before making this, I, did research on the website and had a look at what would the potential benefits be.

 Now, as I was reading over these as I was I was like, I'm not sure how many of these are scientifically proven.

So don't take my word for it, I don't take the website's word for it, but whatever, here, here we go. Alright, so it improves blood circulation. I'm not really sure how it goes about doing that, but I assume the weightlessness improves blood circulation, and that's always good. Because then it will help heal injuries and stuff, right?

You get blood, heals, helps inflammation, and all that sort of stuff. All right, the next thing was to go skeletal healing. So apparently there are reports of like, it can help if you've got a broken arm or whatever, you go in there and it can if you do daily therapy you, it can help heal stuff like up to 50, 50 percent faster.

So like twice as fast, right? As not doing it. So that's pretty spun out if that's actually true. And I could imagine that like. If you're, cause it's complete weightlessness, right, and deep relaxation also will allow your body to heal faster. Now this next one I'm not sure about, Spine Realignment Will that, is that an actual thing, like my neck hurt maybe it's because like I'm always crouched over on the thing or like just for day to day life.

So this is like complete weightlessness on your back and straight spine. It's like, you know, even when you're in a mattress, like, it's forcing your spine to do things that maybe not natural, but this is like, Oh, right, this is how your spine is supposed to do it. Or it could be the opposite because of your weightlessness, it's like, yeah.

So I don't know. I don't know about that. I'd like, it'd be interesting if you did it like every day or like once a week or quite regularly if that pain, I guess I'm guessing that pain would go away. And if it would straighten out, you know, realign your spine to its natural state. The next one is pain management.

I guess because it's weightlessness again. It's like pain management. It was also you go into a deep meditative state Yeah, I don't know about that one. But there you go pain management, I guess For chronic for chronic injuries like my shoulder. I don't know if my shoulders getting a lot better But I'm not sure if it helped or not.

I don't think it would have Made it worse. It definitely but whether it actually helped it All right, Siri, so strengthens the immune system I think the only connection to this would be that because you're going to deep relaxation your body gets a chance to recover, so it strengthens your immune system.

Something like a lot of these like things that, like, they kind of just, there's connective ways, like, it's a bit iffy, the connection, right? Faster recovery, I mean that's, I think that's got to do with like the increased blood circulation, right, you get faster recovery because of inflammation, like the blood circulation, alright and then there's some like mental advantages as well, so they're all the physical ones and these are like mental, more mind state, so stress reduction, I can imagine that.

It's meditation, right? You go into a meditative state, stress reduction, and sensory deprivation. I mean it might stress you out though, at the start, like that first 10 minutes. Well, like it was uncomfortable, maybe, like depending on the person, you might get stressed out or whatever, right? But then I think once you go into that deep, deep relaxation, there's definitely some stress reduction in there, so that's good.

And also because when you go into the meditative state, apparently you get into the theta state of your brain activity. So yeah, which means that you will also get increased creativity, right? In the theta state. Just an interesting side note.

 So in the Survival Fitness Plan, we just do 10 minutes of meditation, which is just yoga nidra or non-sleep deep.

What? NDSR? I think it's called. Anyway, we'll call it yoga nidra. Now I've switched it to like the 21 meditations and you go through the values and like, it just goes through different types of meditations, right? Different from meta-meditation visualization. Mindfulness and all different, like just different ways to do these different types of it.

And yoga, there's a yoga nature in there as well. Gong meditation. Anyway, all those things. And some of the background music I've used is I forget what they call it, but it's like it puts you in a better or better state almost immediately just because of the sound frequencies that tap into your brain.

I forget what they call it, binaural, binaural, I think it's binaural. I think that's it. Binaural beats. Binaural beats. Anyway, I've used that in the background. So there you go so if you get that if you get the app and then you get to the meditation in like every day has meditation and then you can not all of them binaural beats some of them are just like Specific for the time of like yoga nidra is an actual yoga nidra meditation Gong meditation is actually a gong meditation and then some of them are just like relaxing music sort of thing But then some of them like a good amount of them binaural beats.

All right, so there you go so it could put you into theta state Another one is that increases your reaction time apparently, and since sensory acuity Which means your other senses are heightened and apparently it's not just for like I can imagine that because you're in sensory deprivation so at least for a little while afterward your other senses will be heightened but No, your other senses, all your senses will be heightened.

But this says it like can last for days even. So, you know, I guess it maybe works for different people in different ways. Sleep schedule maintenance. I don't know about this. They reckon because you put, you get put in this deep state of rest it can help balance out your sleep. Especially if you are lagged or whatever.

So that's interesting. It'd be nice to try if you jet lag to see. I should have done it the first couple of days that I got here. Feelings of euphoria, so I can imagine that for some people, you get feelings of euphoria. Yeah, that's pretty self-explanatory. I think if you get into a deep meditative state, you can definitely get feelings of euphoria.

I don't know, one day I will, hopefully, hit Nirvana. Anyway, would I do it again? I think I would, but not very often. I wouldn't make it a regular thing. It's not really my thing. I don't doubt that it has definite benefits and it was a very interesting experience and it was, even though I didn't like the start, and also I don't really like water in general.

Like, I did actually feel a little bit seasick at the start for some reason, not for some reason, it's because I'm floating in water and I get seasick from ocean sickness. But anyway, to be honest, I liked the pedicure better and even better than that, the Thai massage, which is still my favorite thing at the moment, but we're going to go try Cryotherapy next weekend.

So that'll be good. So that'll be you'll hear about that next, next weekend, next week after I've done it.

 All right. That's it for today's episode guys. Hope you found it interesting and maybe you can go look up a float tank therapy for yourself in your city. I'm sure like if you live in a major city, I'm sure they have them.

So just look it up and say, this wasn't very expensive. It was like 35 bucks and it goes for an hour and a bit. It goes for an hour in the tank. So that's, that's a good price point. 35 American dollars for an hour. If you find something like that, hit it up. I probably would've paid up to 50 bucks for that.

So that's good. But we'll try out cryotherapy, which I think is going to be a little bit more painful, but it will be very interesting to do. Okay. So don't forget to download the app.

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