Mindfulness in the Sensory Deprivation Float Tank

Today I did a thing.

No big deal, really.  You can stop reading, now.  Seriously... I'm not even sure why I'm writing this post. Today I did an activity that initially seemed far outside my comfort zone. You see, I've been working on my vulnerability and my mindfulness. For some, that may be easy. Ever climb a huge mountain?  Facing vulnerability and mindfulness seem that difficult to me. I can't explain why, but they're a struggle.

According to dictionary.com, Mindfulness is "1) The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something 2) A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique." I won't bore you with the issues I have acknowledging and understanding my own feelings or my dissociation from my own body, but mindfulness is one of the strategies I've been working on for those issues.

My first attempt to work on mindfulness was when it was recommended that I read the book "Eating Mindfully" somewhere around February 2015. I really tried to absorb what was being recommended and even attempted some of the activities in that book. But when they walked me through putting a pistachio nut, in its shell, inside my mouth to taste the salt and then break it with my teeth to experience the cracking sound so close to my ear and then focus on the textures of the soft, green nut... I couldn't handle it.  Too many adjectives.  Too much thinking about food. Too much self awareness.  No thank you. I think the book even recommended trying to feel the ridges of a raisin with the tip of your tongue, but maybe I made that ridiculousness up... it's been a while. Either way, I didn't think mindfulness was the route for me to go to approach the eating issues I was facing, so I gave up. For a while.

Now, years later, I've learned that I don't actually practice mindfulness in a whole boatload of areas of my life. I am still not a mindful eater. I eat breakfast in my car twice a week paying attention to traffic and not to whatever I'm consuming. I eat a snack in my car on the way home from work daily so that I make myself a sensible dinner rather than hitting the drive through. There is a snack bin on my back seat now.  I usually also drive while listening to an audio book... so, yeah. I eat lunch while I'm talking to my coworkers or, on the rare occasion when I would be eating alone, I also read a book or scrolling around aimlessly on my phone.  The last thing I do while eating is pay attention to my food. But I am also not mindful of the space I take up when I'm moving around.  I bump into things.  I've been called a "bull in a china shop" more times than I care to admit. In sessions with my therapist, sometimes she'll ask me to sit with my feelings on a topic of conversation and I burst into laughter or start fidgeting and can't even look her in the eye.  It's horrible.  This could continue, but the purpose of this whole mindfulness conversation is more about things I'm doing to try to be more mindful, not really the reasons why I need to.

The most mindful activity I've come upon has been yoga, which I wrote about here, during which I'm very present in that moment. I definitely feel my emotions and they change in various positions. I also am more aware of my body in yoga than in most other ways.  So far, yoga has been my favorite mindfulness strategy... but I haven't gone in progbably six weeks, so I should maybe get that in soon.  I sometimes find swimming to be pretty mindful... I did that a few days ago.  It makes you focus on your breathing and your body or else you drown.  A little bit of life-or-death mindfulness, anyone?  And lifting weights does this a little bit, but is usually a lot more distracted than those other activities.

The problem is that I've been searching for mindfulness strategies that don't make me move.  I've tried those progressive relaxation strategies where you relax your big toe, then your foot, then your calf, up the whole trunk and to the top of your head and back down the other side. Eh. I can't seem to tolerate meditation the way most people seem to. All of these things seem harder than I think they should.  Why can't I just sit in a quiet space and focus on my breathing for ten minutes?  That doesn't seem hard.  I have never made it ten minutes. So when it was recommended that I try a Sensory Deprivation Float Tank, and would be forced into a quiet, dark space for a whole hour, I was very intrigued. I made a reservation a few days ago at Float Seattle in Greenwood (neighborhood in Seattle) and talked to several coworkers and friends about it over the past few days.  Only one person I spoke to had ever tried it and had some really interesting perspectives on it. Most people felt exactly how I felt... like it was insane to try and that I would probably freak out.  Despite those expectations, it was actually pretty awesome.

I arrived at the Float facility where Dean, the owner, gave me a little tour of how things worked, made some recommendations about positioning in the tank and best way to get the ear plugs into your ears and making sure your face is really dry before getting into the pod to avoid touching your face with a super salty hand while in there. He showed me how the tank worked, where the lights and sound are adjusted, and then left me in the quiet.  I took a neutrally temperatured shower to be clean, but not too hot because then the tank would feel cold, before entering the pod filled with 10 inches of water and 1000g of Epsom salts.  Because the water is set to basically match your body temperature, you almost don't even feel it.  There were a few periods while floating that I felt a little cold and then moved around a little bit and it quickly resolved. I was shocked that it didn't really smell like anything - which was one of the concerns I had because I tend to be smell sensitive, particularly with florals and some soaps that make me miserable and headachy - but later learned that reduction of smell is one of the many sensory inputs they're trying to reduce. The room had towels with just enough fluff to them, which brought me Marie Kondo level of joy.  I hate rough towels and would have been super annoyed to remove a ton of sensations for an hour only to come out to sandpaper towels.  And so I did the thing.

Me, in the Dead Sea, on January 14, 2004

I got into the pod, closed myself in, and transitioned from what felt like sitting in a bathtub into supine floating on the Dead Sea.  I've done that before... but I was covered in mud, it was nearly fifteen years ago, and I was not alone. That salt burned my skin.  This salt did not.  That trip was so long ago, I didn't have a Facebook account yet and I was still using a camera with film.  Guess I can't share images from that day. Just kidding, I dug into the scrapbook and took a picture of this picture to share with you. It took zero effort to get to floating and all the fears I had about potential claustrophobia were gone.  I turned off the blue light, and tried to relax while looking at the little twinkle lights in the ceiling of the pod.

Carmen, in case you don't know.

It felt a little like I was inside a planetarium and I had a flash of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" because she was exploring outer space when I went to the planetarium as a kid.  And maybe because one of my friends was her for Halloween, so it was on my mind.  And then I started to let it all go.  I had the option of listening to music - I went without.  I had the option of keeping more light than the twinkle lights or going all the way into the darkness.  I did a little twinkling, but mostly in complete darkness.  I had the option of using a little foam pillow for my head if I wanted it - I tried both ways.  And let me tell you, I really enjoyed it. The only thing that seemed odd to me was that I had completely lost sense of time.  I don't think I fell asleep, but maybe I did.  I don't think I moved around a whole lot, but I did a little bit.  They told me that I would know the float was over because the music would start playing and then the light would come back on.  Maybe 30 seconds before that happened, I put the twinkle lights back on feeling like I was starting to get a little antsy.  OK actually I was starting to think I had to go to the bathroom.  But I made it!  The whole hour!  And I didn't lose my mind!  I also didn't cry, which I had thought was a serious possibility.  I hadn't really thought about anything that much... mostly I just let my mind go blank, which is something I really struggle to do.

According to the Float Seattle website, "There are many benefits of floating regularly. Most commonly our guests and members float for stress relief, pain relief, athletic recovery, and meditation/introspection."

It makes sense that you might have some stress relief from removing many of the inputs our body receives constantly throughout the day.  I spend a lot of time working with kids in pain, trying to find ways for them to output various stresses - through exercise, emotions, breathing, desensitization sensory input overload strategies... but it's so hard to remove input!  Removal of the input of light or computer screens, changing temperatures, sensations from sitting or from clothing allows the brain some freedom that is normally occupied by these things.  It makes sense that you might have pain relief soaking in saltwater that could potentially reduce inflammation and allowing muscles to relax in new ways.  But just having it make sense is not good enough for my science-minded brain.  I needed to see research!

So the Float Seattle site does include a list of publications here and when I searched, this other floatation company had an even longer list here. It summarizes that "The float environment systematically minimizes external sensory input to the nervous system including signals from visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, thermal, tactile, vestibular, gravitational, and proprioceptive channels."  A 2005 meta analysis is cited suggesting that this type of treatment does reduce stress and there are papers studying different hormone levels of change following sensory deprivation treatments.  I couldn't read all the articles between my float and getting this post put together, but I did read numerous headlines and how they used it with challenging patients with severe autism to reduce sensory input with some successes, and how several health markers improved by using floating.

Then I watched this YouTube video from comedian Joe Rogan about his experience floating, and all in all, I decided to share my experience with all my blog followers. If you're in the nearby Seattle Area, the cost at Float Seattle was $39 for the first session (and for all Happy Hour time sessions right now, which is basically the normal work day for most people, but I work a healthcare provider schedule and have days off during the week which means I can go on my day off for that rate). Yes they tried to sell me a package. No I didn't buy one... I think I would prefer to achieve the mental state I get from doing yoga, instead, but yes, I do think I would go again, particularly if I'm having a stressful week... or if the clocks have just changed and the world seems like it's going bonkers around me!  Have you tried floating?  Let me know what you think!