Alternative Treatments for Anxiety: Floating [Interview Series]
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Looking for Alternative Treatments for Anxiety in Orlando?
Welcome to this blog series on alternative approaches for working with anxiety. In this series, I will highlight professionals and resources that help people who are struggling with anxiety feel settled and calm. This post will be highlighting East Coast Floats and using Floating and Infrared Saunas to help people experiencing anxiety, stress, and chronic pain.
I went to East Coast Floats last week and I had such a relaxing experience that I knew I had to share it with you!
As I entered the spa, the environment was serene, calming, and, inviting. The staff was warm and welcoming and Laurie, the owner, is a wealth of information regarding how floating helps settle the nervous system. I enjoyed chatting with her!
My first treatment was a 40-minute infrared relaxation sauna. At first thought, 40 minutes felt like an eternity because my to-do list was calling my name. In the end, it went by in a blink of an eye. The relaxation from the heat took hold of my mind and body and eventually enveloped me. When the timer went off at the end, I couldn’t believe my 40 minutes of sweet sauna relaxation was over.
After the sauna, I headed over to the float room, where I showered and enter the floating pod. Floating has to be the closest thing on this planet to what it feels like to be in the womb. Sound, sight, scent, and touch are mostly eliminated while floating in the buoyant saltwater. If a little sensory input is needed, there is an option to keep a light on in the pod or listen to soothing music that comes in through a speaker in the water. I tinkered with all the different settings and preferred no lights, but I liked the soothing music.
After my sauna and float treatments were over, there was a cup of warm chamomile tea waiting for me in the lounge area. This was a nice gesture that rounded out my spa experience at East Coast Floats.
Walking into the spa, I had a mind full of tasks vying for my attention. Walking out, I felt refreshed, grounded and clear minded. The cherry on top of my yummy spa experience was I had the most amazing slept that night!
I got a chance to spend some time with owner, Laurie Bowers, and she gave me a little more information on how specifically floating helps with anxiety.
How, specifically, does your treatment help people struggling with anxiety?
The services at East Coast Floats are designed to help people reduce their cortisol levels and relieve chronic pain. This is such an important aspect of a person’s health that until recently hasn’t received much attention from medical practitioners. Cortisol is a stress hormone produced during fight or flight situations. Your body is flooded with this action hormone to run from or fight the tiger, since we’re not doing that, the hormone builds up in your body. This buildup of cortisol causes anxiety and often manifests itself as mental and physical discomfort, inflammation, and insomnia.
Float therapy occurs in a pod (or an open pool) filled with 1000 lbs of Magnesium Sulphate dissolved in 150-200 gallons of warm water. The pod creates an environment of restricted sensory perception. There are no lights, no sounds, and no tactile sensation and the solution is the same temp as your skin. After a few minutes your brain loses track of where your body is in the solution. This absence of sensory perception slows down your brain waves and the super concentrated magnesium solution calms your nervous system – it’s also what helps you float effortlessly. The combination of slowed brain waves and increased magnesium begins to reduce your cortisol levels. This therapy leaves you feeling rested, rejuvenated and relaxed. One hour of floating is equivalent to four hours of sleep. And, sleep my friends, is the goddess of the wellness and recovery world.
The sauna, which we recommend using before your float, raises your internal body temperature and increases circulation. This both creates a false fever and flushes toxins from your body. The toxicity level of one’s perspiration while using a full spectrum infrared sauna is 6x greater than if they were using a traditional dry heat sauna. The sauna’s infrared light penetrates the deep muscle tissues at the cellular level and frees toxins. The result is lower cortisol levels, and the added benefits are weight loss, improved skin health, collagen production and detoxification which makes you feel lighter and brighter.
What is the most effective way you help anxious people feel calm?
East Coast Floats has a very welcoming, calming atmosphere and the staff is professional, caring and friendly. This sets the stage for the relaxation and stress relief that float therapy, full spectrum infrared sauna, and life coaching can provide. We have several tips and tricks to calm your mind during services.
We recommend our clients use their time in the sauna to practice a guided meditation or focus on a specific prompt for self-reflection. This facilitates the mental transition from their busy lives into relax mode and calms our busy minds prior to the float session. Doing this makes relaxing during the float session much easier.
We provide supports to use in the pod to relieve chronic pain. Someone with low back pain will benefit from using a bolster under their knees. Someone with neck pain should use our specially designed FloatHalo to support their head and shoulders properly.
We provide everything for the client from earplugs to shampoo which makes their appointment much more manageable.
We help our clients by keeping them on track with their float and sauna therapy. It can be common to delay visits when you’re feeling improvement, but it’s necessary to stay on track to achieve long term results. If the appointment is booked in advance, it reduces anxiety that may be associated with calling to book or booking online.
What type of transformation do you see in your clients that struggle with anxiety?
Great question, Lauran. One of the aspects I love most about what we do at East Coast Floats is the immediate visual transformation of our clients. When clients come to the office, we see the stress evident in their furrowed brows, in their tight shoulders, even in their walk and the way they speak. It can be intense, and it’s evident they are suffering. After their session, it’s incredible to see the change in our clients as they re-enter the lobby with relaxed facial expressions, calm speaking voices, shoulders and core relaxed, they become a very fluid version of themselves. It’s incredible to see the anxiety and pain relief after just one visit.
Most people see immediate results even after one float. Floating is a practice and with each weekly or monthly visit, client’s cortisol levels continue to reduce. That means over time, the more you incorporate float therapy into your wellness plan, the better results you’ll have. The people who have the best results are coupling counseling or life coaching into their float and sauna plans. Counseling and Life Coaching helps clients to identify stressors in their lives and usually offers methods to change unproductive behaviors.
How long, on average, does it take for people that struggle with anxiety to feel better?
Clients who engage with two weekly floats will notice a positive change much faster than the client who chooses a once a month plan. It really depends on how often they use the float therapy and what changes they’re making to their lifestyle outside of the float therapy regimen. We like to start our clients with a more aggressive float schedule in the beginning and then after a month begin to reduce float appointments to once a week or once every other week depending on their specific needs. The final step is a monthly or bi-monthly maintenance plan to keep their cortisol and pain levels under control. A common question we hear is, “How often should I float?” Our answer is always, if you are feeling stressed or anxious or muscle/joint pain you should address it as soon as possible. Letting your stress fend for itself is a sure way for it to multiply. Get an appointment on the schedule, so you have relief to look forward to.
What motivated you to help people that struggle with anxiety?
My husband, Mark, and I wanted to open a business that really served the needs of the community. We wanted to find a way to improve wellness and provide a service to reduce anxiety that everyone can afford. People are overworked and over stressed. Rest is often pushed aside in favor of deadlines, paperwork, and endless meetings. Many people are over stimulated with constant cell phone and device use. Mark and I learned about float therapy several years earlier and thought we had a great opportunity to bring it to Central Florida. I was skeptical until my first float, but the post-float calmness I experienced lasted for several days. I became responsive instead of reactive. My workload no longer seemed unmanageable; I was more likely to follow a task through to completion. My mood was lighter and my general disposition calmer. I felt like a new person and I wanted to share that with others.
How long have you been helping people overcome anxiety?
I think I would have to go back to 2004 when I opened Lola’s Gourmet to Go café that served homemade meals in take-home packaging. Lola’s was a great addition to the community because it helped parents and professionals solve the “what’s for dinner” problem by providing healthy prepared-from-scratch food ready-to-go every day. It was a huge stress reliever for the community. After Lola’s we wanted to open another business to reduce stress and starting Planning East Coast Floats in 2013. We were the first float center approved by the Dept of Health in the history of floating in Florida. It was a milestone for Florida. After that, we helped other float centers open and get approval. We believe rising waters raise all ships and there was plenty of room for more float centers in the market.
How should people contact you for your services?
They can visit our website at www.eastcoastfloats.com or call us directly 407-20-FLOAT (407-203-5628). Float specialists can schedule a Free Consultation with a Life Coach to determine the best wellness package for them. The Life Coach may also be able to suggest outside services such as counseling, a nutritionist, a personal trainer, chiropractic, physical therapy, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, etc. to help with anxiety and pain reduction.
Want more on alternative treatments for anxiety?
Neurofeedback Therapy in Orlando.
Yoga and Holistic Approaches in Orlando.
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Mindful Living Counseling Orlando is a trauma healing center. Our Orlando Therapy Services include anxiety therapy, trauma counseling, eating disorder recovery, teen counseling, and healing from toxic relationships. At Mindful Living Counseling Orlando, we use a down-to-earth approach infused with cutting-edge therapies that go beyond traditional talk therapy so clients can heal at the root level and experience lasting change. Feel free to access one of our Guided Meditations to help you feel settled and calm now.
