How Sensory Deprivation Float Tanks Deepen Your Meditation

I was first drawn to float tanks by stories I’d heard that sounded like mind-altering drug trips except the people telling them were completely sober. They were, quite simply, just floating on water. I had to try it and figure out for myself what made it a life-changing experience for so many.

Why were float tanks invented?

The flotation tanks, which are also called isolation or sensory deprivation tanks, were created in the 1950s by Dr. John C. Lilly. He was a neuroscientist and psychoanalyst with interests in philosophy and invention. He was deeply passionate about exploring human consciousness, particularly regarding what we could access within ourselves when we completely tune out outside stimuli.

He wanted to know who we are when we are completely free of the noise, sensations, and impositions of the outside world. Who are we when all we are aware of is our inner self?

This might sound like something you could answer through meditation, and I am a big proponent of meditation. However, as someone who meditates daily, I believe the isolation tank takes us on a journey far different from any meditation.

What is sensory deprivation, exactly?

It is a form of meditation but in a way more akin to yoga in that it is as much physical as it is mental. Float tanks interact directly with your body, and some even feel as if they become one with the water, which can create a feeling of being infinite. The water is warmed to 98 degrees, which is the same as body temperature. Each tank has around 1,000 pounds of salt in it, which ensures all people, of all shapes and sizes, will float on this buoyant water.

I feel completely held and taken care of. This mental release is a large part of what makes the isolation tank so powerful.

Floating on a cushion of saltwater for an hour counteracts the pressure of gravity. Your joints, tissues, and muscles will feel as if you’ve just received a superb massage, your spine will thank you, and the Epsom salt will do wonders for your skin and circulation.

The physical sensation of floating connects us right into the mental feelings of surrender and release. It’s one of the most comforting sensations I’ve ever felt. It’s as if I am being held in my own little cushion of support, and whatever it is that bothers me can safely be let go. I feel completely held and taken care of. This mental release is a large part of what makes the isolation tank so powerful.

Here's what happened when I developed a regular sensory deprivation practice.

Once you are comfortable with the sensation of floating (you may not reach this on your first time), you will gently ease into deeper and deeper levels of surrender and letting go. At some point, you will naturally lose track of time. You will slowly forget where you are, maybe even who you are. You will fall into your subconscious, but you will still be awake, allowing you to forge a connection with all of the power that resides there. The more times you go to the tank, the more you build and strengthen that bridge between your subconscious and conscious.

As a result, you may suddenly start being able to recall your dreams. You may have bursts of insight while in the tank. You may find your creativity at work heightens to new levels. You might also find yourself becoming more aware of how you react to life, what triggers you, and feel yourself taking greater control over what used to feel like out-of-control emotions.

Are there any downsides to float tanks?

Now that I’ve described a few of the possible benefits, you might be wondering why everyone isn't running out to try it. I suspect it's because all of this is done in an enclosed tank, in complete darkness. Simply envisioning closing the lid of a pod and sealing yourself in can trigger claustrophobia for some.

In my experience, after I’ve suggested someone go, they find that the anticipation was far bigger than the actual experience. Once inside it’s easier to understand how safe and serene it is. Each tank is in its own room, giving each person space to take things at their own speed. Most float spas have a shower in the room, so that you can shower before and after in privacy. The whole experience is designed to induce relaxation.

What can I expect on my first time?

Professional float spas have speakers built into the tank, and they will play soothing music for the first 10 minutes. They also have a light inside, and you can keep it on as long as you like—even the whole time. You don’t even have to close the door—it’s your experience and all up to you. If you keep the light on and the door open, you will not go as deep into that space of letting go. But that’s OK because this type of therapy is still new, and the fact that you are brave enough to be one of its first explorers is worth celebrating.

Most people say that once they close the door and the light goes off the feeling of the pod goes away. They no longer feel closed in but instead feel as if everything has opened up wider than ever before. Some even feel as if they then expand and connect with the whole Universe.

After dozens of trips to the float spa, I have found I can surrender and let go of things that used to hold me in an iron grip. I have gotten clarity on problems I was so deeply entangled in I couldn’t see any possible solution. And on one particularly wild trip, I had an out-of-body experience and a vision like I’ve never had before.

If this intrigues you, I hope you consider trying it out yourself. Float spas are opening with more frequency now, and it’s possible there’s one near you, waiting to take you on an adventure to your deepest resources of love, healing, and cosmic connection.

This article originally appeared on mindbodygreen.com and was written by Melissa Field,

The Scientific 7-Minute Workout

For a greater challenge, see “The Advanced 7-Minute Workout.” And download our new, free 7-Minute Workout App for your phone, tablet or other device.

[In need of an energy boost, quickly? Really, Really Short Workouts]

Think you’re too busy to work out? We have the workout for you. Exercise science is a fine and intellectually fascinating thing. But sometimes you just want someone to lay out guidelines for how to put the newest fitness research into practice.

An article in the May-June issue of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal does just that. In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.

“There’s very good evidence” that high-intensity interval training provides “many of the fitness benefits of prolonged endurance training but in much less time,” says Chris Jordan, the director of exercise physiology at the Human Performance Institute in Orlando, Fla., and co-author of the new article.

Work by scientists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and other institutions shows, for instance, that even a few minutes of training at an intensity approaching your maximum capacity produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.

Interval training, though, requires intervals; the extremely intense activity must be intermingled with brief periods of recovery. In the program outlined by Mr. Jordan and his colleagues, this recovery is provided in part by a 10-second rest between exercises. But even more, he says, it’s accomplished by alternating an exercise that emphasizes the large muscles in the upper body with those in the lower body. During the intermezzo, the unexercised muscles have a moment to, metaphorically, catch their breath, which makes the order of the exercises important.

The exercises should be performed in rapid succession, allowing 30 seconds for each, while, throughout, the intensity hovers at about an 8 on a discomfort scale of 1 to 10, Mr. Jordan says. Those seven minutes should be, in a word, unpleasant. The upside is, after seven minutes, you’re done.

This article originally appeared on well.blogs.nytimes.com and was written by GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Ben Wiseman

5 Ways Yoga Benefits Your Mental Health

Yoga teacher and licensed psychotherapist Ashley Turner says yoga is the key to psychological and emotional healing as well as resolving issues with self-confidence, relationships, and more.

Ever notice how good you feel -- mentally -- when you're practicing yoga regularly?

Yoga teacher and licensed psychotherapist Ashley Turner, who is launching a groundbreaking new Yoga Psychology 300-hour advanced yoga teacher training next month, says yoga is the key to psychological and emotional healing as well as resolving issues with self-confidence, relationships, family of origin issues, and more.

"Yoga is a psychology -- the whole practice helps us work with the nature of the mind, the nature of being a human, how emotions live in our bodies, how they affect our behavior and our minds," says Turner, who reveals that yoga helped her recognize and cope with her own low self-esteem. "This course is reclaiming the deeper roots of the practice, not just asana -- the mental and emotional benefits."

Below are 5 ways that yoga can benefit your mental health and well-being and even improve your relationships, according to Turner.

5 Ways Yoga Benefits Your Mental Health

1. It moves you from the sympathetic nervous system to the parasympathetic nervous system, or from flight-or-flight to rest-and-digest. You typically have less anxiety and enter a more relaxed state. As soon as you start breathing deeply, you slow down out of fight or flight and calm your nervous system.

2. It helps you build your sense of self. Through yoga, you get to know yourself and cultivate a more nonjudgmental relationship with yourself. You are building self-trust. You exercise more and eat healthier, because your unconscious mind tells you, "I'm worthy of this me time, this effort." At the end of the day, everything comes down to your relationship with yourself. When you get more confident and become more rooted in your sense of self and your center, you develop a healthy, balanced ego, where you have nothing to prove and nothing to hide. You become courageous, with high willpower. You're not afraid of difficult conversations -- you know you're still going to be OK at the end of the day.

3. It improves your romantic relationship. When you're more centered and more peaceful with yourself, you'll be the same way with your partner -- you'll view them through the same lens of compassionate, unconditional love. You're less reactive -- for example, you may know that snapping at your partner is not a wise choice.

4. It helps you become aware of your "shadow" qualities. The yoking of solar and lunar (light and dark) in yoga makes us recognize qualities in ourselves that we were not aware of, helping us be more mindful. A lot of my work centers on the shadow concept from Carl Jung. How do we look at those places in our bodies where we hold tension, tightness, knots of energy? That's typically where we are holding our psychological or emotional energy. We work from the outside in, so asana is so important. A backbend will open your heart and release the stiffness between the shoulder blades -- at some point, you will have some sort of emotional release, which you may or may not be conscious of. It's about doing the inner work to shift or change and be open to doing your best with your weaknesses and faults.

5. It helps you deal with family of origin issues. Essentially that's our karma -- we can’t give back our family, we're born into it and that's what you get. It's about owning what I call sacred wounds (rather than blaming) and taking them on more mindfully. You’re the only one that can change -- the only thing you can do is control your actions and your behavior. Other people will inevitably be forced to show up in a different way you’re showing up in a different way. Think of the Warrior poses -- yoga helps you rise up and do your best.

This article originally appeared on yogajournal.com and was written by JENNIFER D'ANGELO FRIEDMAN

Functional Movement Assessment and Corrections

“The treatment has long term benefits as Robbie explores the reason for the pain. By becoming aware of this you can change what you are doing…”

How faulty movement patterns could be the cause of your injury.

The evidence shows that the biggest predisposing factor of non-traumatic injury during sport is previous injury. It used to be thought that this was because the previous injury created a weak area that is prone to re-injury. However, recent research has discovered that this is probably too simple an explanation. In fact injury can create faulty movement patterns that in turn create weak or overused areas and it is these areas that are prone to future injury. Also, there are many other mechanisms that can cause faulty movement patterns that are equally important. But it is not that important to know what these past events are because we can now measure your movement patterns to see where your faults are and create a treatment regime to resolve them. Once you have restored normal movement patterns you are less likely to become injured.

Using a well-researched screening assessment, functional movement, or lack of, can be graded. Depending on what the screen has shown a series of manual techniques and corrective exercises can be used to reduce the imbalances and restore normal functional movement. This will reduce your likelihood of non-contact injury in the future. Because the system is graded your progress can be monitored making your improvements visible and obvious.

What is Functional Movement?

In simple terms functional movement is how we move in the real world, not just the treatment room. The philosophy behind functional movement follows the same concept as the standard (manual) osteopathic philosophy. To create efficient movement, the whole body must be functioning properly. When the body is considered as a chain of muscles and joints rather than a set of individual joints working alone, any weakness or restriction or tension in the chain will cause an imbalance and weaken the entire chain. Over time imbalance increases the potential for weak areas to become irritated or injured and tense areas to become over used or strained.

How do we test for faulty functional movement patterns?

Proper functional movement occurs in co-ordinated patterns, which can be assessed and corrected. Over the past few years much research has been put into how to test for potential future injury. Most has been done in the USA and Australia and a few screening tests have been devised. The best one I have come across is called the “Functional Movement Screen”, developed by a group of physical therapists in Virginia, USA. It is a series of 7 basic movements that are fundamental to normal functional movement. By subjecting the body to these movements any areas of weakness, stiffness or asymmetry and therefore potential for injury are highlighted.

How can we fix these faults?

These dysfunctional areas and asymmetries can be corrected. Physical treatment and corrective exercises can loosen restricted and re-train weak or unstable patterns (not isolated areas) to function in the correct manner. Initially it is important to release off any tight muscles or restricted joints. Once this has been done weak muscles can be retrained to move in the correct, co-ordinated patterns using specialised exercises, which may include assisted movements or resisted movements that can be performed in the clinic or at home.

Why do functional movement patterns become faulty?

In infanthood, we are all programmed and develop to move the same way. Over our lifetime repetitive movements, isolated static postures and over training certain areas create changes in the way in which we move. We learn to use some areas of our body more than others. When this happens we pull ourselves out of symmetrical alignment. Previous pain caused by injury or inflammation will cause a temporary change in the way in which we move. We guard away from the pain. Sometimes, once the pain has resolved, the changed movement pattern persists. All these changes put unnecessary stress on other, weaker areas, which become prone to injury.

Think of it like a car that has a slightly misaligned axle. The tyres will wear down quickly on one side and lead to weakening and potential puncturing of the tyre. It is no use in just replacing the tyre because it will wear down again. The tracking (alignment) needs to be repaired. Similarly this is why a problematic hamstring keeps straining even though it has fully healed. It is similar to replacing the tyre with a brand new one. Eventually the hamstring will go again. The cause of the strain is the faulty way in which the hamstring is functioning. If this is resolved the likelihood is it will not strain again

This article originally appeared on harmonicosteopathy.com