New England Patriot’s quarterback Tom Brady, 40, has a float tank in his house. The five-time Super Bowl-winning football team incorporated floatation therapy or restricted environmental stimulation therapy (REST) into its training and recovery protocol in 2014 and now have two tanks to help the athletes relax, recover, and get game ready at their Gillette Stadium facilities. Other NFL players and professional athletes from all fields of sport including cycling, tennis, soccer, and running have also fallen for floating. It's no surprise that pro athletes have access to the latest recovery techniques, but it begs the question: Should you try floatation therapy too?
The Background on Floatation Therapy:
Floatation therapy, which is sometimes likened as a trip back to the womb (some facilities are even called “womb rooms”), entails spending 45 to 60 minutes in a small, pitch-black, soundproof room floating naked in a pool of body-temperature water that is so fully saturated with Epsom salts (over 1,000 pounds worth to be exact) that you simply float, completely devoid of any outside stimulus. It is also called a sensory deprivation experience. Some facilities use a pod or tank; others use a small temperature controlled room, but the result is similar: Your body feels suspended in space.
This method has been around since the 1950s when neuropsychiatrist John Lilly developed a sensory deprivation tank to experiment with the psychological impacts of sensory deprivation. Lilly also tried floating while tripping on acid, which was the basis of the 1980 American science fiction horror flick Altered States, where, as the name implies, some bad stuff happens.
Undeterred by its spooky portrayal in pop culture, American Track & Field athlete Carl Lewis reportedly used in-tank visualization techniques to prepare himself for his gold medal long jump at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. And after dipping in and out of popularity, float tanks are back and popping up around the country, heavily advertised as an escape from the over-stimulation of the digital world and—on the athletic side—as a way for active people to use weightlessness, relaxation, and visualization to improve circulation, clear metabolic waste, speed recovery, and improve both physical and mental performance.
That's a lot of promises. Can floatation therapy live up to them?
The Athlete's Take:
Seven-time world champion mountain bike racer Rebecca Rusch thinks so. The 49-year-old ultra-endurance athlete tried a few rounds of floatation therapy at Red Bull HQ High Performance Gym in Santa Monica. “I’ve been working with meditation to try to harness and train the power of my mind the same way I train my body, but there are always distractions, whether it's traffic outside or even the pressure of your muscles sitting on the chair,” she says. “With the float tank, there’s none of that. I fidgeted for a few minutes the first time before I settled down, but then I slipped into a relaxed, trancelike state, and 45 minutes flew by. I came out super energized like I had slept for five days or returned from the best vacation. It was the most complete rest I’ve had in my whole life.”
Her mind was more stubbornly stuck in the present during her second float, so she used the time to tend to her body. “My neck had been bothering me, so I took advantage of the weightlessness to fully stretch out my spine and completely relax my muscles," she says. "It was a different float, but still very beneficial.”
Which is exactly what many float practitioners and tank operators promise: that each float will be different, but they’ll all do a body and mind good.
What the Science Says:
Floatation therapy is often described as an Epsom salt bath on steroids with a specific gravity denser than the Dead Sea. Scientifically known as magnesium sulfate, Epsom salt baths have been used for generations for relaxation and muscle soreness. Many in the float therapy industry piggyback its benefit claims with those of the magnesium sulfate. That research, however, isn’t very strong.
Theoretically, when you soak in a bath of dissolved salts, your body absorbs the magnesium, which in turn helps relieve muscle cramping and improve function, as well as soothe pain and promote relaxation. Research that you can absorb adequate amounts of magnesium through your skin, though, is slim to none.
The actual relaxation benefits are more likely to come from the combined impact of the water and weightlessness. The salt changes the quality of the water, making it feel silky and slippery. Warmth is a known muscle relaxant, and being free from gravity helps your muscles fully relax. In that regard, there is some decent research. A study in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that exercisers who had fried their quads and hamstrings with heavy workouts on leg machines had significantly lower blood lactate levels following a 60-minute float REST session than their peers who relaxed sans float tank. The floaters also reported less pain.
So if you’ve just wrapped up a hilly long ride, a long warm float may be just what the muscles ordered, but the magnesium is probably not that medicinal.
The biggest benefit of floatation therapy is in your head—literally, which passes the rewards down to the rest of your body. REST is designed to combat the ill effects of stress (which includes hard exercise) by taking you fully out of fight or flight mode and into a state of rest and digest.
A meta-analysis of 27 studies including nearly 450 participants found that REST lowered levels of the stress hormone cortisol, lowered blood pressure, and improved sense of well-being. And in one 2014 study of 65 people suffering from stress and/or muscle pain, those who underwent 12 float sessions enjoyed significant decreases in stress, depression, anxiety and reported less pain and increased optimism and improved sleep quality compared to those who received no float therapy.
Performing visualization and guided imagery during float REST sessions has also been shown to improve performance in sports like basketball, tennis, and rifle marksmanship because of the changes in brain wave activity that occur with the reduction of outside stimulation. So it could prove beneficial for nervous roadies or mountain bikers who tackle technical terrain.
Plus, athletes who sleep better perform better, and that might be the real power of an aptly named REST session: It leads to a deeper, higher-quality sleep, which in turn promotes muscle growth and recovery, faster reaction times, and improved overall performance. As one study of Olympic athletes suggests: The harder you train, the more sleep you need.
RESTers may also get an extra edge by taking a “float nap,” slipping into slumber during their time in the tank. One study of 60 elite international athletes both male and female reported that one single floatation therapy session significantly enhanced their moods and lowered perceived muscle soreness. The athletes who napped while they floated (about half the group) enjoyed an even bigger mood boost.
What It's Really Like:
Anxious to dip my own toes in float therapy for a firsthand experience, I made an appointment at my local float therapy
“Most people have a little trouble fully relaxing during their first float because it’s so different," she said. Bealer assured me to just lie back and trust the water as she leads me to the small, warm, tiled float room.
It’s all pretty simple. You strip down, take a shower, insert earplugs, and step in the tank. I was grateful that Bealer opted for an “open air” set up, so there are no lids over the tub; just a curtain. Once in the tub, you hit a button and are instantly shrouded in darkness. I started freaking out a little that I was going to be in this silent, balmy darkness for an hour, but decide to “trust the water,” lie back, and quiet my mind, maybe even nap.
My vestibular system wasn’t having it. I’m very prone to motion sickness; I get a little queasy on a kayak or swimming in the ocean. Now completely devoid of spatial cues to help my brain orient me in space, I felt like I was spinning like the dial on a game board. A few waves of nausea crashed over me, and I shot my arms out to touch the sides of the tank and get my bearings. The spinning stopped, and I tried to let go and relax. When my head finally settled, it was extremely peaceful and restorative to feel so weightless.
But the waves of nausea returned. I ended up turning on the lights about 10 minutes before the hour is up. When I got out of the tub, my body felt like I was made of wet cement as my brain recalibrated to gravity again. Despite my motion sickness issues, my brain felt very rested, and I was super chill. I can understand why Rusch and other athletes love it.
Talking to Bealer after I’m dry and dressed, she understood why someone as motion sensitive as I am could have issues, but she encouraged me to try again, because every float is different, and my brain might respond differently now that it has learned what to expect—kind of like getting your sea legs on a boat. But she also freely acknowledged that not every recovery tool works the same for every athlete.
The Bottom Line:
“Aquatic therapy is a mainstay of physical therapy, and we all know our joints feel better in water when we are weightless,” says sports medicine specialist John-Paul H. Rue, M.D., of Orthopedics and Joint Replacement at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, noting that dark, relaxing environment also encourages quieting your mind.
“I think the bottom line is that getting adequate recovery time is key for performance,” he says. “This is another modality that may improve recovery, both mentally and physically, for endurance athletes.” Which is exactly what we found. There are many ways to destress and recover and some work better than others depending on who you are and what you like. If you're chronically stressed and/or feel like you need more recovery tools, it's totally worth trying a float, but don't feel like your performance will suffer if you decide this one isn't for you.
