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By Veronica Beltran

float therapy

TYH: Float therapy can help alleviate your stress

Jun 23, 2020 | 8:30 AM

I’d long heard about float therapy but I’d never tried it up until last week, when my camera guy and I hit Reflexion Float Centre in downtown PG.

Essentially, you hop into a pod filled with water and epsom salt, and you float in the water, in the dark, and in the quiet, from anywhere between 60 to 90 minutes.

“Float therapy is basically the experience of being in a light proof, sound proof weightless experience, floating in about a thousand pounds of epsom salt. Which lends itself to leading you into a deep relaxation and almost meditation.”—Riley Mueller, Owner, Reflexion Float Centre

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I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t intimidated by the idea of floating in a dark and enclosed environment for an hour—I mean, I think most people would agree it sounds intimidating. But after being run through the process and understanding that ultimately I was in control of the situation it wasn’t so bad.

Reflexion Float Centre owner, Riley Mueller says that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a lot of stress for many, “with COVID I believe that there’s a very high propensity to focus very much on the problems that people are experiencing around them and I think the worst thing is that people don’t have a lot of control.” He explained that float therapy is great way to “just be able to relax and let go.”

“Some studies done recently—that I am aware of, they studied generalized anxiety disorders and showed definitively that you’re going to see a reduction in acute anxiety symptoms.”—Riley Mueller, Owner, Reflexion Float Centre

Mueller says that studies have shown that float therapy can help reduce anxiety, increase your wellbeing, and mood aswell. “What was really cool about that study too was that they found, across the board, that the worse the anxiety symptoms the more relief people were able to get.”

While you may be thinking “how can floating in a dark tank help reduce anxiety?” Mueller explains that anyone feeling a bit claustrophobic should know that, “claustrophobia tends to be an idea of an experience that you are going to have.” And that once you realize that you are in control of the session, there isn’t much left to do but float and relax.