Northshore Magazine

Northshore March 2020

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 58 MARCH 2020 S H O P + R E N E W Float your cares—and pains—away with f lotation therapy. BY ALEX ANDRA PECCI HEALING WATERS Human beings are an oddly engineered species. Our upright stature makes our legs and feet ache and our backs twinge. Our large heads teeter on delicate necks that crick and cramp. And instead of sleeping when we're tired, eating when we're hungry, or crying when we're sad, we push through our needs and ignore our feelings in favor of an unceasing urge to be "productive." Perhaps that's why I felt a strange mixture of both freedom and anxiety, boredom and relief, when I tried to escape all that human heaviness by floating in total silence for an hour in an egglike pod of warm salt water, re- leased from anything weighing down my body or occupying my mind. I was at Fl te, a wellness center in Hamp- ton, New Hampshire, to experience flotation therapy, a practice of floating in an enclosed pod or small room filled with a foot of water and 1,000 pounds of dissolved Epsom salt. The water is a neutral skin temperature and feels neither hot nor cold. This, combined with its super, salt-concentrated buoyancy, creates a feeling of total weightlessness that's said to produce benefits ranging from pain relief to stress and anxiety reduction to improved sleep and mental clarity. "In our daily life, we're usually going, going, going, and often in a fight-or-flight response," says Margaux French, a naturopathic doctor and co-owner of Fl te. "Flotation therapy provides an environment that fosters deep relaxation and has an effect on health challenges." Flotation therapy has several famous devotees, including Tom Brady (who reportedly has had a tank in his home) as well as NBA star Steph Curry, who floats in a Kaiser Permanente ad in which he overcomes external criticism and negative thoughts to emerge "calm, strong, focused." Navy SEALS are also said to use flotation therapy. French and Fl te's other co-owner, acupuncturist Catherine Markovsky, say that flotation therapy has the same healing and relaxation effects as many other therapies, like meditation, acupuncture, and cranial sacral therapy. That's because floating "allows for a deep reset of the nervous system," French says. The pods can be completely dark and quiet or include gentle light therapy and music, but either way, all external stimuli are limited and controlled. Proponents say that eliciting such a relaxation response can heal the physical body, too. One study published in the International Journal of Stress Management "concluded that flotation tank therapy is an effective method for the treatment of stress- related pain." Another study, published in the journal PLoS One, found that flotation-REST (reduced environmental stimulation therapy) "may be a promising technique for transiently reducing the suffering in those with anxiety and depression." As a naturopathic doctor and acupuncturist, respectively, French and Markovsky say they're always advising clients to relax. She says floating has been shown to provide relief for a range of maladies, including rheumatoid arthritis, anxiety, chronic insomnia, brain injury, and fatigue. Markovsky says that after clients' float sessions, "they feel rejuvenated, they look like they glow. They look like they've just washed off five years of stress." Whether it's a cramped neck or worries about a personal conflict, "those things tend to get worked out in an accelerated way in the tank," she says. That said, there is a bit of a learning curve with floating. "You're not used to being by yourself for an hour without anything to look at, or to touch, or to accomplish," Markovsky says, which is why the first float can be more of a "mental activity" than a physical one. "Learning how to relax is like exercising, but exercising your psyche or your brain, your relaxation response," French says. "It takes three floats to make a floater." But once they get the hang of it, floaters keep coming back for more. "You can leave what doesn't serve you in the tank," Markovsky says. PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAYA AL-HASHMICOURTESY OF DYLAN CALM (BOTOTM RIGHT) CONTACT seacoastflote.com Top left, owners Margaux French (left) and Catherine Markovsky. The team also offers a host of other natural healing techniques.

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