Can Float Therapy Help Heart Health?
/We all want stronger, healthier, more resilient hearts - both literally and metaphorically. Our hearts beat to the drum of compassion, pleasure, understanding and love that has complex wiring to the brain and body. One effective way to maintain a strong and healthy heart is to partake in float therapy on a regular basis.
Float therapy, aka floating, floatation, or sensory deprivation, has a myriad of benefits that last long after the actual experience. Float therapy takes place all in the comfort of a private room without any touching, talking or expectations. You float effortlessly in a skin temperature pool of magnesium rich water (with options for light vs. complete darkness, ambient music vs. silence, and with lid open, closed or cracked) and you quickly drift into a state similar to that of just before falling sleep. This state of deep relaxation has an intensely relaxing effect on the heart.
The calming nature of the float experience positively affects heart health by influencing heart rate variability, or HRV, which is a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat. This heart beat variation is automatically controlled by the oldest part of our nervous system, known as the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The ANS is constantly working behind the scenes to regulate our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion.
As our brain constantly processes information through the nervous system, it sends signals to the rest of the body either to stimulate or to relax different functions. With persistent stress, poor sleep, unhealthy diet, dysfunctional relationships, lack of exercise, or a host of other negative influences, our fight-or-flight response can shift into overdrive. Our body’s response to stress is supposed to protect us, but if stress is constant, it can be harmful. In fight-or-flight mode, the variation between heartbeats is low, i.e a low HRV. Conversely, if one shifts to a more calm and relaxed state, the variation between beats is high - a high HRV. The healthier the heart and nervous system, the faster you are able to “switch gears”, showing more resilience, flexibility and adaptability to stress and life changes. A high HRV is a good thing. Regular float therapy will improve both heart health and the nervous system by increasing heart rate variability through a rapid and dynamic shift to calm, which also positively affects blood pressure, breathing patterns, digestion and reactions to stress.1 Further, prolonged high stress promotes high cortisol and studies suggest that the high levels of cortisol from long-term stress can increase blood cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, and blood pressure, which are common risk factors for heart disease.2
A float tank or pod contains 1000 pounds of Epsom salt dissolved within its 175 or so gallons of water. The chemical name for Epsom salt is Magnesium Sulphate. It is this half ton of Magnesium salt in the water that allows you to defy gravity while effortlessly absorbing magnesium through your skin. Magnesium is the fourth most abundant mineral in the human body. However, as a society, we are critically deficient in magnesium, where the standard American diet only consumes about 50% of the recommended daily allowance. Magnesium is an essential mineral involved in hundreds of functions in your body, including maintaining your heart health.3 Similar to other muscles in your body, your heart muscle relies on interactions with both calcium and magnesium in order to contract and relax. Calcium stimulates the muscle fibers of the heart to shorten and contract, while magnesium allows heart muscle fibers to relax. In this way, magnesium is involved in the intricate process that creates, maintains and helps manage a healthy heartbeat. Get more magnesium by floating.
Perhaps the new mantra should be, “Eat healthy, drink plenty of water, exercise and float regularly”. Regardless, if you are seeking to improve your heart rate variability, increase your magnesium stores or simply be good to your heart and body through lowering stress and inflammation, floatation takes it all to heart.
Author Dr. David Berv can be reached at david@myfloatzone.com
Heart rate variability: A new way to track well-being, Marcelo Campos, MD, Harvard Health, Nov 22,2017 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789
Stress Can Increase Your Risk for Heart Disease, University of Rochester Medical Center, https://bit.ly/3a4kO4Q