- [Man] Old School.
- [Woman] Yes.
Flotation therapy really just gives your body
and your brain a chance to decompress.
The hardest thing to do in there is to be
comfortable being alone and being by yourself and
once you can do that, you can do anything.
- Have you ever heard of a sensory deprivation
or flotation tank?
I've heard that they come with a myriad of health benefits,
so I went to go check them out for myself.
- [Woman] The water itself is only ten inches
deep but it is slippery.
So just be very careful when you step inside.
Don't be afraid to use the handles if you need them.
Push the red button if you need me.
- Okay. - Okay.
- Is that the panic button? - Yes
- All right. So I just got my instruction on
what I'm going to do in this flotation pod.
Really excited, this is my first time and I am
sore from the gym, I am a little stressed out
'cause I five million things going on.
I'm going to shower right now and
then we're going to get started.
♪ In the shower ♪
And so begins my flotation experience.
Should I do this nude?
I'm supposed to do this nude.
I've got my panic button in case some people
come in here trying to rob me.
I've got my light button and I've got my music button,
can't play the music because of copyright, YouTube, sorry.
And I have my emergency eyewash solution in case
I get salt in my eye.
Bye.
Man, it's dark.
- We'll never have the same, you know, benefit from it.
It's always different, everybody's is unique,
whether for some people it's emotional,
for some people it's mental,
for some people it's physical.
(whimsical music)
- [Man] All right. I definitely saw some colors,
not a star wars fan but I did see stars and
I was flying through the stars so that was pretty crazy.
You do feel motion initially
which is kind of crazy because you're not moving.
I understand why it takes a couple of sessions
to get used to this because you have a fully,
fully relax and sometimes I caught myself being tense.
It's definitely relaxing. I'll tell you that.
I'm a new person.
I feel like a little baby coming out of there
because I feel weak like I haven't used my muscles
in ages even though it's only been an hour.
It's crazy.
I feel like I'm less stiff.
I caught myself tensing up in the middle of it
when I thought about something too exciting.
- [Male Employee] Yes. There is a learning curve there.
- Yes.
- [Male Employee] It takes about three sessions until you
really get skilled at being a good floater and
then you can go deeper and deeper and
relax more and more.
- Yes.
So there's a lot of health claims being made
surrounding these flotation tanks,
but let me first tell you what I got out of it.
I definitely felt more relaxed,
my muscles that were tense after my workouts,
I played soccer, I did leg day,
definitely felt a little bit more relaxed and at ease.
I had a boost of creativity.
I think I am, pretty much,
the epitome of a stressed New Yorker.
I have like four different jobs,
I'm taking care of a new puppy,
so I'm very wound up, if you will.
Going in to this allowed me to, sort of,
block out all that external negative stimuli and
really focus on what was important to me.
So, I thought about Bear, I thought about my dad.
I also thought about this YouTube channel and
what ideas I have for the future and
that brainstorming session was incredibly productive.
As a good doctor,
I've said this before,
you have to be a good skeptic,
but its important to not disbelieve everything you hear
because sometimes there's truth in a lot of what we call
"alternative medicine".
There has been some meta-analysis done on this and
meta-analysis again, just to remind you,
is a combination, it's a grouping of studies
to reduce the likelihood of bias and
improve the results.
That meta-analysis, that specific one that I looked at,
really showed that studies that were done
were really poor quality,
they were small, they aren't reproducible,
so, the evidence behind all these
theories was very weak.
Now, that being said, does it mean that
going to flotation therapy won't help you relax,
won't decrease some of your anxiety and depression?
It likely will.
Is it a life-changing, breakthrough
treatment that's gonna solve all your problems?
No.
Is it going to reset your circadian rhythm and
allow you to sleep better?
Probably not.
Here's what I'm not a fan of:
I'm not a fan of over-promising patients results.
So, we can talk about the benefits of meditation,
we can talk about the benefits of taking an hour
away from your phone, from your busy life,
and laying in a quiet room, floating,
enjoying those health benefits.
But, to say that you're going to reset
your circadian rhythm and improve your immune system,
those are lofty promises and it's not good to set lofty
expectations for your patients.
- [Male Employee] Put your body into a meditative,
relaxing state that you cannot achieve
practicing mediation for twenty years.
All the benefits you get from that are
well researched and well proven and
the best way to do it is doing it in a float session.
- Things that you should keep in mind:
always check out who the main person is
that's running the center,
find out their credentials are,
make sure that if you see the word doctor,
that you're finding out what kind of doctor they are.
Are they chiropractors, are they PhDs, are they MDs or DOs?
Also, a lot of these flotation centers,
and Chill Space is not excluded from this,
they make lofty promises with some of their treatments and
it's important to not fall in and believe
all of these promises.
You'll also see on some the walls a ton of supplements
that carry their own promises and
you know my feelings on supplements,
if it's not proven, it's garbage in my mind.
It's not because I'm a doctor and
I want to be a slave to the pharmaceutical industry.
No. It's because before I give you something,
before I make an impact on your life,
I want to make sure it's safe and it works,
because my job is to first do no harm,
and the only way I can do that is
if the treatment is proven.
I have to give a huge shout out to Chill Space NYC
for letting us use their flotation tank,
for allowing us to film there,
being very kind with their interviews,
the founder even came out and gave us a blurb
about what flotation therapy is all about.
So, thank you for that.
As always, guys, stay happy and healthy.
(electronic music)