Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
They discuss some of the surprising benefits of floating, mindfulness, and just good ways to live a positive life. A very heartwarming and lovely chat.
Show Resources
Buy your tickets for the Float Conference now!
The Float Conference Podcast (where you can listen to guests like this one!)
Peace is Every Step (referenced by Dr. Turner in this episode)
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
John Turner: Hello.
Ashkahn: And just a quick background for people who don’t know who you are. John Turner is one of the original float researchers, did work with Tom Fine over in the what’s now the University of Toledo, and did a bunch of the famous studies on cortisol levels, and that sort of stuff with float tanks. So super excited to have you coming out to the Conference.
John Turner: I’m looking forward to it.
Ashkahn: So here’s my little bonus question for you. You did basically the first scientific float research done out there. You guys had this brand new device that you installed in your lab, and you’re doing research on it. Over the course of the years that you were studying this, I’m wondering, what was the most unexpected, or one of the most unexpected results that you found? Like what did you see coming out of the data on floating that was the kind of least intuitive to you?
John Turner: Well, that’s a good question. I think probably, although what we know now about feedback loops and regulatory systems might have given us some inference about it. One of the things that was not intuitive was that after, when we were doing studies where people would float multiple times, like six, eight, ten times, then we would with several weeks, and we had measured some variable, where we had seen a decrease in activity in this variable, like blood pressure, or plasma cortisol.
And then we would come back a week later or more, and we they hadn’t done anything more, no more floating, they were just going about their daily activities, and we would find that their blood pressure and cortisol levels had remained low. They weren’t as low as they were at the lowest point, but they were well below where they started. So to us, that was not something intuitive. We did not initially expect that flotation would produce changes that could be carried forward for an extended time period like that.
Ashkahn: Yeah, that’s interesting. I’ve always wondered what the actual limit of that is. At what point do those things actually start to diminish?
John Turner: That’s really a good question. I think it’s kind of hard to get an answer to that, because I think once people start floating regularly, they don’t want to quit. So you’re going to try and convince them that they got to stop floating for a month, they might give you some grief. Anyway, we don’t know. Because we only looked at this over a period of a week or two. And that was enough to convince us that there is this carryover effect. But as far as I know, there haven’t been any long term formal studies done with it. It would be worthwhile finding out you know, because it could help people to judge how frequently they want to float. You know every person has their own program as to what they can afford, and what they want.
I don’t really don’t know what it is for a lot of people that makes them decide they’re going to float once a week, or once a month, or three times a week. And it would be good to have some reference information. And it’s probably variable across people, I would assume, like most everything else is. That there would be some people who would have a longer term benefit than others, and maybe not feel the need. It would be interesting to determine what the individual person feels is, when they start feeling the need to float. You know people will sometimes say, “Boy I really need to float.” And you know that says something right there, about, for that person, what the interval is for them. But there’s no formal study. So it would be a really interesting thing to test.
Ashkahn: In my experience, one thing I’ve noticed from running a float center, is that when you have people coming in who have this acute need of floating. Something’s going on in their life. They’ve tried floating, it totally clicks and is helping them with that thing. I mean, we have people all of a sudden start floating with huge frequency. You know, they’re in our place twice a week, three times a week, and they’re doing that for months. And then those people tend to hit a point after three, four, five months, where they start to slow it down. This is something I’ve noticed kind of over and over again, as they have this acute need to float a huge amount of times for a concentrated period of time. And then it seems like they’re in a better place with what they were dealing with, and kind of pull it back to once a week, or once every other week.
So it might also be based on something like that, the greater thing that’s going on with you that floating is helping with. Perhaps for short bursts of time you’re doing, heightened frequency of floating, and then it becomes more of a regular just maintenance thing.
John Turner: Yeah. And that’s pretty common with medications. So, where people initially have to take higher doses, and then they work it down to a dose that’s less frequent lower dose that they can take for a long time. So I mean, there’s precedent in healthcare for that kind of a perspective. So you might be right. There could be this threshold where people say, “Okay, I’m happy now, I can deal,” and then they just wait until they start feeling that again, and maybe it takes longer after a while. I don’t know, maybe they’ve restructured their feedback loops. Maybe allostasis has taken place and they’re now, their own body is anticipating the next stressor and adapting better to it. I don’t know, those kinds of things are questions that could be empirically challenged. They could be answered, but it would require people who have background training, and the money to do it.
Ashkahn: Yeah. And I’m curious how much other, another thing I’ve noticed is that when people start doing these huge amounts of floating is, they often start changing other things in their lives as well. We have people coming in who are floating two to three times a week, and they’re like, “Yeah, I started swimming every day, and I’m even eating better, and I quit smoking,” it’s almost like a self-empowering sort of thing that leads you to realize you can make other changes in your life. So I wonder how you’d have to try to control for stuff like that?
John Turner: Yeah, I don’t know how. But I certainly wouldn’t be surprised that a study could be set up that would take into account a whole bunch of variables that could be sort of like that, to limit them, and then really see what’s really going on in terms of, is there a physiological basis to this? Are there receptors that are being now occupied at the right rate for something, somewhere? I mean, that’s just a theory, theoretical stuff. But who knows? That kind of stuff needs to be done. Because I think the more we as humans increase our density, the more the need will be to be able to quantify how, when and where we can regulate our functions most effectively. People are doing it on their own now to some extent, but then there’s plenty of people out there who don’t even know about floating, or don’t know about any form of the benefit of relaxation.
Ashkahn: Well at the very least, it seems like a growing awareness, which is nice. The whole idea of mindfulness and the benefits of doing what sounds like simple things for your own health, is kind of growing in the public awareness, which is nice.
John Turner: Yeah, I’ve been reading a book that’s pretty interesting, and fairly simple. It’s called, Peace With Every Step. And it was written by a monk from Thailand I believe, or maybe, no, Vietnam, excuse me. Anyway, it’s a fairly simple set of directives, but it does that. It addresses mindfulness. And I keep thinking the tank is a great place to have that experience.
Ashkahn: Mm-hmm. There’s this other thing that actually one of our past conference speakers spoke about, called The Healthy Mind Platter. I don’t know if you’ve seen that at all?
John Turner: No.
Ashkahn: It’s kind of like an attempt to mimic the food pyramid, or at least the better version of the food pyramid, with mental health. So it’s from a very kind of quantified, empirical sort of perspective of the people who made it. So they kind of break down, I forget what it is, eight, maybe nine different aspects of mental health, and kind of define them, and have studies to support each one of them. And there are different ways, different things that you can do from, floating kind of falls into there like, I think they call it time out, like spending time just like decompressing versus doing things that are more vigorous mental exercise and stuff like that, that they think leads to a healthy mind.
John Turner: What’s it called again? I’m writing it down.
Ashkahn: The Healthy Mind Platter. It’s a really interesting little diagram, and then supporting information.
John Turner: Cool. I’m going to check it out.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Cool, excellent. Super great to have you on here, and very excited to have you out at the Float Conference.
John Turner: Yeah, looking forward to it. And actually, I’m looking forward to it as a form of relaxation.
Ashkahn: Great, great.
John Turner: Assuming I’m prepared.
Ashkahn: Yeah, yeah, we try to make it as relaxing as possible.
John Turner: It’s a nice-
Ashkahn: But it’s also, there’s a lot of bright lights, and parties, and stuff like that too.
John Turner: Oh that’s okay. As long as it’s not deadlines.
Ashkahn: Excellent. Great John. Yeah, see you in another couple of weeks.
John Turner: All right. Yeah. Take care Ashkahn.
Ashkahn: All right. You can listen to the full interview we did with John Turner, over at the float conference website, floatconference.com. Hope you guys can make it out to the conference this year, it’s coming up real fast, August 18th and 19th, 2018. And if you have questions you want us to answer, like we normally do on this podcast, of course, you can go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and I will talk to you tomorrow.
Recent Podcast Episodes
How to Help Float Research – DSP 300
With the push from Justin Feinstein at LIBR to get more float centers involved in research, many float center owners are chomping at the bit to push studies forward on the benefits of floating. But where do you start and how do you make it happen?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss this idea and how to do research right, as well as some of the things that might be helpful OR harmful to the world of floating in the eyes of the scientific community. There’s a lot of nuanced things to know about proper research and if you go in overzealous without considering how established science is done, it can harm the reputation of the practice.
Tips on Running Power to Float Rooms – DSP 299
Graham and Ashkahn offer some helpful tips to keep in mind when planning out the electrical framework for your float rooms. How many circuits you should plan for, where to place outlets, GFCI compliance, just to name a few.
Definitely an essential episode for anyone to listen to before going into their build-out phase.
Floating in National Media – DSP 298
Seeing float tanks in the national news and culture has increased in regularity within the last few years. Graham and Ashkahn discuss how these things get on such a large platform. The guys briefly go over some of the major stories that have been all over the media and how those stories happened. Mostly it comes down to luck, but there are a few things that can increases the chances of your float center getting on national TV.
The Real Tips on Building Your Own Float Tank – DSP 297
Someone wrote in and asked, again, despite the repeated warnings of the previous episode covering this topic, how to build a float tank properly.
Graham and Ashkahn try their best to restrain themselves and offer some practical advice about how to build your own tanks while also repeatedly warning about things to look out for when going forward with the process.
How to Handle Other Float Centers Spying on You – DSP 296
Graham and Ashkahn talk about how they deal with other float centers spying on Float On.
Basically… they don’t. The float industry is a really open community and a lot of information is generally freely available. If someone is spying on a float center, that could be a result of poor communication skills or a lack of awareness of what information is actually out there. The guys share their advice on how to talk to someone who might be in that situation and how to move forward, hopefully as friends instead of rivals.
Latest Blog Posts
Reflections from the Rise Float Gathering
Over this past weekend, a good chunk of the Float Tank Solutions and Float Conference crew ventured to St. Louis, MO for the first ever Rise Community Float Gathering. Beyond our excitement to see old friends and meet new ones, we were thrilled to be able to attend a float event that we didn’t have to plan.
When it comes to float tanks, we often deal with a lot of the “what” and the “how” of things – what do I need to do to open a float center and how to I make everything work? We write blogs and put out content. We spend our days thinking about conference flowcharts, water chemistry, detailed business plans, soundproof insulation, etc.
Rise, on the other hand, focused on the “why?”
The Story Behind the Float Marketing Forum
Over the past few years, primarily through feedback received from conference attendees and through industry survey responses, float center owners struggled with and wanted a solution to one thing… marketing. It makes sense – if there’s one thing every center needs (besides salt), it’s a solid flow of customers in tanks.
After some brainstorming with Ashkahn, we’ve decided the best solution for this year was to host a series panels covering key marketing topics that will provide the biggest impact in growing your float center business.
Introducing: The Float Conference Marketing Forum.
Announcing the 2nd Ever Start-a-Center Giveaway WINNER!
In what was one of the most difficult decisions that we had to make as a team… and after sorting through nearly 200 entries… we’ve decided upon a winner in our second ever Start-a-Center Giveaway.
Read more to learn who we’ll be guiding through the process in starting a float tank center in their community.
Gut your space before construction!
One line we don’t think you should cross is this: as much as possible, when building out your float center, gut it completely. Start from scratch.
At least then the mistakes you make are your own and your building will hold fewer surprises down the line. There are many benefits that you may not think of immediately. In this post, we’ll guide you through some of them.