How often do you float? – DSP 127

This episode takes the time to have Graham and Ashkahn share their experiences in the tank. They take the opportunity to explain their relationships to floating and how they differ, and in some ways, how they are very similar.

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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: Today’s question for you is, “How often do you both float, and why do you float?”

Ashkahn: “How often do you float and why do you float?”

Graham: Both, there’s a “both” in there, too.

Ashkahn: Oh, “both”, “in both”.

Graham: Yeah.

Ashkahn: “How often do you both float?”

Graham: Together, actually, not that frequently.

Ashkahn: Yeah, very, very rarely.

Graham: So, for me, I guess it fluctuates a lot, but rarely less than, on average, once a week, I’d say is my regular float schedule.

Ashkahn: Yeah… I do a lot of traveling, so sometimes I’m just in places without float tanks within a many-mile radius of me. I’ve gone, even since opening, a month without floating or longer from just being out and about in the world. But then in Portland, yeah, once every week, once every two weeks I try to get in. Something in that range.

Graham: Yeah, we’ve also just experimented, I mean as you can imagine, when you own a float tank center it’s really easy to play around with what your ideal level of floating is. We’ve both gone on floats every single day for stints, and gone on floats for two to three times a week. Then traveling, I guess, it’s a little bit harder sometimes to get in tanks. Although sometimes when I’m traveling I actually float even more than when I’m back at home.

Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely.

Graham: If you’re in a city where you actually want to go check out the different float tank centers, it’s pretty appealing to actually go hop in different tanks like once every other day, or something like that.

Ashkahn: And it just is so awesome, while traveling. Especially when you just get off an airplane, and you’re just kind of super exhausted and all that stuff. Those have been some of my best floats, is at the end of a long stint of flying somewhere.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. I will say if I go over a week, and certainly over two weeks without floating, I really start to notice it. It’s like a slow-scale addiction withdrawal, or something like that. But yeah, especially in my back, I think just doing so much, and that’s where I feel not floating. But I think just being hunched over my computer so much of the day, and just kind of stationary, and doing a lot of sitting at my keyboard really is not necessarily good for my shoulders and my spine, and stuff like that.

Ashkahn: Surprising. Surprising to hear that.

Graham: Yeah, sitting is bad for us? So again, for me, if I’m out of the tank for longer than a week, it really starts to show up in my muscles.

Ashkahn: I think the other interesting thing is that I’ve gone through different waves of the length of float that I want to do, which is interesting. I started, when we started doing the 90s, when we first started up, and then for a while after that I kept just wanting to float longer, and longer, and longer. You know, it was a point where I was doing two and a half hours floats were kind of the norm, and then started doing some three and a half, and middle of the night long ones, like four and a half, five hour floats. Then for me it actually started fluctuating beyond that. Like right now, I’ve been really digging 60 minute floats, actually. I’ll hop in and I’ll feel really good after 60 minutes, and my, almost consistently for the last few months, will very much detect that 60 minute point and feel like I had a nice, hearty float.

Graham: Interesting.

Ashkahn: It’s interesting how it goes through these kind of big waves like that.

Graham: Yeah, it definitely does. When I don’t time myself, I find I often get out between about two and three and a half hours. That’s kind of like my body’s natural instinctive time to wind up the float. And then you can push past that, too, and kind of go back into the zone and stay in for longer, as well. That for me, is pretty consistent. If I don’t turn on any music or anything like that, that’s been how it goes. I guess 90 minutes is what I’ve been doing recently, though. I guess I’m an early morning riser and we only do long floats late at night now, so that’s probably been a factor.

I’m trying to think of what other useful information about frequency of float. For me, even floating every day for a while, and then switching to floating three times a week, twice a week, I find I think around two to three times a week is kind of the sweet spot in Graham floating maintenance, in that I didn’t really notice that I felt too much different when I was floating every single day, versus floating about three times a week. I’m not sure if it’s because personally I have that two to three day post-float afterglow. I know that time period after a float kind of differs for everyone, where they still feel really floaty, but about three times a week, constantly kind of riding that wave of floating after you get out of a tank, and again, for me that’s the sweet spot. If I’m getting in two to three times a week, I feel really happy and kind of on-point.

Ashkahn: It’s interesting. I feel like for me more recently, the actual time in the float tank has been the thing that’s been kind of the most impactful. I don’t tend to notice huge differences in days afterwards, or stuff like that. It’s the kind of like in-tank experience.

Graham: So there you have it. Who knew? Floating is actually different for every single person, and between floats.

Ashkahn: Yeah.

Graham: And then, so why do you float, Ashkahn?

Ashkahn: Why do I float?

Graham: Because it would be embarrassing if we didn’t.

Ashkahn: It’s interesting. I really get very poor visuals.

Graham: You mean your visuals just kind of low-bit?

Ashkahn: Yeah, grainy.

Graham: Black and white.

Ashkahn: I’ve honestly barely ever seen anything in there, other than one time I saw purple for a brief moment, and I got super excited that I was seeing something. Then I lost it.

Graham: You can’t force that.

Ashkahn: You can’t force it. Yeah, clearly. So that part is not something that I’ve noticed is too severely … I’ve never really had a lot of issues with stress, or feeling kind of huge impacts of stress.

Graham: Or sleep.

Ashkahn: Or, yeah, problems sleeping. None of that stuff has, I felt, been super impactful. Like I haven’t noticed huge differences in floating for my sleep or for my stress levels, but what I really appreciate from it is I do find that it’s an amazing place to think. I’ve noticed that I don’t naturally give a lot of time and attention to just kind of solid introspection and really thinking through things, and I’ve had some great ideas in the float tanks, and I’ve realized things about my life. Sometimes they’re extremely mundane, like it’s just like, “Oh, that’s how I should answer that email.”

Graham: I could eat peanut butter three times as efficiently. I’ve been a fool.

Ashkahn: Triple-spoon. So sometimes it’s just a little work problem, sometimes it’s something that my personal life and my relationships with other people, and I find that just being in there and decluttering the day-to-day stuff my brain is thinking about gives me a chance to really actually realize the things I maybe should be spending more time thinking about. I find that to be really beneficial, I really like having those floats. As a result, my favorite time to float is in the middle of the afternoon, when my body’s most alert and the most ready to go.

So I’m not floating to relax, or ease into my night or anything. I’m literally floating when my mind is kind of working at its peak of the day. Even despite that, having more active floats that aren’t as focused on relaxation or anything, I still come out and almost no matter what, even if while I was in the float tank I didn’t really think of much or whatever, I have this very, almost satiated feeling, you know? I feel like every time I come out of a float, no matter what, even if while I was in there it didn’t feel like I was really hitting the space I wanted to hit or anything, I come out and it’s just like, “Ah.” It’s a post-float “Ah” that happens regardless, every time I float.

Graham: Yeah, sure. Is that where you, were you done? I thought you were gonna keep going there, I would have jumped in. Yeah, for me, what I get out of floating differs a lot, but the why I float stays broadly consistent, which is I float because I feel better, and more like my ideal self or something when I’m actually hopping in the tank regularly. That’s physical. Like I mentioned, I have really bad posture when I’m working on the computer, too, like I get really into my emails and hunch over and get closer to them, so I feel like I’m-

Ashkahn: Yell right into the computer.

Graham: Yeah, you just yell at the computer! So it’s really not good for my posture. Definitely I’d say the first 20, 25 minutes of a float, regardless of how long I’m in the tank I really spend kind of stretching out, and doing yoga in the float tank, kind of. Actually often on my hips and shoulders, focusing. So that alone is really great. I’ve still been trying to figure out, because as you can imagine running a float tank center, you get this question a lot, right? When you’re running your float center I’m sure there are customers coming in, asking you how often you float and why you float, all the time. I have trouble explaining exactly these more subtle effects that I get from floating, but the way that I usually say it is, “I notice if it’s been a long time since floating, and then I float, that it brings me back to this state that I’m really used to being in.”

So if it has been like two weeks since I’ve hopped in the tank, which I guess for me is kind of a long time, and then I hop in, I immediately remember what it’s like to be a little more Graham-ly, or a little more just like my best self, or something, like my thoughts are more focused. I have an easier time just actually getting done, powering through sometimes challenging work that I need to do. Even interactions with other people, I feel like I’m just less stressed out, and able to kind of wave away any irritation, or something like that, that I might be feeling towards an incident or a person. And just again, it kind of makes me the best version of myself, but it’s such a subtle and slow-acting return back to slightly worse posture, slightly more stressed out, slightly more irritable Graham.

And like Ashkahn, too, it’s not like I’m a very irritable person to begin with, so maybe that’s why it’s such a subtle transition. It’s so much so that I don’t notice it happening when I’m not floating. It’s only after I’ve gone through a period of it and then floated, that I realize how much I’d slid backwards into all these bad habits, almost.

Ashkahn: Sometimes I feel like it pushes me too far into just not caring about things. I’ll come out of a float, and I’ll have a meeting, and I’m supposed to be upset at someone for not getting something done, I’m just like, “Yeah, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Don’t even worry about it.” It makes me care a little bit too less about everything.

Graham: A little bit too less, huh? Yeah, it’s hard because I feel that way anyway, normally. Staying angry at people is really challenging. You really have to work for it, you know? I also, like I have had more visuals and maybe some more trippy experiences in the tank than Ashkahn, I think I’m also very much on that low scale of actually having auditory or visual hallucinations, or even kind of more of those deep, spiritual kind of experiences, so, similarly, it’s a great place for rest and relaxation, a great place for thinking. I love that residual, peaceful Graham sort of vibe that it gives me afterwards, but I’m also, personally at least, not going in for the more psychedelic side of it.

Ashkahn: Yeah, maybe one day. It’d be cool to get crazy. Sometimes I’m jealous of our customers. They’ll come out and they’re like, “Yeah, just gorillas riding surfboards in there,” and I was like, “What?”

Graham: I’m jealous of Jake Marty. All right, well, if you have any more business or personal questions to send our way, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and shoot ’em on over.

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