It’s becoming increasingly common to offer floating alongside other health and wellness modalities. In the most recent State of the Float Industry Report, 74% of float centers offer some form of wellness service in conjunction with floating.
There’s a lot of reasons why combining float tanks with other forms of alternative wellness is a good idea. We’ve heard from many massage therapists that they love to send their clients in for float sessions beforehand because it makes them easier to work on. Gyms and fitness centers have been adding float tanks as a benefit to their members, who can float as a way to recover after exercising.
If you’re a massage therapist, gym owner, chiropractor, or another wellness practitioner that’s looking to add float tanks, you’ll want to consider the following points to determine if floating is right for your business.
Everyone is getting into floating
Because the benefits are so numerous, there are lots of people who have started to use floating to improve their lives. Float tanks aren’t just showing up in spas and wellness centers, but sports teams like the New England Patriots and the Golden State Warriors have started incorporating floating into their training regimens with astounding results. Two-time MVP, three-time NBA champion Steph Curry is an enthusiastic advocate for floating and considers it one of the things that help him maintain his competitive edge.
In the world of mental health, veterans programs have been using floating to help treat PTSD, and more and more therapists have been incorporating floating into their sessions as it helps their patients feel safe and receptive to processing challenging issues.
However, you don’t have to be a doctor or professional athlete to find floating useful. Float enthusiasts intersect with lots of other types of people, and no matter who your clients are, they’ll probably find some benefit from floating.
Floating lives up to the hype
Floating is more than just a cool activity to try once cuz you saw Stranger Things and started wondering if you’re secretly telepathic. While there’s a seemingly limitless supply of stories from people sharing adventures they’ve had in the dreamscapes of their minds while floating weightlessly in the dark, the benefits go far beyond simply a novelty.
Despite being a relatively new wellness treatment, there’s a lot of fairly well-researched benefits to floating. Let’s look at just a few of them:
- Anxiety reduction
- Hypertension
- PTSD
- Depression
- Anorexia nervosa
- Insomnia
- Restlessness
- Pain management
- Pregnancy related issues (back pain, nausea, etc. It’s also a great opportunity for a pregnant person to connect with the tiny human they’re carrying with them)
In many cases, patients who used floating as a treatment showed better results than those treated with traditional methods. Floating also has some extremely positive effects. Such as:
- Increased creativity
- Stress relief
- Generally improved mental health
- Quicker physical recovery
- Improved accuracy
- Greater focus
- Increased mindfulness,
- Along with many other benefits that are still being researched.
Float tanks have a way of affecting people in surprising ways. Float centers regularly keep journals in their lobbies and post-float lounges so that floaters can share their experiences and even draw them out. We end up seeing page after page of truly life-changing experiences that happen during floats. In fact, most float center owners start their own businesses because of how significant floating has been in their own lives.
(below are just a couple of the recent float experiences that we thought were pretty cool).
It makes business sense
While so many of the things mentioned are great to know about floating, the rest of the perks mean very little if adding a couple of tanks is not a good business decision. Profitability is often the primary concern when adding a service to any business. While it’s true that there is a high upfront cost to adding float tanks (no, you absolutely CANNOT just throw some float tanks into an existing room and call it good), the variable costs per float are extremely low, especially if you already have staff on hand. This means that once your investment is paid for, the passive income of having float tanks adds up quickly.
As we’ve already mentioned, floating can complement other services nicely. This makes it easy to create packages and other incentives in your existing wellness business. Also, including floating can be a nice way to add value in loyalty programs or as part of an advertising campaign.
People who may not normally come in for a massage or a cryotherapy session may suddenly come in because they’re curious about floating, broadening your appeal. If the market you’re currently in is fairly competitive with similar services around, you can certainly make yours stand out by adding floating to your list of offerings.
Okay. I’m curious. Where can I find more information?
First and foremost, FLOAT!
There is no way to know if this is right for you if you haven’t tried it yourself. After all, if you don’t know what’s so special about floating, how can you encourage others to try it?
While we’re sure you’re excited by the incredible potential float tanks offer, it’s understandable if you have questions that may need answering. Fortunately, we have literally hundreds of podcasts, blogs, and free resources for you to peruse and find the information you need.
After you’ve determined that you want to add floating to your existing wellness center AND you’re ready for in-depth training, reach out to us directly to find out what you’d need to to make it happen at your location.
We’re always happy to educate future float center owners on the vital, yet relatively obscure information we’ve collected throughout the years of helping others create float communities of their own.
Take Part in the 2017 Float Industry Report
We’re gathering responses for our 2017 Industry Report through the end of June, and we once again need your help.
Please take a brief moment to answer a few questions about your float center (or future float center) – it may be easiest thing you can do to contribute to the growth of floatation around the world.
The Basics of Float Tank Sanitation
Some of the most common questions you’ll get as a float center operator involve the cleanliness of the tanks. This post will be an introduction to some of the most commonplace sanitation methods used in float tanks. These are generally either chemicals that go in the water or devices that attach to your filtration system. We’ll be discussing chlorine, bromine, ozone, UV, and hydrogen peroxide, which accounts for the sanitation methods used on nearly every float tank on the market.
Testing and Maintaining Float Tank Water Quality
Editors Note: This is a revision of a past blog post, updated to reflect the most current sanitation methods and standards
In a perfect world, you could just pour water and salt into a float tank and it would stay pure and clean and fresh and salty forever. In the real world, conditions in the water are constantly changing, so keeping your water safe and clean takes a fair amount of vigilance.
This post covers how we maintain basic water quality in the float tank, except for sanitization methods, which will be covered in their own beastly sanitation blog post. Stay tuned for that coming out next week!
Floating, mental health, and wellness
This post will explore the intersection of floating with the concepts, beliefs, and experiences related to mental health and wellness, with a focus on anxiety and depression. I’ll explore my own story as it relates to floating before diving into the current intersections of floating and mental health, with a look at past, current, and potential opportunities for research and personal growth.
Massage, Acupuncture, and Float Tanks… A Chat with Sandra Calm
We’ve seen lots of float centers that aren’t just float centers.
Many have massage, some offer counseling, some have yoga classes next door. Lots of people start out either by incorporating float tanks into a larger business, or with float tanks only being one of many modalities at their center. Being specialists in floating, Float On has not mastered anything else.
So, to help gain insight into this growing aspect of the industry, we contacted our old friend, Sandra Calm. She started up The Float Shoppe here in Portland with her husband and podcast sensation, Dylan Calm, back in 2011. When they first opened, they had just two float tanks, and slowly added acupuncture, massage, counseling, along with two more tanks. Talk about expansion!
She was more than happy to take some time for the industry to help us understand just what it’s like to run a center with multiple services by answering some questions.
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.
The Heart of Floating – Guest Post by Kevin McCulloch
“When we commit to The Heart of Floating, we form relationships and communities. We share experiences, we connect, we learn, we teach. We care.”
In this guest post, Kevin McCulloch, owner of Float St. Louis and organizer of the Rise: Float Community Gathering, explores the heart of floating and it’s power and potential to connect, heal, and grow individuals, relationships, and communities.
