Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Sometimes you have customers with very specific needs or concerns about their float. In the case of medical concerns in regards to floating, there’s a lot we don’t know. Always always always have your customers discuss any serious medical concerns with their doctor. If for no other reason, if something does go wrong, even if it’s completely unrelated to their float, you’re not on the hook and have to deal with it.
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Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is also here with us recording, and it is, “Do you have any information regards to clients with a pacemaker or defibrillator? Is it safe for them to float? I wasn’t sure if you all had encountered this before.“
So, first of all, any kind of serious medical questions like this should be run by a doctor, which we are not.
Ashkahn: Yeah, there’s a big list of things we’re not, which you’ve maybe realized by listening to this podcast.
Graham: Lawyers, doctors …
Ashkahn: Psychiatrists…
Graham: Good podcasters…
Ashkahn: Decent humans in general. But yeah, them also, yeah, definitely not doctors is the thing we’re not today.
Graham: That said, there seems to be no real problems with it that we’ve been able to find.
Ashkahn: Yeah, I can’t think of what … Unless you somehow got salt in your blood and it went into your pacemaker and screwed up the electronics.
Graham: Yeah, kinda the biggest concern that I’ve heard is in relation to, people who have pacemakers often are taking other cardiac medications or things that affect their blood pressure, and there could be something with that, entering into deep relaxation and blood pressure problems, so I’d almost be more concerned about the paired medications than the pacemaker itself.
Ashkahn: Yeah, definitely one of those doctor questions. And this is what I would say, were a customer to ask me this at the float center, I’d be like, “Oh, man, you should definitely check with your doctor about that. I can’t give you an answer.”
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: “I just run a float tank center.”
Graham: For sure. And again, that said, I have a feeling the doctor would come back and say that it’s probably not a problem. I’d also say, definitely ask the doctor about contraindications with any other medications that you’re taking along with this, and again, we’ve heard from several float centers that they’ve floated people with pacemakers, they’ve never had any issues with them. In general, it wouldn’t be high on my priority list, but no reason to dodge the-
Ashkahn: Yeah, if anything, floating seems to be better for your cardiovascular system.
Graham: Yeah, but just like pregnancy, no reason to skip the whole doctor recommendation. It’s just, what if something did go wrong, and someone were to come after you, just sounds like such a awful situation. Way better to punt it over to the medical professionals.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: So, I think that’s short episode day.
Ashkahn: I guess that’s it, man. We’re not doctors, so you asked the wrong person this question.
Graham: So if you have any more medical questions to send our way, it’ll be really easy episodes. We can just kinda rehash through this exact same thing. And you can do that at floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
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In this post we’ll lay out a general process and timeline of what you may encounter on your path, from initial idea to actually operating a center.
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Before we clarify what a “volunteer” actually means, we’ll first explore why a float center might be considering them in the first place. While it can be a way to provide floats to people who are otherwise unable to pay, the impulse to bring in volunteers can also stem from a desire to get some sort of free labor (later in this post we’ll dive into why you can’t actually do this, but it’s important to recognize that the instinct is understandable, especially when you have someone lined up and willing to work for free).
In addition to a desired boost in overall productivity, it’s also a way to invite more people into your center to experience what you do. Some customers actually want to help out and see what happens behind the scenes at a center.
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Broadly speaking, it’s a tool for homeostasis, an ideal environment that supports balance, health, and growth. This piece will look specifically at floating and athletics. For anyone who defines themselves as an athlete, or as a general pursuant of athletic endeavors, the float tank can be a powerful asset.
In this post, I’ll discuss individual athletes who float and how to look at this from a marketing perspective. I’ll also discuss past and present research, and share some thoughts on how the relationship between the athletic and floating communities might continue to unfold.
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I think it’s time we addressed the giant metaphorical elephant in the salty metaphorical room — there are lots of exaggerated and untrue claims about the benefits of floating being spread around the industry.
Some are anecdotal, some are only half true, and some are just patently false. Floating has historically had a strong oral tradition tied to it — the practice has survived through word-of-mouth, one passionate floater teaching another everything they know. The unfortunate thing about this is that the information disseminated can’t be reliably tested or shared with others on a broader scale. You can’t use “my buddy Chris” as a source for a health benefit of float tanks in a newspaper article, much less for a research paper.
Now that we’re becoming a bit more mainstream, we thought it would be nice to add some clarity to what we should and shouldn’t be telling people about these difficult-to-understand, saliferous containers.
