Can Float Therapy Tackle Burnout and Stress?
Has life thrown far too many lemons your way lately? Does one stressful event only follow another without ever showing signs of slowing down? If your days consist of putting out fires, problem solving, and keeping stress at bay, you may be teetering on the edge of burnout. Stress and burnout are not new phenomenas, but increased demands to show up as your best self to every occasion can wane on your resiliency and ability to ever switch off and recuperate. The constant emails, screen time, and social events all while trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle, is taxing and results in more people experiencing increased stress, fatigue and burnout. Don’t fret though, we dive into what’s happening in your body and what you can do to recharge your batteries.
What’s the deal with Stress and Burnout?
Stress can take many forms, and it can manifest in people in different ways. Firstly let’s talk about acute stress, those moments in your day that trigger the stress response and temporary raise your cortisol levels. Traffic, deadlines, conflicts, near misses they all contribute to cortisol spikes, if those spikes become the norm in your daily life, they could transition into chronic stress.
Chronic stress, can been seen and felt in different ways from person to person; through sleep issues, mood swings, fatigue, pain, and anxiety. If it doesn’t let up, chronic stress creates a state of hyper-arousal in your mind and throughout your body that doesn’t completely dissipate. Elevated cortisol levels become your new normal, affecting your immune system, giving you a constant feeling of fight or flight, and threat based focus. This hyper awareness can result in a number of adverse effects; anxiety, poor gut health, increased cardiovascular issues and sleep issues which help to perpetrate the negative cycle.
On to Burnout, which is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. Burnout can come as a result of an unrelenting workload, being constantly “plugged in” to work, without necessary supports or outlets. Burnout is common in our always switched on culture, it can be hard to unplug and even harder to balance the demands of our ever growing list of to do’s.
How Can Float Therapy Help?
The research is mounting and the results are in, float therapy offers symptom relief to both stress and burnout, and those results have long term staying power. A review of more than 2 dozen studies investigating floatation REST therapy found the practice to be an effective tool for lowering stress, increasing a sense of well being, and improving daily performance. Stress and burnout can manifest both in the mind and body and float therapy helps to alleviate the spectrum of negative effects including positive physical changes related to stress, including lower cortisol levels and lower blood pressure.
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There have also been a handful of studies investigating the ability of floatation therapy to address burnout. A 2010 study where participants engaged in both float therapy and psychotherapy, and reported improvements in both quality of life and mental well being, in addition to relief from feelings of burnout, results in study participants to continue working full time. A second study focused on the long-term effects of float therapy. After engaging in a series is 12 floats, study participants noted a significant improvement to stress and the symptoms of burnout. A follow up for months after the treatment concluded found that these benefits were still in place.
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Floating also has chemical benefits to the body which helps lower stress and burnout. Magnesium helps to regulate the hormone ACTH, which is responsible for driving your adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol. A healthy dose of magnesium helps to reduce an overactive response of your adrenal glands and can reduce symptoms of “adrenal fatigue” a term describing a group of symptoms that are said to occur in people who are under long-term mental, emotional, or physical stress.
The Take Away
Regularity is key in terms of long term results as seen above and in this recent study, where people who floated eight times in two weeks had their cortisol reduce by 21%. They also had a 50% reduction in cortisol variability which means they responded to stressful situations with less cortisol spikes.
What this all means is that floatation therapy can play a huge part in stimulating the body’s relaxation response. This can build the resiliency we need to maintain healthy levels and combat the 24/7 lifestyle we live in, particularly in cases of burnout, stress or chronic fatigue.