Getting Tanked

20

INSIGHT

WORKLIFE

STYLE

ADVENTURE

Thursday, August 31, 2006 INtake

FOOD & DRINK

A D V E N T U R E : R . E . S . T.

GETTING TANKED INtake’s Kimiko Martinez learns that her senses sometimes enjoy a little depravation.

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By Kimiko Martinez

I

kimiko.martinez@intakeweekly.com

’ve never been high. And I’ve never been to outer space. (Duh.) But after leaving Stillwater Float in Carmel, I feel like I’ve done both.

For an entire hour I’ve been forced to relax.

I say forced because I, like so many of my fellow frenzied friends in this “work hard, play hard” anxiety-ridden generation, am one of those people who simply can’t sit still. And yet, for more than 60 minutes, I haven’t had a choice.

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R.E.S.T. assured: Kimiko Martinez climbs into an Oasis tank to try out R.E.S.T. (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy).

Michelle Pemberton / INtake

INtake

WORKLIFE

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Stripped

Situated in a fairly typical strip mall just north of 126th and Rangeline Road in Carmel, Stillwater Float doesn’t look like much from the outside.

Walking in feels a bit like entering a spa or doctor’s office, where a stone waterfall provides ambient noise and creates a relaxing effect.

The center, which opened Aug. 1, houses two float tanks, where customers can R.E.S.T. (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy).

Apparently floating was all the rage in the ’70s and ’80s.

Also known as “sensory deprivation,” professional athletes were known to reap benefits from these salt water-filled tanks. Entire sports teams would use the tanks for relaxation and focus training.

Always looking for something new, and in desperate need of some relaxation, I decided to give it a try. So after going over the basics with coowner Tom Gould (see box) and showering in the East Room (a small, private room with a shower and float tank) I stepped in and closed the door.

Look ma, no hands!

STYLE

ADVENTURE

About floating ! Flotation tanks hold about 200 pounds of water with about 800 pounds of dissolved Epsom salt. Users float like a cork. ! Muscle tension, blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen consumption drop dramatically. ! Stress-related chemicals are removed from the bloodstream and replaced by beneficial endorphins. ! The brain’s electrical activity drops to a level known as the theta state. The mind remains awake and alert, yet nearly asleep.

Stillwater Float Where: 622 S. Rangeline Road, Suite E. Carmel, (317) 663-4359, www.StillwaterFloat.net.

Cost: Grand opening special: $40 for a one-hour float, or bring a friend for two one-hour floats for $25 each. (Book by Sept. 1.)

Basically, a flotation tank is a small, super saline pool. The water’s only about 10 inches deep and heated to about 93.5 degrees. The Epsom salt works double duty in providing therapeutic effects and making the body float like a cork.

Floatation device: This Oasis tank is filled with 200 pounds of water Because the temperature is into which 800 pounds of Epsom salt has been dissolved. almost the exact temperature as your skin, floaters eventually lose the sensation of hot/cold.

By about 20 minutes in, I was to just shut down. I floated popped into my mind. I rehaving trouble distinguishing somewhere between sleep and membered all those times I’d where the water ended and this dark, deep space that I’d warmed myself in the sun as a where the air began. And since entered. Once I hit that sweet child, laying in my neighbor’s the tank is almost spot, all sense of time and pool.

So to be floating completely dark, you space completely disappeared.

— with no sun, no feel as if you’re just I was snapped back to reality beer, no friends, no floating out in the when Gould knocked on the sound, no waves — middle of space. door a little over an hour after was a completely forThere are no stars, I’d stepped into my personal eign experience. of course, except stasis chamber.

For a good 30 minthose weird splotches utes or so I was antsy, Head in the clouds that your eyes prowondering how much duce when you rub An hour later I was still feeltime had already them. More than once ing lightheaded. Not drunk, but passed, trying to think I had to purposely kind of that giddy, nothing matTom Gould of things to think blink my eyes just to ters mood where your head co-owns about, scolding myself see if they were still feels like it’s barely even atStillwater for thinking about the open or not. I found tached to your body. Your scalp Float in Carthings that popped into feels tingly and your head is so myself moving my mel. my head, trying to fingers and toes as clear that you wonder if there’s breathe deeply and simply rewell, just to feel the sensation even a brain inside of it. lax. A drop of condensation of the water moving.

The effects could last up to Gould said one hour of float- from the roof of the tank could several days, Gould said. No ing is equal to about four hours jar me and throw me temporacomplaints in my book. rily off track from truly relaxof deep sleep.

It takes some people two or Floating in and of itself is re- ing. three sessions to really reap laxing. Images of lying on a But eventually my body the benefits, he said. If the benraft, surrounded by friends won. Just as Gould said it efits get even better (Did I (and usually beer), and being would, a parasympathetic remention the back pain relief?), rocked by the waves of a river sponse kicked in and it seemed I can’t wait to go back.

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