The lowdown on Floatworks

24 August, 2017

Do you even float, bro?

We recently had the blissful pleasure of taking the salty plunge into float therapy at The Floatworks. 'Floating' is said to be the wellness trend of 2017, and if you're into yoga, meditation or mindfulness, it's a bit of you.

The lowdown

For an hour you get to feel like a mermaid as you float inside a futuristic cocoon-like pod, half filled with magnesium-rich epsom salt water. The idea is to reach a total state of relaxation. Once you shower and hop in (you can wear a swimsuit, but we're all about being nakey) you'll enjoy 10 minutes of music, and after then it's totally silent – just you and your thoughts (which can seem terrifying in itself). You can either keep a calming blue light on, or switch it off and surrender your senses. We went all in, and it was a completely unique experience.

Once we let go, we had an incredibly enlightening realisation that this hour is 100% for you. Even when you think you're having some time out for yourself, you're usually surrounded by devices and distractions...but not here. This is about your mind, your body, and nothing else. And we're float fans for that alone. But it gets better: we'd already had a heavy leg session in the gym, and after our muscles felt great when we'd expected terrible DOMS. And to top it off, that evening we had the dreamiest of sleeps.

So if you haven't floated naked in a pitch black salt water tub yet, you owe it to yourself to try.

The benefits

As fitness enthusiasts and athletes, you probably know the physical benefits of Epsom salt baths (quicker recovery, pain relief, detoxification etc). Many Team GB Olympians use the float tank as part of their training regimes – but not just for recovery. Visualisation can rapidly improve sporting performance, and it's said that an hour in the float tank using visualisation is better than 10 hours of repetitive field practice. That's powerful.

And it's no surprise that it's big outside of the sporting world for its mental benefits too. Floatation shifts brain waves from beta to lower frequency alpha, theta and even delta, which deepens meditation, heightens visualisation, and enhances a self-hypnotic state. This increases creativity, mental alertness and problem solving – no wonder serial entrepreneurs such as Tim Ferris are fans.

If you're a regular meditator, this will come more naturally to you. For any newbies (and generally busy Londoners...) it might be harder to switch off.

The pre-float worries

If you're anything like our founder Laura, you might also think: "but I never float I always sink, and I don't think I'm claustrophobic but what if this is like the time I did the highest bungee jump in the world and found out that I'm actually terrified of heights?". Well you can relax, because there's 525kg of magnesium rich Epsom-salts in each pod, meaning it's denser than the Dead Sea and magical levitation is pretty much guaranteed. The spaceship-like pods are just under 9" x 6", so there's tons of room to relax – physically and mentally.

The dollar

A single float is usually £50, but with code 'FITTY' you can get 15% off! They also have a brilliant intro offer where you get three floats for £100, making it just over £33 a float.