What is a Sensory Deprivation Tank?

My name is Rob Dial. Today we're going to be talking about sensory deprivation tanks. If you like this episode, do me a favor, consider subscribing. But here we go. All right, so today we're going to be talking about sensory deprivation tanks. One of my favorite things, also known as float tanks and a sensory deprivation tank, as crazy as this is going to sound, is exactly what you would think it is. It is a tank that deprives you of all of your senses. So I'll kind of give you a quick idea of exactly what it is, and I'll give you the benefits of it. And it's going to sound crazy to you, I promise. But when you hear the benefits, you'll start to understand why they're so amazing, why they're starting to rise in popularity, why I love them, and why I think that you should give it a shot as well. So what is a sensory deprivation tank? To give you an idea, there's a bunch of different sizes, but personally, I am claustrophobic, so if these were too small, I would not be able to get in them. The place that I go to, it has the same length and width of a queen size bed, and I can stand up inside of the entire tank itself. Now, the tank is a tank that has about 12 inches of water in it. And you float inside of the water, there's 1200 pounds of Epsom salt, and inside of it. And it's gonna sound crazy, but just trust me, what you do is you get inside of it naked. Don't worry, it's got 1200 pounds Epsom salt. It's also got a professional pool cleaner pool filter that's on it as well. And they put 1200 pounds of Epsom salt. And the skin temperature, Your skin temperature is somewhere around 93.8 degrees or something like that. Your core temperature is 98.6 degrees, but your skin temperature is like 90. Let's say it's 93.8, right? Well, the water temperature and the air temperature inside the tank is 93.8 degrees. Whatever the exact temperature of your skin is, it's the exact temperature. And the reason why is because you're trying to deprive your body of its senses. So if the water and the air are the same temperature as your skin, then obviously you're not going to feel anything. When you shut the door, it's completely pitch black, so you can't see anything. The tank itself is also soundproof, which means you can't hear anything. Obviously, you're not tasting anything, and you're not smelling anything either. So what you do is doing is literally depriving your body from its five senses. So you're depriving your body of its five senses. And you might ask, what's the benefit of that? Think about this. In our crazy days that we have nowadays, the average person, just so you know, I saw a study the other day, said the average person in the 80s had an attention span of about 20 minutes. 20 minutes in the 80s. The average person nowadays has an attention span of. You ready? Just take a guess in your head. How long do you think that it is? It was 20 minutes a long time ago. What do you think it is now? Eight seconds. Just think about that for a second. Eight seconds. We have so many different types of way that our attention is stolen from us. There's advertisements everywhere. There's billboards everywhere. There's signs everywhere. There's Facebook, there's Twitter, Snapchat, there's Instagram. There's people who want to walk in your office. There's all of these things. And so the good thing about the sensory deprivation tank is it finally allows you to just be with yourself and relax. Now, I realize this. Most people hear this and they go an hour in a tank being completely deprived of senses. Absolutely not. I cannot do it. And the first thing that I have to say to you is because you are afraid of what you're going to find inside of your head. The reason why you are afraid to do a sensory deprivation tank, if that sounds crazy to you, is because you're afraid to find out what's inside your head. It's probably the same reason why you haven't started meditating like you want to or that, you know, that you should. That's the reason why most people won't use a float tank. And so the benefits of the float tank itself. And like I said, most people are saying, I can't do that, in case you want to know some of the benefits. Also, I saw an article not too long ago that Steph Curry, every single week goes to use a float tank to completely disconnect from everything. And so when you say, oh man, I have to go into this float tank for an hour, and this people always ask, how long is it? 15 minutes, 20 minutes? No, it's anywhere between 60 to 90 minutes is, on average what I do. That's what most people do. But you can actually go longer if you want to as well. So I understand you're listening to that. You're saying that's crazy. What are the benefits? Well, Think about it. Your entire life, since the second you were born, you've never had a second where you haven't had some site type, some type of sensory coming in, some type of stimuli coming in. Even if you sit down in complete silence, you're still hearing the cars outside, you're still hearing the wind, you're still feeling the feet, your feet on the ground, you're still feeling the seed underneath your butt. You're still feeling all of these things. So since the second you were born, you've never once been deprived of senses. Imagine what it would be like to give your brain a break. And so you have to think about that. That's one of the benefits of doing it. So it allows your brain to really finally relax. And it's exactly like meditation the first couple times you do it. Well, the first time I did it, my brain was all over the place. But I'll tell you more about my experiences and how they, how it went for me. But it's more like meditation on steroids. The reason why is because you don't have anything you can listen to. You don't hear any birds chirping, you don't have your, your dog rustling around in the background that can steal your attention. You have nothing that can steal your attention from diving deep into your own brain and figuring out what's really going on in there. And the reason why most people are not going to do it, or they say they could never do that, is because they're afraid of what they're going to find inside of their brain. They're afraid. And that's the same reason, like I said, why people don't meditate because they know the benefits, but they're afraid of what they're going to find inside of their brains. So what's crazy, though, is that our brains are. So here's what's pretty nuts about it. Our brains are so addicted to stimuli, to constantly getting some type of stimuli all day long, that a lot of people actually go into these float tanks and start to hallucinate. It's the word I was looking for. Hallucinate different things, they'll start to see different things, they'll start to hear things that weren't there. I swear the last time I was, last Saturday, I was in one. The last time I was in it, I heard music coming on. Because once your float is over, your hours up, they start to. Music starts to come on just a little bit. I swear I heard music, but there was absolutely no music going on. I finally started to start to I started to see hallucinations, things going in between my eyes. I thought someone turned a light on because it was so bright, how bright it looked. You know when your eyes are closed and you can, you could tell somebody just turned a light on. I saw that when my eyes were closed and I opened up my eyes and it was still completely black. And so a lot of people actually hallucinate, but it allows you to hallucinate, it allows you to relax, it allows you to go into deep, deep, deep, deep states of meditation. My best ideas that I've ever had, my idea for the podcast came from being inside of a float tank where I was like, you know what? I should actually do that. My idea for my group coaching came from being inside of that. My last one that I went on this past Saturday, I got an amazing idea which I personally know is going to make me tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. So that's one of the benefits, because you get to cut through all of the surface level crap that's coming into your day every single day and start to dive deeper into your brain and deeper into your subconscious and you start to actually get the really good ideas when you do that. Other things that are benefits of going to a float tank, it lowers cortisol, which is a stress hormone. It lowers your heart rate, it normalizes your blood pressure levels, it restores your normal breathing rate, and also it normalizes digestive functions as well. And with there being 1200 pounds of, of Epsom salt in it as well, it's also really, really good for your muscles. And it's really good for your muscles to start to relax because there's a lot of magnesium that's in there. And the magnesium that goes into your muscles allows you to get rid of soreness a lot, a lot quicker. So let me tell you about my experience with them. The first time that I've done it, I've probably done it seven or eight times now, and I've done an hour every single time. But the first time I did it, it was alright. It wasn't anything special. It was like a little bit of a meditation, but it was kind of getting used to being inside of a tank, doing this for the very first time. The second time that I did it was actually the craziest experience out of all of them. And so the second time that I did it, the easiest way to explain the way that I felt was about 30 minutes into it. I realized that I could legitimately not feel my legs and I could not feel my muscle, my Hands and my arms. And so there was a mini panic attack in my brain for a second because I was like, holy crap, did I just. And I wasn't moving. The point of. Is not to move, obviously, because if I move, I'm going to feel the water rushing against my skin, and that's going to kind of break the little meditation that I was in. So I didn't move. And there was a mini freak out at first. Like, holy crap, I can't feel my arms and legs. And then the second thing I thought was, this is how it's supposed to be. And the easiest way to explain it is it. It was kind of like if you were. I felt like I was a sugar cube. And you know how you put a sugar cube in water and it slowly dissolves? And I felt like my body was slowly dissolving. And the only thing that I could feel was the water against my face. Because it comes up to, you know, about your cheeks. It doesn't go under your eyes or anything like that, but it comes up to, you know, about your cheeks or so. And the only other thing I could feel was my heartbeat on the water. So I could feel the waves that my heart was making. So all I could feel was my heart beat in my face. Those are the only two things I could feel in my body for about 30 minutes. And I was like, this is the craziest experience I've ever had. And this. This is what really sold me on. Holy crap, I should keep doing this because this was an amazing experience. So then I get out and it's really nice place. It's like a spa more than anything else. I get out, I go and take a shower. It was the best shower I've ever had in my entire life. It was like everything. It was honestly the closest thing I could. It's basically the exact equivalent of, you know, it really is, honestly, if you start to think about the benefits of it, it's basically the natural equivalent of somebody doing Molly, I guess you could say. Because what it is, is it's actually everything feels amazing. If you've ever seen someone that, like, does ecstasy or does molly, whatever, and they're like, oh, my gosh, everything feels amazing. That's really how it was. I got in the shower and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. This is the best feeling shower I've ever felt. And then I got into my car and I was about to pull out of the parking lot, and I was like, oh, my gosh, these cars are going so fast. And the cars Are it's on a small little road. They're probably going 35 miles an hour. But because of the fact that I deprived my brain of the senses, everything was so much crazier. The colors were deeper, the cars looked like they were moving faster. I remember driving home and I was gripping the steering wheel and this is a true story. I was like, man, this steering wheel. I've never actually noticed how the steering wheel feels in my hand. And so it's basically like doing natural drugs. I didn't do any drugs or anything like that. This was my own brain that was doing these things. And so you have to think about if it does that for your brain, well, then how good of ideas can come into it, how good of ideas can come from it. And so for me, what I thought was, man, if it can do all of these things, well, then let me go into a float tank and use it as a planning session. I'm going to go in with a very specific idea. So sometimes I go in with no intention at all. I just go in, use it as a meditation and it's very calming, very relaxing, Feel extremely relaxed by the time that you leave. So it's like a spa experience. But also at the same time, besides the fact that it's relaxing is it is a very great way to get into your brain and start having a planning session. So sometimes I'll go in and I'll say, okay, this part of my business, my marketing, how I'm marketing on Facebook, let's say that's an example. I want to think about how I can become a better marketer on Facebook for my business or Instagram or all of these different things or whatever they might be. And this is where some of my best ideas come from, is because I am deep into my subconscious brain. My brain is at different wavelengths than it normally is, different frequencies. And this is a legitimate thing. It's at a lower frequency. And so therefore I'm able to come up with much, much better ideas because I don't have the normal day to day of each emails and Facebook and all of these things that can steal my attention. So my best ideas come from that. So my second was definitely, definitely my craziest one. So that's basically what a float tank is. A float tank is just a tank that you get inside of. It's called a sensory deprivation tank or it's called a float tank. And so if you're looking to find one in your area, if you happen to live in Austin, Texas, the place that I go to, is called Zero Gravity. But if you don't live in. And I don't have any affiliation with them at all, I'm just telling you just because they're an amazing place and they make. They actually make their tanks there. And their tanks are amazing. And it's, you know, it's. They have masseuse that you can get. They have massage chairs there, they have tea and the nicest people in the world and they have crazy neon colors and it's an awesome, awesome place. But if you don't live in Austin, Texas, the best way to find one is Google sensory deprivation tank and then put in the city that you live in. And the place that I went to had a introductory offer. It was three floats for $99, which was cheaper. Because what they want you to do is try it out a few times. Because sometimes the first or second one, you're still kind of nervous from being in these tanks. But I would definitely recommend it. At least try it out and go in it with no intention. Just go in it with. I'm going to try this out. I'm going to deprive myself of senses. I'm going to use this as a relaxation. And because my brain has never once had a break in its entire life. My entire life. And so go in with that intention. Think about it. I promise you, if you're nervous about it, it's because you're afraid. Don't be afraid of it. Don't say, oh, I would never do that, or, oh, I can never do that. Because think about it. Most people don't meditate because they're like, oh, I can never do that. But in reality, what they mean is that I don't have the willpower to. To sit still for 20 minutes. I don't know what I'm going to find in my brain. That's the exact same thing with a sensory deprivation tank. Give it a shot and send me an email or comment at any spot that you have, Wherever this video is that you're watching it, or wherever you're listening to this as well. And let me know if you've done it. Let me know when you do it and let me know what you think, because I am super, super curious to see what you guys think. So if you enjoy this episode, please do me a favor and share it with someone that you love.