What is floating?
Floating is bathing in brine so highly concentrated that the body floats on the surface by itself — the salt concentration lies at around 25 per cent and thus in the order of magnitude of the Dead Sea. The water is set exactly to skin temperature, around 35 °C; after a few minutes the boundary between body and water blurs, and what remains is floating.
Tank or pool
The most intensive form is the floating tank: a closed cabin insulated against light and sound in which external stimuli fall away almost completely — developed in the 1950s in research on stimulus reduction. The more accessible form is the open floating pool, often with subdued light and underwater music — less radical, but also suitable for people to whom the closed cabin feels too narrow.
Effect
The supported body has nothing to hold: muscles and joints are completely relieved, especially the back and neck — which is why floating is valued for tension. The scarcity of stimuli leads many into a state of deep calm between waking and sleeping; the brine does what brine does and cares for the skin along the way. A session classically lasts 45 to 60 minutes — the first ten minutes belong to arriving.
Floating in a spa hotel
Floating pools and tanks are found in specialised floating studios and increasingly in larger spa landscapes; related is the floating in the strongly saline brine pool of some thermal baths — less staged, but following the same principle. Whoever tries floating for the first time chooses the open pool and an appointment without time pressure: the depth of the relaxation comes with repetition.
