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“To me, it seemed like a sham,” Harding says. But in March last year, he decided to try it anyway. He fell asleep in the tank, he says, and woke up an hour later feeling refreshed. By three floats, Harding says his anxiety and hyper-vigilance had subsided. By three months of floating, so had his night sweats. “After floating, I was really mellowed out,” he says. “I’m not really sure how it does it, but I do know that floating has allowed me to feel in a more confident, comfortable headspace.”

“I have a very clear head when it’s done, and it shows in the days after floating. It gives me a nice boost of focus and perspective. The more I do it, the more I get from it.”

“As time went on, I moved past relaxation and entered what I can only describe as an almost trance-like state; at times, I couldn’t tell where my body ended and where the water began. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were opened or closed, and I couldn’t tell if I was awake or asleep. It was like meditating on steroids. I was able to access the kind of deep, internal calm that I’d only read about in meditation books—and I was able to do it in about 30 minutes (researchers in Japan found that participants exhibited increased theta activity in the brain during sensory deprivation, which promotes deep relaxation and could explain my “fast track to zen” experience).”