So, last week I conducted an experiment on myself. Using my Whoop performance monitor, I wanted to see the effect that floating 5 days in a row would have on my sleep and recovery. In the photos below, you can see my sleep quality and recovery leading up to the floats. Not very good, is it?
The next 6 slides show recovery and heart rate during the float, as well as heart rate during sleep that evening.
We’ll mostly focus on the correlation between heart rate variability (HRV) and recovery here. Now, heart rate variability is “simply a measure of the variation in time between each heartbeat. This variation is controlled by a primitive part of the nervous system called the autonomic nervous system (ANS). It works regardless of our desire and regulates, among other things, our heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion. The ANS is subdivided into two large components, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the fight-or-flight mechanism and the relaxation response.” (https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/heart-rate-variability-new-way-track-well-2017112212789)
Basically, the higher the HRV, the better recovery. Now during a float, the environment greatly reduces the demand on the ANS. Heart beat naturally slows down as the body has no demands placed on it, blood pressure reduces with the removal of external stress, and breathing gets into a steady rhythm. Looking at the slides above, it becomes apparent that HRV and recovery go hand in hand. Here’s a short breakdown of the data:
Non float day averages: Float day averages:
HRV - 120 HRV - 141.4
Recovery - 55.9% Recovery - 73%
Sleep quality - 70% Sleep quality - 74.2%
Sleep length - 6:29 Sleep length - 6:57
Strain - 12.58 Strain - 15.8
Low/high for non float days: Low/high for float days:
HRV - 77/163 HRV - 123/159
Recovery - 23/89% Recovery - 58/87%
Sleep quality - 60/74% Sleep quality - 66/89%
Sleep length - 5:39/7:02 Sleep length - 5:57/7:25
Strain - 8.6/14.7 Strain - 13/17.6
To break that down a little more, over the 5 days we saw:
HRV increase of 21.4
Recovery increase of 17.1%
Sleep quality increase of 4.2%
Sleep length increase of 28 minutes
Strain increase of 3.22
Now here’s where it gets really interesting. With only 30 minutes total more sleep over the course of the 5 float days (a measly average of 6 minutes per night!), there was a substantial increase in quality and recovery. And that’s taking into account more strain that the body was able to take through exercise. There were a few unforeseen variables, like noisy neighbors and my 4-year-old crawling into my bed that disturbed the sleep a little, but that’s life.
We all have stress in our lives, and there are many ways of dealing with it. Whether it be emotional, physical or both, we can’t just ignore it and hope it goes away. One of the greatest aspects of floating is that it’s completely noninvasive, and there are no harmful side effects. Essentially, it’s nothing at all. Just you, by yourself, having an opportunity to remove all the external stressors that make life less enjoyable. Aside from the benefits of reducing stress, regular floats are tremendous for sleep quality, which of course is critical for immune system, mood, and just keeping your body and mind working at its best.