As life gets more intense, working moms are looking for something to take them away, if just for a little while.
Teresa McAlpine struggled with sleep issues for years. At night, she would lie down tired from the day but have trouble nodding off. Thoughts racing, she would focus on work, parenting, life. Her chronic back and neck pain didn’t help, either.
“I have a brain that doesn’t shut off. I lie down, and my brain starts focusing on all this stuff that I can’t get it to stop thinking about,” says the busy financial adviser and mother of two in Sheboygan, WI. “It got to a point where I couldn’t focus during the day, and I was irritable. Doing homework with my 9-year-old, I would be frustrated when she wouldn’t get a concept. I tried yoga; I meditated. I had massages, cupping and chiropractic, but nothing seemed to quell my chronic anxiety.”
This past fall, Teresa went to a local Women in Management networking group where she heard a speaker discuss float therapy and how it changed her life. The woman described climbing into a clam-shell-shaped chamber and floating in a dark, quiet pool, feeling her mind shut off completely.
At the time, the closest float center was several hours away from Teresa, so she dismissed trying it out. This January, however, a new center popped up in her town, so she signed up for a package: 10 floats to be used over a six-month period.
It was hard to settle down during the first 30 minutes of her maiden 90-minute float. “I kept thinking: Can I touch the wall? Can I touch the bottom? Will the salt get in my mouth and eyes? But after 45 minutes, something miraculous happened: “My neck and back and hands didn’t hurt, my eye wasn’t twitching, and I wasn’t processing an endless stream of thoughts in my head.” She slept really well that night, and the effects lingered for several weeks, she says. Floating has also helped her manage pain. Recently, she was in a car accident that totaled her car. Floating has helped her heal mentally and physically, she says.