 Portland, Maine, I hope you are all enjoying Coastal Southern Maine. I saw many a rock concert, many a Maine Mariners game in this arena here. Spent some time also in New England at Boston College near Fenway Park. And then I got in a crazy car accident after college which brought me to a chiropractor and that led me to deciding to go to chiropractic school. And so this is about the last time I wore a mask back in 1992. I graduated with a degree as a chiropractic sports physician at Western State's chiropractic in the other Portland which many of you have been to. And then I moved to Richmond, Virginia and people would ask me, where did you move from? And I said the future because it was quite a different scene out on the west coast than the east coast. I had a chiropractic practice, an interdisciplinary cooperative practice with chiropractic acupuncture massage, Pilates, yoga, functional medicine for about 20 years. Ironically, I was in pain for most of my career. Someone who helps other people in pain, it was a very frustrating scene for me to be in pain for most of my career which was punctuated in 2013 when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. When I went numb from my nipples to my toes and I thought that it was a herniated disc in my back but it ended up being a disease of the central nervous system involving the brain and the spinal cord. And that changed my life and that changed my direction. And in my search for finding help for myself, I got a float tank for my home. And from the lens of a doctor and now a patient, I realized, wow, this is so good for both mind and body issues, I need to repurpose my skills and open up a float center. And that's what I did in 2016 as I backed out of a 20-year practice. So it's a four-tank float-specific center in Richmond, Virginia. As a chiropractic physician, a lot of people would ask me, well, chiropractic helped my, you know, how long do I have to come? What kind of frequency do I have to come before I see results? And how long will those results last? It quickly became clear to me that as a float center owner, people were asking me the same questions. Well, floating helped my back pain. What frequency do I have to come before I start seeing results? And how long will those results last? And that led to my mission as a doctor and a float center owner. To help people understand the benefits of floating, to create more awareness, more credibility, to simplify some of the scientific language, and to create material for future pursuits when someone says, has anyone done anything on traumatic brain injury? Oh, yeah. So I'm going to take you on a journey New England style, which means I'm going to be talking really fast because I have a lot to go through. I've done many studies since 2016, probably about 15 or 16 studies. I'm going to go over seven of them today. And so I'm going to give them to you in broad brushstrokes because I could talk about, for half an hour, I could talk about every one of these. So these are not going to be complete studies. And I have to fill in the blanks at another time. It all began in June of 2016. We opened up in April of 2016. And I always go in. This is our post float lounge. I always go in after the float and ask people, hey, why are you here floating? And so this 39 year old female dentist on disability said to me, well, my boyfriend thought that floating would help my symptoms of my traumatic brain injury. And so I said, without even thinking, do you want to do a clinical case study? And then the little guy in my shoulder said, David, you just opened up a clinic here. You need to be focused on marketing and getting people in the door. But I had a huge clinical void that I'll be honest with you is still present today. And so that void, that clinical guy went out and started my clinical case studies. Traumatic brain injury is a huge invisible problem in our society. There's no consensus on the best treatment for it. Many doctors are lost in how to treat it. It really depends on the mechanism, the severity, the duration and the symptoms. Did someone get hit on the side of their head here on the back of their head? Did they fall on concrete? Did they get in a car accident? How long has it been? Six months or 10 years? I wanted to observe 12 weeks of float therapy upon traumatic brain injury with this particular individual and create a frame of reference for float frequency. There was no cost to this participant and no financial benefit. And this rings true for all the studies that I'm going to talk about today. After an extensive history, I created a daily questionnaire for this person and she also did daily journaling. She floated twice a week, 60 minute floats for 12 weeks for a total of 24 floats. And this is an example of one of the 20 or so graphs. This is a broad brush stroke example here, for instance. You'll see this is about hearing sensitivity. You could drop a pin and she would go crazy. Ten is as bad as it gets. Zero is no problems. Week one, she was a seven or so out of ten, really bad. About three floats later, knocked the symptoms way down. You can see week 12, significant improvement. 20 different parameters, same deal. Energy levels, vision sensitivity, headache, which you call brain burn, which a lot of people with traumatic brain injury discuss this symptom. Anxiety, depression, sleep, et cetera. And she rings home with her journaling and says, in the beginning I felt chaos and now I feel a sense of calmness, rest, and relaxation. I'm more tuned into my body with its current limitations and I have a greater sense of clarity and ability. So two floats a week for 12 weeks for this individual was transformative. And I'll tell you that I've done eight other traumatic brain injury studies and they're all transformative. This particular individual did not want to go on video. This individual was another traumatic brain injury person. Ten years later, she walked in my door after being dropped on her head on the concrete. And here's what she has to say. My experience of floating brought me awareness, a more objective sense of what my normal actually was. As my awareness increased and my baseline shifted, it made me more objectively aware of where I had been. I would say that my new normal, the floating itself has contributed a lot to kind of increased energy levels, increased alertness. I think that my awareness that I have gained and achieved has allowed me and offered me a greater sense of kind of personal embodiment. I feel more rooted in myself. Memory problems, focus problems, that sort of thing. I feel like affect everybody to one degree or another. My sense is that the struggles that I have with memory are just more exacerbated and more challenging than they are for the average person. Floating is an incredible thing because it offers you a reprive and a place for you to become more familiar with yourself and where you're at in a sense of relation to your your own state. A new normal. Several observational studies later brought me to my wheelhouse, chronic low back pain, November 2017. Been doing this for a while. Sorry I haven't been here sooner. Chronic low back pain is a worldwide epidemic in a huge area of disability. We've created an opioid crisis. Pain management professionals now have consequences to prescribing pills and they're looking for alternatives to mainstream medicine and pill prescribing. I wanted to observe four weeks of flow therapy on chronic low back pain, sleep, and a couple of things are missing here, and anxiety, depression, and a couple other things. I wanted to see the difference between one and two floats per week. Does that make a difference? Also, were there any positive effects 30 days after the intervention? The criteria, they had to have chronic low back pain for five years. Pain greater than five on a zero to 10 scale, zero being none, 10 being severe. No prior history of floating, no back surgery, not taking opioids, and not receiving any other treatment. There was 180 applicants, 25th the criteria, there were eight participants, five women, and three men. I divided the two random groups of four people. There was two random groups of four, sorry, and it was four weeks long. Group A, floated once a week. Group B, twice a week. Four floats versus eight floats. I created a daily survey where they filled out about 10 different questions on a zero to 10 scale, 10 being the worst, and they created a base, and then filled out a baseline survey prior to their first float. Four weeks later, the one float group, 28% improves with pain. Two floats, 42%. Sleep, 26 versus 68%. Emotional state, hmm, about the same, one versus two floats a week. But here's what I saw. The one float a week people, I saw more of an erratic improvement. They would improve, and then there was this bumpy process, and then at the very end, improvement. We're looking at the blue is severity of pain, the red is sleep quality, yellow depression, green anxiety. Two floats a week, I began to notice more of a steady decline without the up and down, but at the end of the day, both improved. Did they maintain their benefits? Again, here's a broad brushstroke idea here, but I had to average some of these parameters together, and so you see the baseline on the far left. Four weeks later, significant improvement, a reduction of their symptoms. Four weeks after, with no intervention, the symptoms start to creep back again, but nowhere near where they were in the beginning. My lower back and my hip were both messed up, and uh, yeah. Scaled one to 10, 10 being the worst ever. A 20. Okay. And uh, so you floated twice a week for a month. How quickly did you notice change with that type of frequency? Within the first or second float. And mostly the second float is when I notice it the most. It just brought me back to my family, my friends. I wasn't irritable like I was in pain, so it opened me up. How long after your last float did the effects last? Absolutely. Ten being the best improvement ever. Right. You were able to maintain a six or seven out of ten from an improvement scale, even three months after floating. Absolutely. I would say hit it hard and hit it as often as possible, and then once you get better or start feeling better to do a maintenance float. This study brought me to a chronic neck pain study in December of 2017 where I wanted to observe four weeks of flow therapy on chronic neck pain. I also wanted to see the difference between one and two floats a week. Any positive effects remaining 30 days later? They had to have neck pain for greater than three years, have pain greater than five on a zero to ten scale, ten being severe, no surgery, no opioids, no other treatments or interventions. There was 200 applicants, 21 fit the criteria, 10 participated, nine women, one man, and they were randomly divided into two groups where group A floated once a week for four weeks, for four floats, group B eight floats. And here's what I saw after four weeks. Pain severity, 43 versus 59%. Frequency of pain, 38 versus 55. Anxiety, 46% improved versus 61 for the two floats a week. Sleep. About the same. Did they maintain their benefits? We see the baseline in average of the pain frequency and pain severity here. Very diminished after four weeks, four weeks later, symptoms starting to creep back again, but they still maintained a lot of their benefits. So you floated twice a week for four weeks. How soon and where did you begin to notice difference? I noticed, I started noticing a difference about three floats in. So the first to go was the neck. Next was in the elbow, third wrist, and then last. This is where you began to get your feeling back or began to feel better in those areas after three floats? Three floats. Three floats is what I took. I noticed that the quality of my sleep increased to better and more sound and more still sleep that wasn't as turny, like it wasn't restless as restless. And then I also began to notice an improved or more optimistic sort of like emotional outlook after the same number about three floats, a complete shift in an emotional state. So it's been a matter of months since you've ended the study, right? How long did those positive gains last? They're still here. I think that floating provided me with a permanent shift in spiritual and mental wellness due to the solitude and darkness that it provided was exactly what I needed to sort of like shift and move into a different perspective and outlook on my own life. This brought me to a chronic headache study in February of 2018 where I wanted to observe four weeks of float therapy on chronic headaches, irrespective of the type of headache, and observe the related effects of sleep, emotional state, and sensory issues. I also wanted to see if there was a difference between one or two floats a week and did any positive effects remain 30 days later. They had to have chronic headaches for greater than a year, pain greater than five on a zero to ten scale, no prior history of floating, no surgery, no opioids, and no other interventions. 75 applicants, 14 fit the criteria, and eight participated. They happened to be all female. I divided them randomly into two equal groups, one float a week versus two floats a week. Again, here's what we see with the one float a week people at the end of the day, at the end of the four weeks, we see significant improvement but some bumpy progress. Here's what we see with severity of pain, frequency of headaches, quality of sleep, and emotional state. There was more, but again, the two times a week people, we see a much more gradual slope in their improvement. Did they maintain their benefits? Yes. Baselines 5.8, 10 being the worst at the end of four weeks, a 2.1. Symptoms start to creep back 30 days later without any intervention indicating still maintained a lot of their benefits 30 days later. Sure. I've been experiencing chronic migraines since about the age of 13 and 36 years old now. I've had episodes with the migraines where I went months within migraine every single day. I have oral with my migraines and they can be extricating sometimes and sometimes I just have to deal with it and go with the punches, but traditionally I have some kind of a migraine episode every day. Okay, so you started the study and you did one float a week for four weeks. Yes. How long before you began to notice change in your headaches? It was immediate. I went from having these migraines that were, it would be one day where I just had like a couple for 30 minutes or it would go all day long. I noticed a change immediately from leaving the float zone, being able to sleep later that night, the next day no migraine, two days later no migraine, three days. It was fantastic. What other aspects of your life were positively impacted by the float sessions as well, such as sleep or your emotional state? I noticed a significant decrease in my anxiety and stress. Also I had fibromyalgia so I noticed a lot of the relief with the pain that I was dealing with and I was able to sleep. I have a lot of insomnia issues and I was able to just become more relaxed that night and just fall asleep and I was able to get six to seven, eight hours of sleep, which for me for years was unheard of. The positive benefits lasted for a while. I still was able to sleep. I get these two weeks I was good to go, no migraines and since things have kind of latched off I'm noticing that I need a return visit to the float zone. It struck me that in my low back pain, neck pain and headache study I noticed sleep improvements, whether it was one float a week or two floats a week and so I said let me do a sleep study. April of 2018 I observed three weeks of float therapy on the quality of sleep stress and anxiety in college students and I wanted to see if any lasting results after two weeks. Two things. I think we all know now that it's about three floats till difference so that's why I chose three. That's why I chose once a week but this was the end of school in April of 2018 so I knew I wasn't going to get results back after they left for the summer so that's why I only did it after two weeks. They had to currently be a student, no prior history of floating, not taking sleep medications, sleep at least five hours a night, quality of sleep, greater than five out of ten being terrible, daytime fatigue, four out of ten being exhausted. There was 37 applicants, 13 fit the criteria, six participated, one group study, one float a week for three weeks. Waking refreshed in productivity and focus both improved 49%, ability to fall asleep, daytime fatigue improved 63%, emotional state improved 75%. When I took pain out of the equation and I was just dealing with sleep and emotional state it was interesting to see from stress anxiety and focus and productivity I began to see more of a sloping graph. Two weeks later 67% of the gains made were maintained across the board. This brought me to an Ehlers-Danlos study 2018. Ehlers-Danlos is a genetic and autoimmune disease characterized by pain and excessive joint mobility, fluctuations in blood pressure, it's called POTS which deals with vagal tone and we've talked a lot in previous studies here about floating and proving vagal tone but there's multiple variants of the condition. Autoimmune conditions are the third leading cause of chronic illness and they're affected by stress anxiety and sleep issues. Hmm. Exactly what floating helps. I wanted to consider float therapy though in tandem with other therapies. My exclusionary criteria up to this point has been you can't have other therapies. I did a talk in front of a bunch of healthcare professionals and I said is there a condition in which we might be able to co-treat or discuss how floating may help in tandem with what you're doing? I was surprised that many of them said how about Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. So I wanted to observe four weeks of float therapy on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, pain, emotional state, and sleep and to see if any effects remain 30 days later. They had to have Ehlers-Danlos for greater than three years, no prior history of floating, not taking opioids, have multiple symptoms but yes currently receiving other treatment. There was nine participants, eight male, eight female and one male. They floated twice a week for four weeks, total of eight floats. They did a daily survey in a four week follow-up. And here's what I noticed, baseline on the left, severity of pain, blue, frequency of pain, red, effect on activities of daily living, yellow, and what's really important to me, their disability level in green. We see four weeks later, some significant improvement, one month later, no intervention, still maintaining a lot of their symptoms, still maintaining a lot of their gains, sorry. Physical therapist says to me, I've seen great strides in the improvement of my patient's shoulder in large part due to allowing the parasympathetic nervous system to activate and facilitate healing through floating. The floating leveraged my ability to get more done and make more progress. It was apparent that floating also helped many other areas of the patient's life and lifestyle. Floating, please tell us about your experience. Okay, hello. So, Ehlers-Anlos Syndrome is a condition that causes a lot of pain in my joints and stiffness in my body. And flotation therapy has been a wonderful therapy to incorporate into my life to help with those aches and pains. So it causes the inflammation in my body to reduce, so I don't have that pain throughout my day. It causes me to have a wonderful night's sleep, so I feel very refreshed and rejuvenated both the next day and throughout my week. It has incredible benefits for stress and anxiety and my emotional state. It just is wonderful to be able to unplug and I feel just very rejuvenated. And I've noticed that the benefits are extremely strong the next day, but also throughout my week. I just, I have more energy and my pain and inflammation are definitely down. So I highly recommend it for people with Ehlers-Anlos Syndrome. Thank you very much. Thank you. This brings me to my last study that I'm going to talk about, something that's near and dear to me, opioids and the opioid crisis. I started practice in 1996. Oxycontin was released to the market in 1996 and I watched in front of my eyes as a pain management specialist how pills were more valued than therapy and how we created a crisis. And it almost brings tears to my eyes, even thinking about it. November 2018, I did an opioid recovery study to observe the effects of eight weeks of float therapy on opioid recovery and to see if there were any positive effects remaining 30 days later. They had to be at least six months, the years, an error here, at least six months in recovery, no prior float history, no medication-assisted treatment, and they had fatigue, sleep problems, anxiety, and stress to a significant degree. There were six individuals that participated, four male to female. They did one float a week for eight weeks. This is an example. Here, they made 43 to 73% improvement across the board. On this particular graph, we're seeing stress in yellow, anxiety in red, depression in blue. Baseline before the study, week eight, you can see the significant improvement, one month follow-up with no intervention. The symptoms start to creep back, but nowhere near where they were in the beginning indicating, yep, they maintained significant amount of benefits 30 days later. For a while I was doing the floating. It was unclear to me because I was actually succeeding at doing more meditation and I was doing it every day and I was doing it for longer than I normally do and I was felt like I was getting more out of it. And so it was a little unclear to me are some of the ways I'm feeling a little better today or this week because I'm meditating more. Is it because of the floating? And so it was a little unclear. But when the float study ended, it did become clear to me that there really had been more benefit to it than I think I appreciated. It was much more of a struggle almost immediately for me to continue to maintain the meditation practice at the level that I was. I wasn't getting as much out of it. So it really seemed like that once a week float experience was anchoring my mindfulness practice. So final takeaways. Floating can help manage many health conditions such as the previous observations. Floating is safe. I didn't notice any negative side effects from any of these studies that I did. About three floats till noticeable change. I could certainly make a case that floating can be dose dependent. That two floats a week really could make a better difference than one. But really consistency is more the key when I read between the lines of my studies that it's really the consistency versus the once a week twice a week. And lastly significant benefits remain 30 days later when you float consistently. Thank you very much.