Floatation Therapy Helps Oklahoma Veteran Cope With PTSD

Ever feel like you need an escape from the everyday stresses of life? Many people are turning to water to float their cares away. And for one Oklahoma veteran, it's helped her deal with her traumatic past.

Jamellia Canady stops by Longevity Effect once a week. After serving 12 years as a legalman in the Navy, she's been struggling with PTSD and is trying to find ways to cope.

"It's really kind of hard so more in the pain, anxiety, depression, those things that veterans can relate to," she said.

So, besides yoga and massage, Canady is giving floatation therapy a try.

"We're really restricting all the stimulus that you have, sight, sound, touch and gravity," said Brandon Washatka at Longevity Effect. "It's really the only therapy we have right now or that I know of that we've seem main-streamed that take those sensory inputs to the brain and dampens them to a point where the brain can really just be."

Canady allowed us to watch one of her therapies. Normally you float naked, in about 10 inches of water filled with 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt. Today, she wore a swimsuit and floated inside the capsule, first with light and music before it gradually went dark.

"I never wake up to where I actually started so if I lay in the middle of the sphere and I wake up, I'm usually close to the exit door or I'm actually completely turned around," Canady said. "You don't even actually know you were ever asleep."

If being inside the orbit might make you a little nervous, there are other options including Wave or Float Therapy. It's the same concept but you're floating inside a shower.

"You can walk into the rooms, anyone can stand up, you can even spread out you can leave the door open or the lights on," said Chase Howell, owner of the Float Spa in Oklahoma City. "Your sense of feel really leaves you and you get a really euphoric sensation and you're just floating."

That's exactly what Canady is finding. Her sleep is better, she's not as anxious and she believes floatation therapy is the perfect treatment to heal what ails her.

"When you take away all those environmental stresses and those stimuluses, now the brain can actually just be calm," said Washatka. "It's not having to filter and create a response, it can just be. And we find the longer someone is in the tank, in that state, their blood pressure drops, the heart rate drops and that really brings down stress."

Several companies offer the therapy in both Tulsa and Oklahoma City. The cost is around 50 dollars a session. It’s recommended to check with your doctor before doing any type of therapy including floatation therapy.