Self Care Helps Entrepreneurs Ease Stress & Boost Creativity

Playing a big game and vibrating at your highest intellectual and creative level requires some serious stress relief and fierce self care. To beat stress, time-crunched tech entrepreneurs and celebrities alike have discovered many benefits from frequent floating, the practice of rejuvenating the body and mind by floating gravity-free for 60 minutes or more in 1000 lbs. of healing Epsom Salts, and some have even gone as far as installing float tanks in their own homes.

Learn more about the many healing benefits of incorporating fierce self care, including a regular practice of floatation therapy (also known as isolation tanks, float tanks, and sensory deprivation) into your life and how floatation therapy helps top level entrepreneurs and A-list celebrities tap into higher levels of meditation, creativity and calm, and how it has the power to transform your life.

Stress is a fact of entrepreneurial life. Whether it’s emotional stress from worrying about finances or where your next sale or funding is coming from, the physical stress from working long days and tossing and turning through sleepless nights, or the inevitable anxiety and tension that comes from running a business, will inadvertently lead to high levels of stress on a daily basis. If left unchecked, this stress can lead to serious health problems and even emotional problems including irritability and depression. To keep yourself in peak performance and combat stress, it’s really important to lean into self-care and find ways to unwind and reclaim your calm.

From employing a regular practice of meditating, to breaking a creative rut with a sensational experience, to following a regular practice of floatation therapy, there are many ways to beat stress and boost creativity while keeping burn-out at bay. And when practiced over a 3 to 4 week period, floating can offer the jump start and reset you need to keep you vibrating at your highest level all year long.

We examined the self-care practices, rituals and routines of some of the top tech moguls and celebrities of our time, including the practice of floatation therapy, explored in best-selling author Tim Ferris’ book, “Tools of the Titans”, which raves about the benefits of sensory deprivation / floating and how it helps top entrepreneurs help manage their empires and careers.

Check out the following techniques for boosting mind/body health practiced by top entrepreneurs and celebrities playing a big game, including Elon Musk, Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, and Lift’s very own pioneer in the floating industry, Gina Antioco.

How do powerful leaders break out of a creative rut?

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk attributes his best ideas to the morning shower, where ideas percolate in the subconscious resulting from the previous night’s computations. Musk also believes in immersing himself in sensational experiences to spark his creativity, getting the idea for a “supersonic vertical takeoff landing electric plane” at Burning Man, an annual gathering in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada that fosters raw human creativity and experimentation.

Adopting a 360 Approach to Self Care

Canadian musician/producer Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, is no stranger to physically intensive routines. In a recent Rolling Stone article, Grimes talks about her fierce training regime. Taking a 360 approach to self care, Grimes combines supplements supporting cellular health with 2-4 hours in a sensory deprivation tank, allowing her to “astro-glide to other dimensions, past, present, and future,” followed by 1-2 hours of sword fighting. To wind down, Grimes spends 30-45 minutes on an inclined hike and then spends 45 minutes stretching before heading into the studio which is outfitted with the highest grade of red light – what she refers to as 100 square feet of IF Sauna – all in an effort to bring her mind and body to peak level function. Lastly, she does a 20-25 minute scream session while she boils honey tea to maximize her vocal proficiency.

The Power of Developing a Fierce Self-Care Practice

Whether it’s meditation, tai chi, yoga or indulging in a good old-fashioned scream session, developing a regular self-care practice can be a powerful way to let your creativity flow and to operate at your highest level, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. Floatation therapy is one practice that can also help develop and encourage other self care practices as well.

“When we practice fierce self-care, we feel it powerfully, deeply, and intensely. We grow closer to our passions and our calling, and to the frailties, strengths, and the surprising resilience of our physical selves. We become ardent—enthusiastic, eager, and committed—because we know in our core that this fierce caring is needed, not only for ourselves, but also for those we love and for the world.” – Nancy G. Shapiro, The Book of Calm: Clarity, Compassion, and Choice in a Turbulent World

Many floaters have found that after consistent floating, they naturally wanted to eat healthier, didn’t have as many carvings for junk food, and were generally more drawn to healthier lifestyle choices. Entrepreneurs have used it to manage stress and inspire new ideas while artists have used it to fuel creativity.

“When we enter into some aspect of our self-care practice, be it gardening, dancing, painting, or tai chi, we are also disengaging from the routines and stress of daily life. This disengagement allows our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves to relax, renew, and revitalize in countless ways that can include sudden insights, a long-sought clarity or peace of mind, creative and physical ‘flow,’ a quieting of our grumbling thoughts, and a lessening of anxiety or other unease.”

How Floatation Therapy Can Transform Your Life

Changing Christel Janssen’s understanding of intention and choice, a year of frequent floatation therapy taught her the incredible resilience of our bodies, our human potential of telepathy, how we are not our body, the creativity that emerges when you can let go of overwhelm of your sensory circuits, our incredible ability of extra-sensory perception, and the deep passion for life that she started to feel, like golden liquid in my body.

“No sound, no sight, nothing to feel, no sensory impressions. Only the smell of polyester, merging with something else that I wasn’t able to clearly define. And the drops on my forehead. The water almost impossible to perceive around me. That wonderful weightlessness, the floating in space.” Christel Janssen is author of Forty-Nine Days, A sensuous Journey of the Modern Afterlife and leads Spontaneous Movement writing retreats on Kauai.

When Lift owner Gina Antiocco first opened the store with co-owner Dave Leventhal back in 2015, it was incredibly stressful and hectic to say the least. So, she decided to give herself a 30 day challenge, which was to float an hour a day for 30 days straight. Antioco figured that this way she could guarantee herself at least one hour of rest a day, and what she initially dubbed a “challenge,’ she very quickly learned was actually a gift! Suddenly, the stresses of business ownership became manageable and she no longer felt overwhelmed – despite the long hours and working 70 days straight.

In a recent Q&A with Antioco, we asked her about her experience floating for 30 days.

What happens when you float for several days in a row?

“Since the benefits of floating are cumulative, after several consecutive days of floating an individual will likely experience lower stress, better sleep, fewer aches and pains, a greater sense of clarity and overall improved sense of well being.”

How did you feel 10 days into floating every day?

“I had started to notice that mentally I was able to slow down and not feel as overwhelmed as I had prior to that point.”

What was the biggest benefit you got from floating every day for 30 days?

“The biggest benefit I experienced was that it enabled me to get through the most difficult period of opening the business which including numerous setbacks with the city, major issues with our contractors, our tanks not fitting through the front door and ultimately requiring a boom crane to hoist them through a second story window (but that’s a story in itself!) and once we were actually open, working incredibly long hours in the store for 70 days straight.”

What advice would you give to someone who wants to float for 30 days straight or more frequently?

I’ve noticed that I have different types of floats depending on whether it’s morning or evening so I would encourage someone to experience floating at different times of the day. Even if someone floats a few times a month rather than every single day, they will still experience the many benefits floating offers.

Did you experience any kind of tipping point, where the cumulative benefits of floating every day became very apparent to you?

I think it sunk in that floating every day had really impacted me when I was having a conversation with a friend and said to them “I’ve been really stressed out”. But I said it in a tone that couldn’t have been more relaxed, and they simply responded, “Really? I’m not buying it! You seem like you’re handling it rather well!” Stress had been my default mode. And it was in that moment that I realized my default mode had changed.

What was your most stressful event while opening your business & how did floatation therapy help?

All of it! We really had a challenging opening, but that’s almost par for the course when opening a business in this city. Floating, in all honesty was the reason I stayed sane throughout the process.

Did you find that floating every day encouraged or enhanced other self care activities.

Floating tends to encourage other healthy habits, especially when doing multiple sessions in a row. No one comes in for a float and decides to get a cheeseburger after; they’re headed to yoga, or working on a big project, or grabbing something nutritious to power their body. It’s like the expression, one vice leads to another, except that with floating you have the opposite effect where one healthy choice will likely result in many others, including improved diet, exercise and productivity.

How does floatation therapy help ease stress and enhance mood?

Floating combats stress in two primary ways. The magnesium in the water inhibits ACTH, the hormone that stimulates your adrenal glands to release the stress hormone cortisol, while also improving sleep quality which helps ease stress. Emerging science has shown people who floated eight times in two weeks saw their cortisol levels decrease by as much as 21.6 percent.They also showed a 50.5 percent decrease in cortisol variability meaning they handled stressful situations better without cortisol spikes. An analysis of 27 studies further revealed floating also has relaxation, mood, and performance-enhancing effects, particularly in cases involving burn-out or chronic fatigue.

Benefits of floatation therapy / sensory deprivation include:

• Magnesium Boost (as most people are magnesium deficient – consistent floating for 30 days is a great way to help supplement your body).
• Improved sleep, deeper rest, along with notable relief from fatigue, beginning with the very first float with even better results and boosted energy levels with frequent floats.
• Tame Tension Headaches
• Easing Chronic Pain
• Relief of Arthritis & Joint Pain
• The healing properties of Epsom salts used in floating help relax and soothe sore muscles, reduce swelling, ease pain, and even boost muscle recovery.
• Lower Blood Pressure & Heart Rate
• Reduced Stress, Anxiety, & Cortisol Levels. If you suffer from chronic stress or experience regular anxiety, floatation therapy offers a gravity-free environment where you can float your cares away and ease the harmful cumulative effects of stress.
• Boosted Creativity & Mindfulness

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