Ever heard of Float therapy? Sensory Deprivation? In this episode, we unravel the mysteries surrounding float therapy, its benefits, what it means to open up your magnesium stores, and the intriguing impact of sensory deprivation on our health with Maxwell Casa. Imagine immersing yourself in a tranquil, weightless space where you float effortlessly in a high-density magnesium solution. We explore its potential to promote relaxation, reduce stress, and enhance overall well-being. Uncovering the effects of eliminating external stimuli, we dive into how this can positively influence our mental and physical health. Then, we delve into the advantages of transdermal magnesium versus the oral form, along with the symptoms of magnesium deficiency. We break down the ideal dose and frequency to maximize its benefits and whether it is advisable for pregnant women! Let's dive in!
What You Will Learn In This Interview with Maxwell Casa
04:59 -What is float therapy?
07:31 - What is sensory deprivation and its impact on our health?
10:31 - How did Max get involved with Floating therapy?
14:31 - Experiences during sensory deprivation
17:06 - Top 3 benefits of floating therapy
20:33 - Benefit of transdermal magnesium vs oral magnesium
24:06 - Symptoms of magnesium deficiency
25:41 - Dose and frequency for float therapy to see benefits
28:02 - Contraindications with pregnancy
30:41 - Can you consume too much magnesium?
33:57 - Epsom Salt
33:11 - Explore more with Maxwell Casa
To learn more about Maxwell Casa and view full show notes, please visit the full website here: here: https://www.docjenfit.com/podcast/episode325
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Doc Jen. And I'm Dr. Dom. And we are doctors
[00:00:10] of physical therapy, bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of wisdom
[00:00:14] to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions, and answer
[00:00:18] your questions. Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really
[00:00:23] to help you discover what optimal means within your own body. Let's dive in. are supposed to just by wearing these shoes, the majority of time over six months, you can increase your internal foot strength up to 60 or 70%. And there are so many implications from increasing your toe range of motion, increasing your ankle range of motion, increasing the resilience in your calves. Everything that these shoes do are help your toes, feet, and ankles work
[00:01:44] better and support themselves rather than putting external things in like
[00:02:45] hacking and all-around performance optimization. After countless health obstacles, Max dedicated himself to finding the easiest and most effective recovery therapy. Max discovered float therapy,
[00:02:51] also known as sensory deprivation, hoping it would aid in his physical recovery. He soon realized
[00:02:57] that simply lying suspended in a silent, dark, saltwater-filled tank not only healed his body,
[00:03:03] but simultaneously enhanced his mind and deepened his connection with his spirit. I'm glad you asked and it's a good place to start for anyone that's listening. So really a float tank or float therapy, also known as sensory deprivation, is a powerful form of therapy that involves getting in a big float tank. Usually it's a big egg shaped hot tub type tank, usually with the lid over the top.
[00:04:20] But if anyone here gets a chance to check out our site, we also have totally open float Not even a single photon of light is entering the user's experience at all. There's no sense of sounds because the tank itself is sound resistant and the user is also wearing earplugs. There's no smells, there's no taste, there's no movement, there's no speech inside the tank. And there isn't even a sensation of touch because the salt water solution in there
[00:05:40] and the air inside the chamber is precisely heated
[00:05:43] and kept through constant 94.5 degrees Fahrenheit, electrolyte drink, it not only helps your water taste delicious, but it also helps you replace some of those super, super vital electrolytes being sodium, magnesium, and potassium. Jen and I love the different flavors. It keeps us coming back to that water day in and day out, not to just keep hydrated with the water, but to keep our cells hydrated by giving them back those
[00:07:02] electrolytes.
[00:07:02] If you go down to the link in the show notes, which is drink element, spelt single second of the day. And that's a huge stressor. It requires a lot of our energy, a lot of our brain power, a lot of our ATP to be able to perform and process all the stimulation coming in. So when someone enters an environment like this, where oftentimes the first time they use it
[00:08:20] the entire life, there's none of that.
[00:08:22] There's nothing coming into the brain
[00:08:24] from the external world and it can take all that energy and consciousness and bring it in and put it towards whatever it is it really truly has to do. And oftentimes that's relax, to recover and reset better than ever before. I mean, this is incredibly powerful, especially in today's age where we're constantly stimulated with just technology. I mean, screens, social media,
[00:09:44] the ability to stream on your phone even
[00:09:46] and just be constantly stimulated Great question. Because this is a more obscure therapy. Yeah, so really, I guess it started when I was born. Because I was diagnosed with degenerative neuromuscular disease at birth called Charcot-Marie-Tooth or CMT for short.
[00:11:00] And really that kind of sparked some things, especially on my parents end because they So I went to the float center in town and we're going back probably like eight years at this point. But back then, because I'm up here in Massachusetts, a little bit north of Boston, and I went into the city. I got my float on. And at the time, it was one of the only float centers in the entire United States, one of
[00:12:20] the first ones.
[00:12:22] So I went in there, had my first float, wasn't too sure what to expect. I was helping so many people and then ultimately got inspired to start up my company Max Vitality where we now distribute float therapy chambers and our bath salts that go into the float tanks. People do this at home and that's been a fun ride. That's amazing and it kind of reminds me of a story of my own.
[00:13:41] When you said your first experience of getting in the breath work and started just realizing and accessing these altered states of consciousness that are available to all of us. Then it's not necessary to have to take anything,
[00:15:00] any catalysts, whether it's psilocybin
[00:15:03] or any of the other plant medicines
[00:15:05] to achieve these altered states of consciousness and these different brainwaves where we're going into the deep Delta and even theta brainwaves without having to take anything at all. Because when our brain can just relax,
[00:16:21] dim out and our nervous system could transition
[00:16:25] to that parasympathetic state,
[00:16:26] what we start to see is even the left and right mentioned that this is kind of an obscure therapy and I feel like anytime people see obscure therapies, they think, oh, that's woo woo. Right. Or, oh, that's some sort of dark magic that they don't actually have any proof for. So yeah, like what do you have to back this up with that may be coming out in the research? Totally. Yeah, no.
[00:17:40] Good point there.
[00:17:42] And really when it comes to the benefits of're getting from the sensory deprivation aspect. Again, the parasympathetic response, the merging of the left and right hemispheres of the brain,
[00:19:01] and all the beautiful benefits that comes out
[00:19:04] of escaping all the stress we're getting from the
[00:20:21] zero gravity, the sensor deprivation and all the magnesiums getting soaked up during a
[00:20:25] float.
[00:20:26] I think that's a great way to sum it up. instantaneously and what we start to see with a lot of the oral magnesium supplements and pills electrolyte mixes same thing one The these forms of magnesium are oftentimes highly processed sometimes depending on the form mildly toxic Do it's production ways? but
[00:21:40] More importantly is there's research suggesting that a lot of these magnesium pills one aren't super bio available because they're getting destroyed by the GI track
[00:22:42] I was putting my feet in a little foot soak basin,
[00:22:47] couple tablespoons of magnesium salts, warm water, soak the maggot right through the bottoms of the feet.
[00:22:50] Another another great way is topical lotion or spray as well.
[00:22:54] But yeah, many forms of magnesium,
[00:22:56] transderal magnesium rather, but transderal magnesium,
[00:22:59] again, the most rapid and effective way.
[00:23:02] Oral magnesium is a powerful tool
[00:23:04] and we always want to be opting
[00:23:06] for magnesium rich food sources as well. magnesium right away. And how can someone start to tell, are there symptoms that you could be magnesium deficient without even knowing, without testing? Are there signs that we could be looking for within our own body that is pointing to, oh, you might be magnesium deficient? Definitely. Yeah, really abundant mineral inside the cell. And that right there tells us why it is so important to have enough of it and being deficient can therefore cause an array of different symptoms. So one of my questions is, of course, with any intervention, we want to talk about dose
[00:25:41] and also frequency. process. But there's a lot of people that are coming for floats. Maybe they're looking for stress and anxiety reduction, or even they're just looking to sleep better at night that's better or is it just, it's, it's totally safe if you're pregnant? Like what are, can you talk a little bit into that? Yeah, definitely.
[00:28:21] So with pregnancy, um, where we have a lot of moms are coming in for is the ability to go into the silent darkness, into the quiet and just bond with their coming baby. So when they're in the tank and they can feel those sensations that are going on inside
[00:29:41] a little bit more strongly.
[00:29:42] You know what I mean?
[00:29:43] They're a little bit more intense.
[00:29:45] They can feel the kicks.
[00:29:46] They can feel the movement.
[00:29:48] They can feel the heartbeat. homes, is there a top end of a frequency that's like, hey, this is too much. Like you shouldn't be doing four float today. Or is there a way that people can get too much magnesium or become overloaded and have a hypermagnesic state of sorts?
[00:31:00] Yeah, yeah, I hear.
[00:31:03] Honestly, dude, with, this is one of the other
[00:31:06] main reasons that I really like to steer towards because I like allowing my body to have as much of a say as possible because I trust my body so deeply. So when we're laying in a float like that, maybe you floated all day, you know, but maybe at the 60 minute mark, your hair follicles just say, hey, hey, man, you got enough mag
[00:32:22] for today.
[00:32:23] We're good.
[00:32:24] And then it won't be soaking up anymore're, even a healthy American, someone that's eating a lot of these magnesium rich foods is only getting closer to 300 to 350 milligrams
[00:33:40] of magnesium a day through their food.
[00:33:42] So with that said, the rest of that would ideally
[00:33:44] be coming through supplementation,
[00:33:46] whether it's oral or transdermal. more magnesium than Epsom salt. So if anyone at home, maybe they're already taking Epsom salt baths or foot soaks or something like that, just we recommend just alternating or swapping the Epsom salt from magnesium chloride. And a lot of times a lot of these clients are having a deeper, relaxing stress reduction and sleeping better at night. A lot of these
[00:35:01] beautiful benefits we're getting from magnesium.
[00:35:03] That's great. This has all been super informative. And I honestly am so excited myself to go to float two floaters at once. Wow. It was a really cool experience as well. Yeah, and then we have our Vitality Salts, which is our bath blend product that we recommend. I know I didn't really touch on it too much, but for anyone that's interested, it's really a bath blend that we use for our transdermal magnesium.
[00:36:21] And it mixes the purist magnesium chloride
[00:36:24] with magnesium's three powerful co-factors, I've tried a few times, the first experience is a little different, managing expectations and all the rest of it. But like you said, just making it more of a practice, trying it out, learning each one, and each one you'll be able to relax deeper and deeper and faster and faster and reap more of the beautiful benefits that floating has to offer.
[00:37:40] So yeah, reach out on there, I'm looking forward
[00:37:42] to connecting with more of you guys,
[00:37:43] and I appreciate you guys having me on.
[00:37:46] Sounds so good.
[00:37:46] Yeah, absolutely Max.
[00:37:47] Thanks so much Max.