With Thanksgiving still several days away, planning of gifts and celebration for December are already much on people’s minds. To help encourage gift-giving of a different sort, ifloat makes available 3-for-1 gift certificate purchases–and has already started! If you share one float each with three friends, you’ll have one for yourself. Pick up three 3-float-packages for friends, coworkers or loved ones, and you’ll have the opportunity for three floats of your own. This latter package provides a chance to share the experience at least once with each of those three people–and floating is a great experience to share, for the opportunity to discuss and debrief with someone after a session. Many of our first-time floaters bring a friend or family-member, and watching them interact and process the experience together after their sessions always gratifies.
Since the gift-giving season happens just prior to the new calendar year, the gift of relaxation has particular benefit, for both giver and receiver. One of our clients who has already given some certificates shared a lovely idea with us: The gift of an experience is often more valued, and valuable, than the accumulation of more things, dubious and ephemeral as they often are. January brings new requirements, new deadlines and newly-made plans for a happy, healthier approach to life. Stress management, often overlooked in the rush, is one resolution important for anyone juggling a hectic calendar and sizable set of demands. Floating is one great way to counteract the problematic effects of stress, and one we’ll continue providing education about and access to for the area’s busy residents.
Among the less-considered aspects of stress is its influence in the decision-making process. In a book entitled Annals of Gullibility by Stephen Greenspan (published by an imprint of Greenwood Press, right here in Westport, CT), this psychologist makes a direct link between the drain of stress and diminished decision-making capacity. Citing extensive recent findings by other clinical psychologists, Greenspan describes “self-regulatory depletion” as that “distinct lessening of perseverance and performance occurring on a variety of tasks as one’s energy becomes depleted.” Dr. Greenspan, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at University of Colorado, goes on to conclude that there is an easy inference to the idea that “externally induced exhaustion will cause increased susceptibility toward appeals or pressures that might otherwise be resisted.” Indeed, the studies Grenspan cites indicate “that stress causes a breakdown in willpower and self-control, whereas these can be replenished and substantially restored through rest.” I hasten to add that one form of rest is that kind with the big letters: R.E.S.T. (restricted environmental stimulation therapy)–better known outside clinical psychology labs as floating.
That unaddressed stress is deleterious to bodily function and health is a truism. That it is harmful to mind and thought process should logically follow, and from Dr. Greenspan’s perspective, certainly does. This potential for ill-considered and often harmful decisions extends, unfortunately, into all areas of life–from health care to child care, from financial planning for the future to daily budgeting of dollars, calories and attention. That extra portion or dessert we can’t resist seems trivial, but the effects of even these smaller decisions can accumulate unpleasantly. Larger family, financial, career and education choices are trivial to no one, and deserve the clearest heads we can bring to bear. Certainly, many other factors as discussed by Greenspan can lead to gullibility and poor decisions, but stress deserves closer consideration in this context.
To close on a semi-comic note, Greenspan’s includes a comment from former President Bill Clinton. Whatever the political perspective, or one’s personal opinion on Mr. Clinton, it would be hard to argue that Clinton’s active political life was not, at least partially, defined by his various gaffes. Of these blunders, Mr. Clinton has said, “every major error I have made in my life I have made when I was tired.” I was unable to verify the quote, but will trust in Greenwood’s fact-checkers and lawyers on its veracity.
If he didn’t actually say it, it is still true enough to be “true”, and not just for presidents.
Get some R.E.S.T. (and rest) this holiday season. Now is the time.
