When Marketing career woman Camille was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after her daughter was admitted into intensive care, the last thing she thought would help her was floating in a tank for an hour. Yet after three sessions she found it helped her enormously. So much so, that she quit her job and opened her own Wellbeing centre in Hove, offering floatation treatments. I went to her centre, The Float Spa, to ask her a few questions.
What made you want to open your own Float Spa?
I spent years working in marketing, predominately for the health and leisure industry and then last year, my daughter got really ill and we were blue lighted to intensive care in London. When she recovered and we got back from the hospital I just fell apart. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and conventional medicine told me either to wait it out, go and see someone or take some pills. My dad came to visit one weekend and asked my husband how long this had been going on and he said to him ‘this is one of her good days, she’s out of bed on a weekend!’. So my dad sent me a book on floatation therapy and told me to go and have a float. I thought ‘how is floating going to help?’. I went for my first float and my experience wasn’t great, I wasn’t prepared and I only went because my dad told me to. I was told to go for at least three and my second time was completely different. I went to a different centre that had so many different literatures, I had read further into the book and was more open to the idea of floating. By the end of that session I was wondering why Brighton didn’t have their own. So that was it, I quit my job and spent the next few months sorting out the centre and we opened in February.Â
“I spent years working in marketing, predominately for the health and leisure industry and then last year, my daughter got really ill and we were blue lighted to intensive care in London. When she recovered and we got back from the hospital I just fell apart. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and conventional medicine told me either to wait it out, go and see someone or take some pills.”
What are the benefits of floating?
Floating has so many benefits, the most basic form of what floating is basically, there is a room, a pod or a cabin of water full of Epsom salts. Because there are so many Epsom salts in the water it changes its density so means you effortlessly float on the surface, like being in the dead sea. 90% of gravity is taken away from you so you’re effectively weightless. The second benefit is the lack of sensory input. You turn off the lights and your mind becomes still, and can concentrate on other things such as healing and resting. How often do we sit there with no mobile phone, no tv, no lights, no children or no other distractions? A benefit of the Epsom salts is that they are full of magnesium and we are extremely magnesium deficient nowadays. This magnesium can help massively with aches and pains and muscle tension. All these benefits combined means floating helps with pain relief, stress, chronic illness, insomnia, jet lag etc. In Sweden at the moment there is research going on that says you can cure fibromyalgia in ten sessions if it is diagnosed in the early stages. At this time, conventional medicine says there is no cure for fibromyalgia.Â
How would you recommend someone approach having flotation therapy?
Coming here to float is very different than many other float spas. I travelled across the UK going to different float centres to try and find all the best things that you could do to create something here that is completely customer centric. We read the customer consultation form to understand why they are coming here, whether it be for anxiety, stress, depression or just for a pamper treat and we will give them advice and tips. It’s a very personal consultation so we don’t have bundles of literature but we talk to them ourselves to find out what they want to achieve and how we are going to help them do it.Â
You also have other treatments on offer, could you tell me a bit about those?
We have three therapy rooms, and it is all about complimentary therapy. We don’t do beauty packages, we want to help make a lasting difference to people’s lives, whether it be through meditation, life coaching, nutrition, massage, the list is endless. Then we have our studio with sixteen classes a week which is a variety of yoga classes from Yin Yoga to beginner Yoga and Mindfulness courses.Â
For such a young company you seem to be very popular. Are you surprised at how much interest you’ve had?
Yes, though we have done a lot of work to get the customers in. It’s effectively my job to build the brand awareness but from the studio point of view we are quite unique. There’s a lot of natural light, we’re on the ground floor which, as we teach Yoga, is a benefit as you want to be as close to the earth as possible and it’s in a quiet area, which means when you come out of our spa you aren’t bombarded with noise and business.Â
And finally, what is your favourite thing about Brighton?
The people. I love the people of Brighton. I vow that Brighton is the only place that I will live in the UK. Ever. I grew up in Manchester, my sister moved to Brighton when I was fourteen and I used to visit every summer. When I was looking at Universities the only University I wanted to go to was Brighton. I remember my course tutor saying to me ‘I think you want to live in Brighton a bit more than you want to come to this University and do this course’. I just love it here, it’s got such a community feel and when I used to commute to London every day I would get off the train at the station and instantly feel calm. It has become more London-esque since I moved here, there’s posher bars and restaurants but who cares? It’s still go that quirky feel and it’s still a big community. It’s the only place I would invest in, in terms of business, and I love chatting to the different people here. From those who are very spiritual, to the straight laced businessmen, athletes, doctors teachers, it’s just brilliant. I love Brighton.
The float spa is located on Third Avenue in Hove, and you can find out more about their classes and treatments at their website http://www.thefloatspa.co.uk/
