DIY Wellness Retreat Day Two: Sweating, floating and sweating some more
Well, today was considerably more productive than yesterday!
It began with a need for exercise, so I headed down to Geelong's newest Barre studio, Move and Be, for a Barre Balance class with my dear friend Semele. Semele and I both agreed that the class was quite difficult and we would both be hurting tomorrow, but, as always, I thoroughly enjoyed the class and the challenge it brought to me, not to mention getting to be taught by the beautiful Mikayla again.
After being strengthened and stretched, I headed over to the Wellness Studio In Geelong located in Belmont for a Floatation tank and an Infrared Sauna session.
I had never done either of these things before and I was pretty excited to give them a go. I have heard so much about floatation tanks and so many mixed reviews, I couldn't wait to try it out for myself!
For those of you who don't know, a floatation tank is basically a pod kind of thing with about 12 inches of warm water mixed in with a hell of a lot of epsom salts (so it's impossible to sink). The idea is that you lie down for about an hour and deprive yourself of a few of your senses - no touching, no seeing, no hearing.
It was a shaky start as I couldn't quite bring myself to go in nude as the instructor has suggested (I went for a bikini instead) and I found it difficult to get the ear plugs to actually stay in my ears. However once I was settled it was a thoroughly surreal yet incredibly relaxing experience. Well, for a little while. I found the music soothing until it was turned off and to my surprise I didn't feel at all claustrophobic in the dark tank. It was a strange sensation to not feel like I was touching anything and it did relax me, but after a while I got fidgety. I felt as if stay still for this long on my back was making my body become a little stiff and, to be quite honest, I was bored. I didn't fall asleep or into some kind of trance like I had been warned I might. Instead I found myself pondering how much time had past and longing for the music to pipe up again, signalling the end to my floating experience.
After the float finally ended I hopped into the Infrared Sauna. I was happy to find that the sauna only fitted two people and consequently I was in there on my own. I plugged in my own music and could see exactly how much time I had left until my time was up. Although a little dull, I was entertained by discovering new places of my body that could sweat; my knee caps, for example. I also quite liked the feeling of absorbing the heat and sweating out the toxins. It was quite a nice experience, and reasonably relaxing.
Although I won't be returning for either of these treatments in the very near future, I do think they would be nice to do again at some point.
After this I showered and returned home for some more Gilmore Girls before heading off to do some babysitting work, all the while brushing dried up epsom salts out of my ears and hair. And now, bed. Let's see what tomorrow brings!
Namaste,
Mia
