As I idled in Northampton’s afternoon rush hour, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and glancing anxiously at the clock on my phone, it struck me that this moment perfectly captured my week — a traffic jam of tasks that had left me running constantly behind.
At last, the knot of trucks, cars and pedestrians loosened and I made my way up King Street, arriving only seconds ahead of my appointment at the recently opened Euphoria Float Spa. The stress of my personal rush hour began to melt the moment I walked into the serene lobby and was invited back to the private room where, for the next hour, I would leave the buzzing iPhone behind.
My last trip to a float spa happened a couple of decades back, when I plunged into a “sensory deprivation tank” that resembled a coffin filled with heavily salted water and soft fluorescent lights. It was relaxing, but a little tight for this claustrophobe. Euphoria’s tanks are decidedly more spacious, with plenty of room to stand up and, once settled into the water, stretch your arms in all directions.
The salt, however, remains the same. Each of the tub-like tanks is filled with 850 pounds of epsom salt — your own personal Great Salt Lake — designed to keep you floating like a cork on top.
After taking a shower, I put waxy plugs into my ears to keep out the salt and slipped in feet-first. While the tank has underwater lights available at the push of a button, I opted for darkness. Settling back, I allowed the back of my head to sink beneath the surface and began to pay attention to … nothing much.
Euphoria aims to create a physical environment that is “skin-receptor neutral,” says Hannah O’Connell, who owns the spa with her parents, Lori Schott & Jeff Schott. The water and air temperatures are set to a matching 93.5 degrees, she said, so that “once you settle into complete stillness, you kind of lose track of where the water ends and the air begins.”
That’s what happened to me. Gravity began to fade and I felt like I was suspended in air by a thin, salty membrane.
The darkness inside the room was complete; it really didn’t matter whether I kept my eyes open or shut. (I kept them closed to reduce the risk of splashing in salt water.) And my ears, plugged with wax and submerged in the water, allowed in little sound. But my senses felt far from deprived.
During much of our days, we are flooded with noise: the “ding” of an arriving text message, the thrum of car engines, the bleat of the latest pronouncement from Donald Trump. But in the tank, happily deprived of those sounds, I came to hear another sound: my own breathing.
The soft pulse of air entering my nostrils, filling my lungs and then streaming back out became an object of fascination. In the background, quieter but still noticeable, I could hear the pulse of blood inside. How amazing, I thought, that I so seldom pay attention to the very movements that keep me alive.
There was also some weirdness. At a couple of points along the way, I heard what sounded like single notes of music: the report of a hit on a snare drum, the twang of a single strum on an electric guitar. I don’t know whether they were amplified versions of a sound in the tank, a muscle releasing tension in my body or products of my imagination. But they sure were entertaining.
As I mentioned above, I’m a little claustrophobic, and I worried about feeling hemmed in by the tank. But it was just the opposite; in the beginning especially, I felt like I was slowly spinning in an unlimited pool. It was only when I gently touched the wall that I realized my journey had covered just a few inches.
Without the need to hold me up, my muscles had the chance to relax — that is, if I let them. At one point, I realized that I was clenching one fist for absolutely no reason and willed it open.
And when was the last time you let every muscle in your neck go soft? In the tank, you can.
I didn’t bring a watch with me, so I had little idea of the passing minutes. But at some point along the way, I stopped thinking about it, sank my head deeper in the water and just let it flow.
Since the spa opened Jan. 18, a growing stream of customers have come through the door, said O’Connell. They have two tanks running now and hope to double that number in the next year or so.
The price of an individual float is $65 for an hour, $80 for 90 minutes. Buying a multi-float package can reduce the price per session to as low as $45 a session.
Those prices aren’t cheap; the cost is similar to a mid-range massage. But in my experience, the float was relaxing in a way that reached beyond the physical. I’ll definitely drift through again.
Euphoria Float Spa, 241 King St., Northampton; (413)586-8086, euphoriafloat.com.
Contact Jeff Good at jgood@gazettenet.com.
