Interesting Research

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I came across some interesting research this morning.

Researchers have long known that living creatures can sense magnetic fields. For instance, honeybees, salmon, turtles, birds, whales, and bats use the geomagnetic field to help them navigate, and dogs can be trained to locate buried magnets.

“Many animals have magnetoreception, so why not us?” asks Connie Wang, Caltech graduate student and lead author of the eNeuro study.

To find out if humans can indeed sense magnetic fields, the researchers built an isolated radiofrequency-shielded chamber where participants sat in utter darkness for an hour. As magnetic fields shifted silently around the chamber, participants’ brain waves were measured using electrodes positioned at 64 locations on their heads.

In some of the 34 participants, alpha brainwaves decreased in power by as much as 60 percent in response to the shifting fields. Additional runs of the experiment showed that the effect was reproducible.

Source: Can Humans Sense Magnetic Storms?

This triggers another thought stream.

Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) is also called floatation therapy, and isolation tank therapy. Some describe this type of therapy as hitting the reset button on the mind. It is a way of simulating in an adult the feeling of returning to the womb.

Sensory Deprivation tanks, or just “float tanks”—the practice is just called “floating” by practitioners— are temperature-regulated, salt-saturated water, sound-proof and light-proof tanks that isolate occupants from sensory input. The tank is filled to a depth of around 10 inches of water into which a thousand pounds of Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate), have been dissolved. This solution, nearly saturated, is extremely buoyant and allows an individual to float effortlessly. The temperature of the water and air are heated to skin temperature, so the subjects cannot sense where their body ends and the air or water begins. You enter the tank nude and are cut off from all outside stimulation, including sound, sight, and gravity when the tank’s lid or door is closed. As an individual floats weightless in the silence and darkness, the brain enters a deeply relaxed state.

This form of therapy is used to heal patients who suffer from stress, anxiety disorders and PTSD. It is also used as a treatment for insomnia, chronic pain, depression and addiction. Floating may have beneficial effects on mood, blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Sensory deprivation may actually be effective in reducing the body’s stress response, inducing deep relaxation and quieting mental chatter. So low that there is a biological effect on the brain – essentially telling it to "quiet down."

REST therapy has been found to be effective in reducing anxiety. A 2018 study showed that a single one-hour session in a sensory deprivation tank was capable of a significant reduction in anxiety and improvement in mood in the 50 participants with stress- and anxiety-related disorders.

A 2016 study of 46 people who self-reported generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) found that it reduced GAD symptoms, such as depression, sleep difficulties, irritability, and fatigue.

A majority of participants who underwent REST therapy reported feelings of greater self-confidence, courage, and optimism about the future; stronger belief in their own abilities; increased awareness of love for family and friends, care for human beings in general and for future generations especially. They achieve greater benefit from therapy by achieving a deeper understanding of one’s own self.

Now it would not be too difficult to combine these two effects by surrounding a floatation tank with a Faraday Cage. This is going to happen folks. Another level of deep relaxation therapy is on the horizon.