R.E.S.T. Assured

Restricted Environmental Stimulus Therapy, aka floating, is a popular holistic therapy in the Palm Beaches and beyond

Steph Curry, Jeff Bridges and Kristen Wiig are just a few of the celebrity endorsers of “floating,” one of the most popular self-care therapies trending today. Developed in the 1950s but particularly in vogue since the 2000s, floating involves just what the name implies: entering a pod, laying atop a pool of salinized water, and letting the magnesium in the Epsom salts work its comforting, gravity-defying magic. “You’ll feel a calm coming over you, as if you’ve taken a baby Xanax, without any of the side effects,” said Philip Nuttle, owner of Float Plus in West Palm Beach.

Floating’s more scientific name is R.E.S.T., an acronym for Restricted Environmental Stimulus Therapy, and its effectiveness stems in part from reducing both outer noise (the stimuli of our natural environment) and inner noise (the chatter that keeps