English Lesson: 90 Minutes in an Isolation Tank (Advanced Vocabulary!)

- Hello everybody, this is Jack from tofluency.com,

and welcome this English lesson where we are going

to talk about my experience in an isolation tank.

In an isolation tank.

I'm going to explain what that is very shortly.

But first, here is the question of the day.

Do you meditate?

Do you meditate?

Please leave your comments below.

I'm going to respond to some of the comments I receive

in the next couple of days.

I'm just interested to know if you meditate.

If you meditate.

Now, if you're new here, then welcome.

My name is Jack.

I am an English teacher from the UK living in America.

And I teach here on YouTube, on Facebook,

and on my website, tofluency.com.

This is a live lesson.

It's great to do this again here on YouTube.

And we've got a lot of things to talk about today.

And I have different words and phrases to teach you, too.

Here are my notes, you can see them here.

These are my notes.

And we're going to talk about things like

to float, to sink, pitch black, soundproof, senses.

We're going to talk about getting salt

in my eyes, all of those things.

So first, I'm going to just quickly explain

what an isolation tank is because

that is the core of the lesson today.

Like I said, we're going to learn lots

of new words and phrases.

And I'll leave a comment below with the key phrases

from this lesson, so you can learn new vocabulary.

So, an isolation tank.

This is a very small room.

A tank is a great word for it.

It's a very small room.

It's about eight feet wide and, sorry,

six feet wide and eight feet long.

And firstly, it is soundproof,

which means you don't hear any noises outside of the tank.

So, once you are in this isolation tank,

then you can't hear anything.

Additionally, you can't see anything.

It is pitch black.

It is pitch black.

If something is pitch black, it means there is zero light

in there, there is zero light.

Maybe you have seen these blackout curtains,

which are curtains that reduce any light,

so they stop any light coming in.

So, inside the tank it is pitch black.

It is soundproof.

You can't see, you can't hear.

And also, they fill the tank with 1,500 pounds

of Epsom salt, which is magnesium sulfate, I think.

Epsom salt, do you guys know what Epsom salt is?

Great, just say yes or no in the comment section.

And 1,500 pounds is 680 kilograms.

680 kilograms.

So, that is a lot of Epsom salt.

And because of all this salt,

when you lie down in the water, you float.

Okay, you float.

Now, here is some water you can see here.

If I put a rock in this water, it will sink to the bottom.

It will sink.

If I put a leaf, it will float, it will stay here.

So, that's the great difference.

Sink at the bottom and float at the top.

So, you are in this tank

and you are floating on the surface.

You are floating on the surface.

And the idea is that it takes away your senses.

It takes away your senses.

It takes away your ability to see because it's pitch black,

your ability to hear because there are no sounds coming in.

And you don't feel anything

because you are floating on the water.

And the idea of this is that it helps you meditate.

It helps you lower stress.

It's meant to be relaxing.

I'll talk about that in a second.

It's meant to be relaxing.

And it can help with creativity apparently.

So apparently, it can help with creativity.

Now, in my last lesson, I talked about an article

that this guy wrote talking

about doing things with less stress.

And we talked about how you can learn English

with less stress.

That taught words like stress, relaxation,

and those types of vocabulary.

So, have a look at that lesson after this one.

But it's an amazing thing.

Because you are lying there, and again,

you can't see or hear or feel anything.

And I'm gonna tell you about what happened

as soon as I got in there.

But first before you get in, you have to do two things.

Firstly, put on some swimming shorts.

I think you can go in naked.

The employee didn't say anything about that.

I think you can go in there naked.

But I decided to put on some shorts, swimming shorts.

Then you put in ear buds, okay, ear buds.

So, you put in these things in your ear

because you don't want the water

and the salt going in your ear.

And then also, you have to have a quick shower.

So, you take or you have a quick shower

before you get into the tank.

Now, for those just joining, we are talking about going

in an isolation tank, where there is 1,500 pounds

of Epsom salt, 680 kilograms in this small tank,

and you float in the dark and you can't hear anything.

And the idea, again, is to help you relax.

It's to help you meditate.

It's to lower stress.

And people say it helps with your creativity.

So, once I was ready to get in,

I felt a little bit nervous about it.

And what you do is you put a towel,

you wrap a towel around the door.

So, you can feel the towel to know where you are.

So, once I was ready, I got in and I closed the door,

and I went straight to lie down like this.

And I freaked out a little bit.

It was a little bit scary.

Because again, you can't see,

you can't hear, you can't feel.

And it's a very strange feeling.

It's a really strange feeling.

So, I thought, okay, what I'm going to do is I'm going

to try to feel the towel to know where I am.

But I couldn't feel it.

So, I thought, okay, it must be over here,

and I couldn't feel it.

Oh, it must be over here, and I couldn't feel it.

And then I started to panic a little bit.

I started to panic.

It was such a strange thing because you need your senses

to know where you are in a room.

And this is a very small room,

but I just couldn't work out where I was in this tank.

So, I started to just panic a little bit.

And it took me about a minute,

which is a really long time to find the door.

And once I found the door, I opened it, took a few breaths,

looked at the tank again and started again.

So, then I went back into the tank.

I lied down and then I started to relax.

And it's an amazing experience

because again, you just don't feel anything,

and you can't see or you can't hear.

The only thing you can hear is your breathing.

And also, if you open your mouth,

you can hear certain things in your ears.

But when you close your mouth, it's silence.

So, at first I decided just to slow down my breathing,

to try to just completely relax with it.

And you focus on your breathing.

Now, if you have done meditation before,

they'll say, "Okay, focus on your breathing,

"focus on your breathing.

"Notice how your belly rises and falls.

"Notice the air going through your nose."

And sometimes, this is hard to do.

But in that tank, you can really focus on your breathing.

Now, someone just says, Hamsa, in the Dead Sea in Jordan,

we have this same floating experience because it's so salty.

Exactly, yes.

I wanted to talk about the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea, because in the Dead Sea you can float

because it's so salty.

There's such a high salt content.

And that's what this isolation tank does.

It allows you to float because of all the salt.

Now, I booked 90 minutes in this tank, 90, nine zero, 90.

And I broke it up into two stages.

So, I spent 45 minutes in there, I took a break,

and then I did another 45 minutes.

And one of the things I didn't like

about it was it was so hot in there.

So, the water was quite warm.

But it was also really humid, really humid, and it felt hot.

And I opened the door and it felt amazing just

to breathe that type of fresh air again.

So, I didn't like how hot it was in the tank.

But I took a quick break and I went back in.

But then the other thing I didn't like is that the salt,

if you have little cuts, I had a little cut here

after gardening, and the salt gets into your cuts

and it hurts quite a lot.

So, it kind of annoys you more than hurts, it annoys you.

And the other thing is, if you get any salt

in your eye, it's stings, it really does sting.

But the second half was just amazing

because I didn't really think about anything.

I just cleared my mind and just meditated

in a really positive way.

So all in all, it was a really good experience.

And a good question to ask here is,

Jack, would you do it again?

Would you do it again?

And I think I would.

I think I would.

And doing a lot of things for the first time,

it's not always perfect.

Then the second or the third time,

you have experience and you know what to expect.

I didn't know what to expect when I did this.

But when I did it the second time,

or when I do it the second time,

it's going to be better I think,

and a little bit more relaxed to start with.

Okay, do you guys have any questions.

Itor asks, how deep was the tank?

I think it was about two feet deep.

I'd say about that deep.

It wasn't deep at all.

It wasn't deep at all.

Yes, I'm talking about isolation tanks.

They're also called sensory deprivation tanks

because it takes away your senses.

A sensory deprivation tank, it takes away your senses.

So, it can be called that or an isolation tank.

And I'm just gonna repeat some of the phrases we've used.

So, we've used float at the top of the water

and sink to go to the bottom.

And yeah, at the top you are floating, floating.

Pitch black, which means zero light.

Soundproof, no sound.

And yeah, some of the other things we've used,

pounds and kilograms, that's always confusing.

1,500 pounds, 680 kilograms.

Okay, let's have a look at the comments now.

"Does this tank really exist?" asks Daniel.

Yep, it really exists.

Somebody who's made these flotation tanks

quite popular is Joe Rogan, who has probably

the number one interview podcasts on YouTube.

Oh, there's a wasp.

A wasp is on my phone.

It's gone now.

It looks like an experience from NASA.

It does, doesn't it?

How are you, Jack?

I am doing very well, very well, thank you.

Ester, I feel claustrophobic.

Maybe I'll be less relaxed before getting in.

Yeah, it is a little claustrophobic.

And when you get lost in the tank,

that's when it does feel claustrophobic.

And that's when I felt panicked.

Now, claustrophobia is when you have this fear

of small spaces, and you panic when you're in a small space.

So, for example, this is not the best example,

but it is a good one.

My wife felt claustrophobic when she was in a sleeping bag.

A sleeping bag.

And this is one of those things you use

when you're camping to sleep in.

You zip it up and you're wrapped in the sleeping bag,

and it feels quite claustrophobic.

What about the oxygen in the tank?

Yeah, I felt like again, it was really humid.

So, that felt uncomfortable,

but there's enough oxygen in there.

But I just felt uncomfortable in there.

Is it windy over there?

Yeah, it's windy today.

It is definitely windy.

Today's the first day where it feels like fall.

It's been really hot recently.

A lot of people are asking about my wife.

So, my wife went back to work.

She is teaching again.

Everyone's asking about Kate, yeah, she is teaching again.

And we'll make another video soon.

We'll make another video soon.

Did you really fit in the tank?

Yes, there was enough space.

It was eight feet long and I am six feet tall.

So, that was fine for me.

Was the water a little warm?

Yeah, it was a little too warm for me.

It was too warm.

I would have preferred it, this is a great phrase,

I would have preferred it to be a little bit cooler.

But especially the air, it was too hot in there.

It was too hot, which adds to that panic feeling

when I couldn't find the door.

I just couldn't find the door.

It took me a minute, which is a long time,

just feeling against the wall.

Were you floating on the water?

Exactly, yes, you float on the water in this tank.

Yeah, it was fun.

It was incredibly relaxing

once you had spent a few minutes

just lying there, okay, just lying there.

How long did you stay inside?

90 minutes.

Can you please repeat the phrase?

Yeah, I would have preferred it to be,

I would have preferred it to be a little bit cooler.

That's the third conditional.

Oh, everyone floats in there, Daniel.

So, there's so much salt in there, everybody floats.

It's impossible to sink in there because of all the salt.

What is the purpose of the isolation tank?

Yeah so, it's a way to really relax

and to lower your stress.

People use it for meditation.

People use it sometimes in a spiritual way.

It can help creativity apparently.

I found it very relaxing once I felt relaxed in there,

once I had spent a bit of time

in there I felt really relaxed.

So, it was one of those things.

Okay, everybody, thank you so much for joining this lesson.

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Sending you my best wishes.

I hope you are all learning English,

doing something every day.

And I'll speak to you all soon.

Okay, bye for now.