Michigan Has The World’s First Ever Mental Health Gym

The best part about working out at a mental health gym is you never break a sweat. It involves a lot of relaxing, which is something we can ALL use.

While you may think of gyms as all about physical workouts, a new gym in Michigan is focusing on the mind. David McCullar is taking what he’s learned about alternative ways to deal with his trauma and using it in the first ever mental health gym, Inception.

The facility is located in Farmington Hills, and involves a technique similar to a physical fitness routine known as "circuit training", only instead of weights and cardio, you do a series a mental health exercises.

“A mental health gym uses 21^st century holistic technology to help everyday people deal with stressors or trauma,” McCullar told CNN, noting he got into it after using them himself for his issues, as well as a back injury.

He says the pandemic really had people gaining “awareness of how stressed out they were” which was a benefit to the gym.

"Our services look like doing circuit model training like a traditional gym to help move the body to rest and digest," he says. “We use neuro feedback, which is called brain training, magnetic therapy, red light therapy,” as well as sensory deprivation and more.

McCullar says the treatment has gotten rave reviews on social media, which has been helping him to spread the news of his latest endeavor.

One such post came from the SEEN blog, where Katherine Martinelli said the routine worked for her:

By the end I was even calmer and ready for the session I was most excited about: the float tank, a tub of salty, body-temperature water that Inception claims will ease pain, anxiety and inflammation. While I fondly remember floating in the Dead Sea, this time I had trouble getting comfortable and remaining present. I even had to use the spray bottle full of fresh water to douse my eyes, which had gotten painfully salty even though I didn’t remember getting water in them. When the session ended I happily got out and enjoyed a leisurely hot shower with zero interruptions — which alone was worth the trip!

The gym uses a 90-minute circuit model of treatments that costs only $99.

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