Rotary Satellite Club of Kīhei-Wailea to host Dr. Justin Feinstein of Maui Calm Project

The Rotary Satellite Club of Kīhei-Wailea will hear from Dr. Justin Feinstein with the Maui Calm Project on Tuesday, Sept. 17 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. He will be discussing Maui’s mental health crisis and an innovative emergency response that his nonprofit has been working on bringing to the island.

Within one year of a major community trauma, the downward spiral towards long-term PTSD begins to take root, which can affect entire populations for decades. In an effort to tackle Maui’s pressing mental health needs, the Maui Calm Project is racing to bring clinical float therapy to the island in order to reduce the high level of stress and anxiety that the people of Maui are currently experiencing. The project aims to bypass the cultural and financial barriers that have prevented many residents from receiving effective mental health treatment in the wake of the tragedy by providing the therapy completely for free inside state-of-the-art facilities placed in areas most affected by the fires.

The Maui Calm project is an initiative of the Float Research Collective, a Maui-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has been at the forefront of research on clinical float therapy, a safe water-based treatment that has been shown to help people with stress, anxiety, and PTSD. The therapy requires a custom-built private pool that allows one to effortlessly float in water that has been saturated with over a thousand pounds of Epsom salt. The water and air are kept at skin temperature, all outside sound and light are reduced, and the forces of gravity are minimized in order to reduce stimulation on the human body and nervous system. The Maui Calm project claims this peaceful and calm environment reflexively reduces stress and hyperarousal, allowing an overstimulated and shocked nervous system to enter a state of equilibrium.

The Maui Calm project is being led by Dr. Justin Feinstein, a clinical neuropsychologist and national authority on clinical float therapy. Dr. Feinstein has published numerous peer-reviewed studies showing that float therapy is a safe and highly effective treatment for reducing stress and anxiety, including in patients with PTSD. He has over 75 peer-reviewed publications in some of the world’s top scientific journals and his research has been featured in the popular press including the New York Times, NPR, TIME magazine, and CBS National News.

His current work is focused on studying the intimate connection between the body and the brain, and developing new technologies to help bring this connection to the forefront of awareness. As part of these efforts, his research has laid the foundation for novel therapies that can naturally alleviate stress and anxiety without the use of drugs.

Dr. Feinstein received his Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology from the University of Iowa and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. He earned his undergraduate degree in Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of California San Diego, where he later returned to complete his clinical internship at the San Diego VA hospital with a focus on the treatment of veterans with PTSD using prolonged exposure therapy.

Dr. Feinstein is an adjunct professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa. Between 2013-2020, he was also a professor in the Oxley College of Health Sciences at the University of Tulsa, as well as the founder and director of the Float Clinic & Research Center at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research where he spearheaded the first studies to show how floating could rapidly and reliably ease the suffering in patients with anxiety and stress-related disorders.

In 2021, Dr. Feinstein became president and director of the Float Research Collective, a Maui-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to establish floatation therapy as an accepted medical treatment.

Join Rotary Satellite Club of Kīhei-Wailea at on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 5 p.m. to network. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. at Island Health, 2439 S Kīhei Rd #101B, Kīhei in the Rainbow Mall.

Contact rotarymeansbusinessmaui@gmail.com to RSVP.