One secret to Steph Curry's NBA success: Sensory deprivation spas

Steph Curry floats in a sensory deprivation pod

(Image credit: Twitter/@ESPN)

last updated 10 December 2015

The Golden State Warriors are now 23-0 this season, the best regular-season start of any NBA team ever, and the reigning league MVP powering their winning streak, point guard Stephen Curry, seems like an unstoppable force of nature.

One reason is the automated toilet his wife, Ayesha, got him as a present. "Oh, man, that toilet just makes me happy in life," Curry tells Sam Alipour in the Dec. 11 issue of ESPN the Magazine. "And when you're happy, you play better. I bet if I did a case study on my performance since I got the toilet, you'd see the difference.... I was in Minnesota when Ayesha told me about it. And the next day I had 46 [points]. There's a reason for that. I was very happy."

Another reason, of course, is that Curry practices hard, sometimes using "weird, random stuff" like "goggles with flashing lights that obstruct my vision" while he dribbles and passes, among other "sensory distractions" that "take my mind off the ball and sharpen the brain, helping me neurologically," he told ESPN. But mostly, Curry and his Warriors "are powered by a sauce with two chief ingredients," says Alipour, a "small-ball lineup" and a "secret spice: floating, the practice du jour of the wellness world."

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At the behest of Lachlan Penfold, the new Warriors head of physical performance and sports science, Curry and other Golden State players have become regulars at San Francisco's Reboot Float Spa, where they regularly spend an hour in a sensory deprivation pod, floating in skin-temperature water saturated with 1,000 pounds of Epsom salt. You can learn more about sensory deprivation and Curry's experience with it at ESPN, or in the video below.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.