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Salt therapies
Salt often gets a bad rap. All too often in the newspapers and on TV, we hear how harmful too much salt is for our health, and how we should avoid eating salt at all costs! So if salt is bad for us to eat, how can salt be good for us to inhale or bathe in?
What is salt therapy good for?
Precautions
What to expect from salt therapy
Hot tip!
Afterwards
What is salt therapy?
Also known as halotherapy or speleotherapy, salt therapy is simply breathing in salty air. You can experience this totally natural treatment in a spa in a salt steam room, or Japanese salt-steam, where the steam is infused with herbs and plants.
However, if you want to try the ultimate in salt inhalation, you need to try a salt cave. Of course, salt caves tend to be few and far between in the UK, so researchers have developed a way to create an artificial environment that mimics a salt cave, so that more people can enjoy its benefits. So you can seek out either a simulated salt-cave micro-climate or the real thing -- an underground cave of salt.
What is salt therapy good for?
Salt has many benefits, according to both modern and ancient history. The Greeks and Romans bathed in warm salt-water for relaxation, rejuvenation and also to heal a variety of skin conditions. Hippocrates also recommended inhaling steam from salt water if you suffered from respiratory diseases. We get our modern-day spa-word thalassotherapy from the Greek word "thalassa", which means "sea".
In the 1800s, a Polish physician, Dr Bochkowsky, discovered that salt miners rarely suffered from respiratory diseases, thus linking the inhalation of salty air with health benefits. Salt therapy has been popular in Eastern Europe ever since, with hundreds of thousands of people being treated for allergies, asthma, sinusitis, eczema, bronchitis, hay fever, cystic fibrosis, and many other respiratory and skin conditions.
Precautions
You can experience a few small side-effects from inhaling salt air. Coughing is a good sign, it shows that the salt is loosening mucus deep in your lungs. Your skin might react, too, and you could have a rash or break out, which should disappear fairly quickly.
What to expect from salt therapy
Visiting a salt cave in the UK will generally mean visiting an artificial salt cave. There will be salt on the floor and walls -- but this is just for decoration. The salty air (which you can't taste at all) is pumped into the room by a dry saline diffuser, which keeps the room at a constant temperature and humidity. The salt particles are tiny, between 1-5 micrometers, small enough to penetrate deep into your lungs.
Halotherapy is a pleasant experience. You put a hair net over your hair, shoe guards over your feet, and then lie for an hour on a lounger, breathing the air, whilst sleeping or reading a magazine.
You don't need to change into a robe, and the air doesn't affect your clothing or hair at all. You can experience salt therapy at The Salt Cave in London.
If you'd like to try bathing in salt water, many spas, including Hoar Cross Hall in Staffordshire, have a salt-water pool. Vicky Olphert, deputy manager of spa treatments at Hoar Cross told us why she believes it's good to get salt water on your skin.
"Salt is purifying, so it's good for healing your skin and will purify your pores. Salt water is also good for relieving aches and pains, so it's wonderfully relaxing if you suffer with those. Salt will soften hard water, so even if you live in a hard-water area, bathing in salt water makes the water soft, which is much more gentle on your skin.
"People find that after bathing in a salt water pool, their skin doesn't feel tight or dried out, as it does with chlorine. Also, if you find that chlorine makes your eyes sting, salt water doesn't irritate your eyes. People seem to find bathing in salt water more relaxing than chlorinated water. Finally, salt water re-mineralises your skin which aids absorption of other products. It's great!"
Hot tip!
If you're in a salt cave, the air is surprisingly light. There's usually relaxing music or sounds of the sea piped in along with the salt particles... You may drift off!
If you're trying a salt water pool, rinse your swimming costume thoroughly afterwards, as salt water can make your swimsuit fade.
Afterwards
Some people who suffer from respiratory and skin diseases say that halotherapy gives great results and offers a drug-free chance to feel better. Non-sufferers may find that salt inhalation helps with sleep. (When Sustainable Spy tried a session, she slept for 12 hours that night, rather than her usual 8!)
See also:
* Different types of steam room
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