How Does It Help?

When allergens are inhaled it can cause airways to narrow, increase the amount of mucus in your lungs, and can lead to an asthmatic attack. During halotherapy, the micro-sized salt particles are able to travel deep into your lungs to break down and destroy any bacteria, which then leads to the widening of your airways. Salt reduces inflammation of the respiratory tract, clears out your nasal passageways, build your immune system and alleviates bronchial problems. The widening of your airways. Salt reduces inflammation of the respiratory tract, clears our your nasal passageways, builds your immune system and alleviates bronchial problems. 

What To Expect During/After Session

After your introduction to halotherapy, you could begin to notice some relief right away. During your sessions, the salt should help break down any build up of mucus you may have. Naturally, it takes a few sessions to notice the alleviation of symptoms and about a month to see true results. Each person will notice different effects depending on their condition. It’s recommended to visit 2-4 times a week for the first month or until your condition is controlled. Maintain 1-2 times a week to manage conditions and stay healthy. 

How Does It Help?

Salt rooms are full of negative ions, which are believed to produce biochemical reactions that increase levels of the mood chemical serotonin, helping to alleviate depression, relieve stress and boost our daytime energy. Negative ions also increase the flow of oxygen to the brain. 

What To Expect During/After Session

Being in this environment, you may feel relaxed right away. Once the generator begins and the room starts to fill with salt, your relaxation will only deepen; causing you stress, anxiety, depression and/or fatigue to slowly drift away. You will most likely sleep easier the night of your first session. Recommendations for visits depend on the person. Usually 1-3 times a week as needed.

How Does It Help?

The salt acts as a natural anti-flammatory, antibacterial, and antimicrobial. As you breathe in the dry salt particles, it opens your airways, kills bacteria which in turn boosts your immune system, and loosens trapped mucus for easier expulsion. 

What To Expect During/After Session

After your first 3-4 sessions with halotherapy, you should start to notice relief symptoms. The salt naturally opens up your airways, allowing you to breathe easier. During you session, proactive breathing exercises, deep in through your mouth and out through your mouth. It is common to feel a tickle in your throat and/or cough during the session. You may also cough up mucus during and after your first few visits. This is the process of the salt breaking the toxins down and expelling them. Recommendations are different for everyone. Usually, people experiencing a form of Asthma come 3-4 times a week for the first 2 months. Then, 1-3 times a week to maintain healthy results.

How Does It Help?

Salt cleanses the respiratory system and speeds up the elimination of toxins. It also loosens mucus, removes pathogens, and reduces IgE levels (immune system oversensitivity). This makes it easier to expel dirty and overused mucus to allow the body to create fresh healthy mucus, that together with the salt aerosol help fights the infection. Salt is antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and anti-fungal. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

During the session, practice breathing exercises, deep in through your mouth and out through your nose, and in through your nose and out through your mouth. It's common to feel a tickle in your throat and/or cough during the session. You could also cough up mucus during and after the visit as the salt helps to break down and expel toxins.

How Does It Help? 

Salt therapy helps bring relief to and can help prevent cold/flu symptoms by killing bacteria, promoting circulation, draining of mucus in the sinuses/chest, and immune system by eliminating toxins trapped within your respiratory system and helps to revitalize your natural defenses. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

You should notice relief with congestion, breathing, sore throat & fatigue after the first 3-4 sessions. Drainage will sometimes continue throughout the day and/or night of your session. 

How Does It Help? 

Halotherapy is a natural way to treat this condition by the inhalation of dry salt particles. The salt is able to travel deep throughout the lungs, breaking down mucus, toxins and pollution buildup, then helps to expel it and open the airways. Salt's natural anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal properties help ease inflammation. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

You will experience coughing during  the session. After about 3-5 visits you should start to notice the breakdown and removal of lung/respiratory buildup making it easier to breathe and it could eventually reduce the reliance of other stimulants to control recurring infections. 

How Does It Help?

Sinus infections/Sinusitis are caused when the lining of the sinuses are swollen, which can interfere with the normal flow of mucus causing it to get trapped within your sinuses. The result of this include pressure build up, blocked or runny nose, toothache, fever, bad breath, loss of taste or smell. Halotherapy helps by killing the bacteria, reducing inflammation, breaking down the mucus to expel and open up your airways/sinuses and strengthens your immune system. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

You will experience mucus breakdown during/after the first couple of sessions (usually 2-3), with some clients noticing benefits after the first session. Your sinuses will drain and open back up, inflammation will subside and pressure will start to release. 

How Does It Help?

Dealing with skin conditions including Acne/Dermatitis/Eczema/Psoriasis can be common. Salt is cleansing, purifying and has a significant influence on the skin. Salt normalises the PH, reduces inflammation, increases microcirculation, and induces reparative and regenerative processes in the derma. It also amplifies the oxygenation process and removes bacteria and oils. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

After being introduced to halotherapy, you should start to notice improvements in your skin. The more you expose targeted areas to the salt, the more your skin will benefit. 

How Does It Help?

Snoring is usually caused by obstructed passages in the nose and throat, making it difficult for the air to move through freely; compromising the oxygen levels leading to irritability and lethargy. During a halotherapy session, the dry salt mist is dispersed throughout the air for inhalation, opening up airways, improving drainage and reducing any inflammation. 

What To Expect During/After Sessions 

After your first few sessions, you could start to notice relief symptoms. The salt naturally opens up your airways, allowing you to breathe easier. During the session, practice breathing exercises, deep in through your mouth and out through your nose, then in through your nose and our through your mouth. It's common to feel a tickle in your throat and/or cough during the session. You may also cough up mucus during and after your first few visits. This is the salt opening up the airways and reducing inflammation. 

By Lauren Lipton

Last week, just before my stuffy head had a chance to graduate into a full-on cold, I headed to the Park Avenue spa where I go for massages. This time, though, I checked into a room with salt-coated walls and floor, lay back on a chaise, and took a briny inhale.

Halotherapy, the practice of breathing dry, salt-saturated air, is undergoing a revival, with fans claiming it can soothe inflammation, calm allergies, and flush away germs. Jaycee Gossett, an instructor at the Tribeca exercise studio The Class, has recently become a convert. “It draws out anything that is an irritant to the body,” she says. “You walk out of a session and you think, ‘Wow. This is what it’s like to take a full breath.’ ” Last summer, visitors to the new Montauk Salt Cave in the Hamptons, made of salmon-colored Himalayan salt imported from Pakistan, included Debra Messing. “I definitely felt different afterward,” the actress says. “My breathing was clearer. I was relaxed.”

The wellness-promoting power of a salty room dates to the mid-19th century, when a physician in Kraków, Poland, noted the respiratory health of workers in a nearby salt mine. The flowering of salt-chamber treatment centers that followed remains alive in Eastern Europe. Here, new facilities are opening across the country, from Breathe Easy in Manhattan to the Los Angeles Athletic Club to Canyon Ranch in Las Vegas.

Salt caves themselves have not been reliably studied in the U.S., though medical research shows that inhaling salt can improve the lung function of people with cystic fibrosis, as well as ease smoking-related symptoms such as coughing. The treatment rooms rely on a halo generator, a machine that grinds salt into a superfine powder and wafts it into the air. Norman H. Edelman, M.D., the American Lung Association’s senior scientific adviser, suggests that the salty air draws moisture from the bloodstream into the airways, temporarily thinning any mucus, so you breathe easier for a time. (Still, people with medical conditions such as heart problems or high blood pressure should skip it, Edelman warns.)

As for my burgeoning cold, I spent 25 minutes breathing (and dozing) in a high-salinity environment—and sure enough, that cold never materialized

This article originally appeared in Vogue November 8, 2015

By Erin Lukas May 24, 2017

If you’ve tried every decongestant from Claritin to DayQuil to relieve a stuffy nose from seasonal allergies or a common cold, it turns out that 30-40 minutes in a room full of salt might just be exactly what you need to finally kick the congestion.

Salt therapy (aka Halotherapy) is a spa treatment that uses salt vapor to treat respiratory ailments like asthma, allergies, and cold viruses, along with inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis. The treatment takes place in a salt room that’s usually decorated with pink Himalayan salt which helps you relax as you inhale breathable salt that’s released into the air, or there’s also the option receiving the treatment in a private salt bed, too.

To find out the science behind the therapy and how exactly it works, we turned to Ellen Patrick, co-founder of Breathe Salt Rooms in New York.

RELATED: Dermatologists' Favorite Moisturizers for Sensitive Skin

At Breathe Salt Rooms, only pure salt vapor is released into the air. “The natural healing qualities of salt are that it’s anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal,” explains Patrick. These qualities are what make salt an effective method of relieving a number of respiratory issues like congestion from eczema or mucus from a cold virus.

People suffering from inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis will also benefit from the treatment, too. “These skin conditions are autoimmune conditions and are inflammatory,” says Patrick. “The salt acts as an anti-inflammatory and a very gentle defoliant so it help slough off the dead skin so the new healed skin can come out.”

As for the salt décor you see in many of the rooms? Aside from making the rooms look Instagrammable, the  salt helps set the relaxing mood of the treatment, an added bonus of visiting a salt room. Negative ions purify the air. Computers, cell phones, and fluorescent lighting all give off positive ions which tend to agitate. The negative ions are relaxing. 

There isn’t a universal answer on when you’ll start to feel the benefits of salt therapy treatment. Patrick says that it varies depending on the person, the condition, and the severity of their symptoms.

By Alexa Erickson

You might think you have it all down pat when it comes to relieving everyday body issues. Headache? Pop an over-the-counter pain pill. Stuffy nose? Slurp some hot soup. But what if there were one thing that could solve all those problems at once?

Halotherapy, also called salt therapy, claims to do all that and more. The treatment essentially involves sitting in a room (often referred to as a salt cave, house, or bath) filled with rock salt and inhaling salty air that's being pumped in by a halogenerator.

While the natural-healing practice has a history rooted in Europe, with some of the earliest known salt caves in Poland, these salt-filled spaces are now popping up in spas and yoga studios. They tout benefits like curing the common cold, decreasing allergy symptoms, detoxifying the lymphatic systems, improving sleep, and alleviating some skin conditions.

Unlike table salt, which is stripped of most of its natural minerals and fortified with iodine, the Himalayan rock salt you'd find in these caves is rich in minerals such as calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium, iodine, bromine, and copper. So, in theory, you absorb these minerals when you breathe the salty air.

Additionally, the negative ions in salt have been said to improve mental health conditions like depression, stress, and anxiety, according to a report published in BMC Psychiatry. These negative ions may also combat the positive ions emitted by computers, TVs, and cell phones, Ellen Patrick, a salt cave yoga instructor previously told us.

In an effort to see what the fuss was all about—and hopefully, leave feeling refreshed, breathing deeper, with my skin glowing and energy recharged—I decided to check out a salt cave for myself. So I went to Salt Cave Santa Barbara in California, which boasts 45 tons of Himalayan salt covering the walls, ceilings, and floors.

I decided to bury my feet in the salt like sand at the beach and simply enjoy the beauty of the salt bricks. I was definitely enjoying the blissful silence—it was a contemplative experience—but I was also invited to take my salt cave exploration up a notch.

I was offered a private massage in a separate space, which incorporated all of the amenities as the main room—a salt floor, the orange glow from the lamps, and the pretty salt bricks—and I gladly hopped up on the table for a 60-minute deep tissue massage. Altogether, I would say I was in the cave, inhaling the negative ions of Himalayan salt, for almost two hours.

When I left, I felt similar to how I do after a yoga class—a sort of dazed peacefulness. I also noticed that, with it being the day after Thanksgiving and me feeling bloated and drowsy when I first arrived, I now felt lighter on my feet and more awake. The next day, I zipped up the mountain for my morning hike quicker than usual. My breathing felt more natural, and my skin felt squeaky clean and ready to sweat.

Now was this extra pep in my step a coincidence? I mean, self-care after the holidays is sure to make you feel rejuvenated, so it could be that I just needed a nice massage and a zippy hike in the fresh air. But I'm intrigued enough to try it again, because adding salt to the typical pampering tricks, like guided meditation or hot stone massage, seemed to give me the extra boost of relaxation and revitalization I needed.

This article appeared in SHAPE Dec 2017.