Give your health a shake with salt therapy
Have allergies, skin conditions or more? Some say mineral on your table may help
Wellness has become so encompassing that seemingly anything can be mined for the purposes of living better. There are walking coaches — I have been to more than one — and self-appointed experts who can teach you how to breathe more effectively. Some people are even seeking out that humblest of minerals, salt.
I love taking baths, even in the narrow tub in my apartment, and hoard various salts that I pour into hot water after working out: Dr. Teal’s or, if I’m willing to spend $18 (U.S.) on a single-use blend of hand-harvested French grey sea salt, wild-harvested seaweed and sustainably farmed spirulina, I’ll buy Pursoma Minerals de Mer body soak.
Now, you can inhale your way (supposedly) to better health with salt rooms, where the act of breathing in sodium chloride is said to help asthma, arthritis, allergies, snoring and that catch-all, “stress.” Adherents of halotherapy (as it’s called) believe that salt has antibacterial, antiseptic, antifungal and antiviral properties that are particularly effective on mucus and inflammation.
I have battled hay fever since my freshman year of college, rosacea for the last decade and stress probably since birth. And though there is virtually no scientific research to confirm salt proponents’ claims, I nonetheless headed to Breathe, which has three salt rooms in Manhattan and two in Westchester County, N.Y., for the most immersive experience I could find.
At the Park Avenue location, I reserved 25 minutes in a salt bed, which is a single-person pod that strongly resembles a glass coffin. It’s in a private space, so I simply took off my clothes and lay there naked while “micro-particles of pure white salt are dispersed into the air, entering your airways to naturally cleanse and detoxify your lungs, sinuses and air passages,” as the website explained.
Salty Yoga is basically the equivalent of giving yourself a hug, which we actually did at one point in class
I couldn’t really feel the salt spraying on me, but after a few minutes, I could see it gathering on my skin like dust. I breathed. I tried not to think of the news. I was bored but in a pleasant way, like being on the sixth day of a beach vacation.
I returned a few days later for Salty Yoga, a yoga class in the main salt room. The room is set up like a tiny beach, with pink Himalayan salt the size of small pebbles piled like sand on the floor and bricks of salt lining the walls. There are chairs for other sessions in the room, but for yoga they’re replaced with mats.
The day before class, I had received a message to wear socks, along with and a warning that “there will be particles of salt dancing all around, so expect to get some salt on your clothes, but don’t worry! it comes off easily!”
Class was at 7 p.m., and I came exhausted and slightly wet from rain. I wasn’t in the mood to do sun salutations or anything that took much physical or emotional effort. Luckily, Salty Yoga is basically the equivalent of giving yourself a hug, which we actually did at one point in class.
There were five of us and we spent the entire hour either sitting or on our backs in mostly restorative pos- es, such as a modified child’s pose with a blanket rolled up under our wrists or gentle twists to the side. Each pose was held for two or three minutes while Masako, the instructor, whispered gentle instructions and encouraged us to breathe and let go.
I was so deeply relaxed that I didn’t notice until after class was over that I was completely covered in salt. A sweatshirt I had thrown off in class looked like an object unearthed from Tatooine, the desert planet in Star Wars. My lips stung. The car ride home to Brooklyn felt as itchy and restless as returning from the beach.
At home, I took a shower, drank two litres of water, a green juice, applied a liberal amount of Kiehl’s Crème de Corps on my body, Glossier hyaluronic serum to my face, Elizabeth Arden lip balm and still felt parched from the inside out. For the next 36 hours, I continued to chug water and apply copious amounts of moisturizer because of a phantom sense of saltiness.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence as to the efficacy of inhaling tiny salt particles is scarce, I can’t say there isn’t something to it. After both sessions, I slept a full eight hours without waking up once, which is rare for me. I haven’t touched my allergy pills once and a friend told me my skin never looked better. Maybe instead of trying to flee New York this winter, I’ll just make a standing appointment at the salt beach.