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healingways


in negative ions, infuses the air for a 45-minute session. “We have a second, smaller


room where the walls and floor are not salted, so a child and parent can move around or play without disturbing others. Our youngest client was 2 weeks old,” says Juracsik. With the help of specially designed


Salt Air in the City Salt Rooms Soothe Allergies and Skin Conditions by Avery Mack


A


ccording to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, as many as 50 million Americans


are affected by seasonal or year-round nasal allergies. Additionally, 56 million suffer from eczema, psoriasis or rosacea. Prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs may help, but aren’t a cure. Salt therapy can be a gentler, all-natural solution for easing associated symptoms. While eating too much salt is bad


for the body, breathing it is a healthy activity. The Greek word for salt is halos, and halotherapy provides a welcome alternative to conventional pills, sprays and injections.


In the mid-1800s, after salt mine workers in Poland were found to have a


low rate of respiratory illness, the Wielic- zka Salt Mine Health Spa was estab- lished on the site of a mine to treat clinic patients for asthma and allergies. That pioneering facility is still in operation. “In the beginning, I think salt


therapy was seen as a time-consuming novelty. Now, holistically minded people are more supportive,” says Clay Juracsik, owner of the St. Louis Salt Room, in Maplewood, Missouri. The room’s walls are covered in salt, with blocks of backlit Himalayan pink salt at floor level. Clients wear disposable booties to walk through inches-deep, loose, mineral-rich Dead Sea salt to reclining chairs. The lights dim, soft music plays and salt, rich


machines and software, microscopic salt particles one to five microns in size are circulated through the air to be deeply inhaled. As a natural anti-inflammatory agent, salt helps reduce swelling of throat tissues and nasal passages, making breathing easier for individuals suffering from such respiratory ailments as allergies, asthma, bronchitis and sinusitis. “True halotherapy is based on


using 99 percent pure sodium chloride in the halogenerator,” says Leo Tonkin, co-founder of the Salt Therapy Associa- tion, in Boca Raton, Florida. “Dead Sea, Himalayan or other salts can be used as décor.” “My husband, Gary, had three sinus surgeries before he discovered a salt room during a trip to London and had a eureka moment,” relates Ellen Patrick, owner of four Breathe Easy salt rooms in New York City and nearby Westchester County. “A client’s 4-year-old son tells Mom


when he needs a treatment to ‘make his nose work better,’” reports Lisa Cobb, owner of Luxury on Lovers, in Dallas, Texas. “He uses a salt bed similar in style to a tanning bed and large enough for his mother to be with him for a 20-minute treatment. Pilots and flight attendants like salt rooms to counteract the recir- culated air on planes. Athletes use them to increase lung capacity. A treatment works like a visit to the ocean.”


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Long Island Edition


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