If you’ve wondered why sickly heroines in old British novels went to the seaside for their health, here’s the reason: salt. The salt in the air cleanses nasal passages and clears the airways. But the air at the beach isn’t what it used to be. Besides, there’s only so much that gentle walks on the pier can do for your lungs. Enter science.
Salt therapy — or halotherapy — uses high tech generators to infuse the air in a room with particles of pure premium grade salt that you can inhale. This goes much deeper than sea air and does a much more thorough job of clearing airways by loosening mucus, besides coating the skin with a fine, therapeutic layer. Halotherapy is recommended for chronic skin conditions, like eczema, acne and psoriasis, besides respiratory ailments, like asthma, sinusitis and lung impairments.
Salt rooms are sterile spaces, crammed with the goodness of the stuff. It crusts the walls and lies on the floor in snowy drifts. While most salt rooms in India are no-frills type, clinical spaces, the most recent launch, Salt Escape, offers the therapy in spa-like rooms equipped with cutting edge technology. They also have the cutest playroom for kids. All you have to do is settle into a deck chair and relax for an hour while the salt does its job. The white noise of waves and gulls, the sand-like salt trickling through your fingers and the soft diffused lighting will soon send you into a most restful state. Bonus: you breathe a bit deeper in your sleep.
Since it takes a few sessions to see results, Salt Escape offers different packages depending on whether you want to treat a condition or just boost your immunity. If your sinuses are a constant cause of pain, you should start to feel better from the very first session. It costs Rs 1600 per hour or you can buy the Discovery package for Rs 5000 and it buys you five sessions.
So whether you’re a smoker or just a frequent catcher of colds, all you might be missing is a little salt.
Salt Escape, Hanuman Building. Ground Floor, 300, Perin Nariman Street, Kala Ghoda, Fort, Mumbai. Tel: 022 22690034
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