5 Things You Must Know About Himalayan Salt
1. Why is Himalayan salt pink?
Himalayan salt is quiet an amazing mineral, as far as salt’s go. It’s history is also something… shall we say, fascinating. For instance, it’s 250 million years old, yep, you read that right. So how did this amazing mineral come about, and why is it pink? Well, geologists believe that hundreds of millions of years ago a large sea became landlocked and evaporated leaving behind a giant basin of salt. There was a common pink microorganism at the time that lived in the seas in abundance. It’s believed that this microorganism coloured the salt pink. A hundred million years later, due to the movement of the tectonic plates, the giant salt basin ended up in the (now) Himalayan mountain range. There it was buried deep under the mountains for all this time. So Himalayan salt is literally a gateway into our distant past, you can’t get more natural than that!
2. The amazing history of Himalayan salt.
You might be asking where this history lesson is going, keep reading and you shall see how it all ties together. Legend has it that when Alexander the great was moving across the foothills of the Himalayas, in the area that is now Northern Pakistan, his army stopped for a moment to rest. That’s when his soldiers noticed the horses licking the ground (domestic animals love to lick salt as it is a relatively rare mineral in the wild), and that’s how the world’s only Himalayan salt mine was discovered and established. To this day, it is the only place in the world where Himalayan salt is mined and exported throughout the world. Every rock, every tile, every grain is exactly in the pristine condition it was first crystallized in.
3. The benefits of Himalayan salt vs table salt.
So now that we know about the amazing origin story of Himalayan salt, let’s talk about some of it’s health benefits. Himalayan salt is pink because it contains iron oxide, that’s basically a fancy name for rust, but it’s a really good, natural source of iron. Apart from this it has 83 other trace minerals, including calcium, magnesium and phosphorus, all vary important macro minerals that we need in our daily diet. These trace minerals do not exist in normal table salt.
4. A natural cure for asthma and allergies.
The real health benefits of Himalayan salt however, don’t come from just eating it but from breathing it too. For many centuries the locals of the salt mines have known about the salt caves’ healing effects on breathing problems. Now, science has begun to catch up to this effect (references at bottom of article). Himalayan salt is excellent at easing breathing problems. For those of us who have Asthma or any other respiratory illness that creates difficulty in breathing, Himalayan salt is an excellent treatment option. This form of treatment is termed Speleotherapy, and it turns out that Speleotherapy is not only good for breathing problems, but also relieves symptoms of many allergies. Talk about an amazing natural form of therapy. However not all of us have our own salt caves, or even a salt cave in our city, but fear not, for we have something in it’s stead, salt lamps!
5. Salt lamps are ideal for spas.
Whoever invented salt lamps was a genius. It is basically a chunk of natural rock salt that is hollowed out a little in the centre, and that’s where a bulb is placed. Not only does it look great, it’s colour profile when it’s lit up creates a warm and soft ambience that is soothing and stress relieving just on it’s own. Salt lamps make a great substitute for normal lamps or normal lighting during yoga class, during a massage or a spa. A spa in a salt room is the ideal spa, however getting a salt room built is a bit expensive and tricky, where as a salt lamp can bring about the same ambience and some of the same health benefits, and it’s much more convenient. A great method is to buy multiple salt lamps and place them around the spa for greater health benefits. Salt lamps have a number of health benefits, they fight positive radiation from other electronics, creating a neutral radiation space around them. They “drain” excess moisture from the air keep it dry, and they also remove pollutants and dust particles along with that excess moisture, making the air clean and crisp, just like in the high altitudes of the Himalayan mountains.
What are you waiting for?
With all these amazing benefits, getting a salt lamp, or visiting a salt cave is something we definitely recommend everyone gives a try at least once.
Reference:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8266663?dopt=Abstract
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