Himalayan salt lamps are the perfect way to create a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere in your home. They are made of natural minerals that emit soothing qualities, help cleanse the air, reduce allergens, and improve moods.
These unique lamps also provide an attractive glow for any space they’re placed in. You’ll love how they will make your home feel more welcoming. Plus, they come in a variety of shapes and sizes – there’s one for every room in your home.
- Himalayan salt lamps are made of natural minerals that emit soothing qualities and help cleanse the air.
- They come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be placed in any room for an attractive glow.
- The lamps provide an array of benefits including reducing stress, improving sleep, and increasing mental clarity.
- Although the health benefits have not been proven, many people report feeling better after using a Himalayan salt lamp.
Why Use a Salt Lamp?
The Himalayan salt crystal is perfect for low-level evening lighting as the amber light is proven not to interrupt natural circadian rhythms, which promotes sleep and is great for your health and well-being.
The natural shape and solid hand-carved wooden base make them attractive decorative accessories when not in use.
Many people claim that using a crystal salt lamp cleans the air by releasing negative ions. This counteracts the effect of positive ions released by electronic devices and purifies the air.
Negative ions are also said to help with regulating sleep, seasonal affective disorder, increasing mental clarity and concentration, respiratory illness and allergies. When inhaled the ions in the air helps produce serotonin, this, in turn, alters the mood of a person.
This has yet to be proven, but in the end, salt lamps are beautiful and create a warm mood and add aesthetic value to any room in the house or in your office.
Although it’s unclear how well these lamps work as an air ionizer, pink Himalayan salt also improves air quality in another way. Naturally hygroscopic, salt attracts water.
Contaminants and allergens are trapped and purified water is then released when the lamp heats up. The salt candle holders are also good for this and you get the added benefit of a flickering flame from the tea light.
What Exactly Are Himalayan Salt Lamps?
Chunks of natural salt, mined from an area surrounding the Himalayas in Pakistan, are hand carved to form decorative salt crystal lamps. The special pink hue comes from naturally occurring minerals, and creates a lovely ambient light when illuminated from within.
Our Himalayan salt lamps not only come from the Himalayan region, but they are sustainable, fair trade and highly ethical. You can trust us to ensure that on every step of their journey, the highest ethical codes have been met to bring you these lamps.
Being carved from natural salt, these lamps are fragile. Lamps may get chipped, but that’s fine, and yes, if you lick your hands after touching the lamps, they will taste of salt!
What Are the Health Benefits of Himalayan Salt Lamps?
A natural salt lamp has many reputed health benefits. They may…
- reduce stress
- improve air quality
- improve breathing
- improve sleep
- help those with asthma
- increase levels of serotonin
- and generally promote calm and relaxation.
Although none of the health benefits has been proven to actually be provided by crystal salt lamps, there are many and many of our customers have found excellent benefits from them. As mentioned above a Himalayan salt lamp may improve your mood and be beneficial to those suffering from depression by altering serotonin levels.
A Study by Columbia University shows that negative ions help people with depression as much as prescribed antidepressants do. Better yet, there are no side effects from negative ions. However, it is still not proven that negative ions have any significant effect on the human body or mentality. The studies are interesting nonetheless and many of our customers have definitely reported that it has helped them.
They can clean your air. Cleaner air can help those with respiratory or breathing issues. With cleared airways and a sound mind, sleeping would be much easier as well. Because they clean the air around them, they would also benefit those dealing with allergies and help with asthma-related symptoms.
Again, none of this has been proven. What we do know is that their aesthetic value and beautiful pink ambient light are highly popular among many types of people.
One of the biggest things our customers have found is that they aid sleep, both for them and for children who have trouble sleeping. Put the lamp on a few hours before bedtime and it may help your little one sleep all night.
Do these really work?
One thing for sure is that they look beautiful and compliment any room. As for their health benefits and ability to clean the surrounding air, we are not claiming that they can do so, but we have many hundreds of happy customers who have found they make a huge difference.
Most people will get them because of their soothing ambient light and their gorgeous aesthetic appeal rather than for health purposes. However, there are some people that use them for their ability to release negative ions, and clean the air, aiding sleep and clearing away damp.
What are Negative Ions?
Negative ions are airborne molecules typically present in certain areas such as waterfalls and beaches (created by the moving air and water), where they would be in the tens of thousands. Consider that when compared to an office or home setting where they would be in the hundreds.
Once inhaled they are said to assist in the production of serotonin, giving a person a euphoric feeling or just making them feel much better. It’s one of the reasons you might find you feel much happier after a day at the beach or a mountain walk. Negative ions are also believed to speed up blood flow.
What do Himalayan salt lamps do?
Himalayan salt lamps are undeniably attractive if you like that sort of thing. And they create a wonderful ambience in any room of the house. But beyond being a beautiful addition to your home decor do they actually do anything to the air in your home?
Himalayan salt lamp health claims
There are many reported benefits to having a Himalayan salt lamp in your home and it’s for this reason that you’ll often find them in wellness stores around the country.
Health claims of using Himalayan salt lamps include:
- They improve your breathing
- They clean and deodorise the air, trapping dust and other allergens
- They reduce Asthma
- They reduce the severity of symptoms from the common cold.
- They boost blood flow.
- They enhance your mood and reduce symptoms of depression.
- They aid relaxation and help you sleep.
- They can even raise your energy levels and improve concentration.
Quite an impressive list. And salt has certainly been used for many purposes for millennia. It’s been used in offerings and as currency, to heal the sick and ward off evil. Plus of course to preserve and season food.
The body needs salt and in fact, provides many benefits due to the naturally occurring minerals.
So how many of these claims have any real basis in science?
Do salt lamps produce negative ions?
Most of the purported benefits of Himalayan salt lamps come from the assumption that they release negative ions into the air thus counteracting the effects of positive ions produced by the technology in our homes, pollution, dust and humidity.
An excess of positive ions is thought to contribute towards tiredness, tension and anxiety as well as asthma, migraines, allergies and depression.
Negative ions known as anions are the opposite of positive ions and have the opposite effects on your health. They are also statically attracted to particles in the air such as dust, mould, smoke and other pollutants causing them to fall to the floor.
Negative ions are found abundantly in nature, in forests, at the beach and by waterfalls, which may explain why you feel so good when you’ve visited these areas. Think about the air after a thunderstorm. And studies have confirmed that negative ions can have a positive effect on your health.
The problem is that the amount of negative ions produced by a salt lamp is minimal and unlikely to have much effect, especially if you opt for the more environmentally friendly LED bulbs.
Other possible benefits of salt lamps
First up Himalayan salt lamps look great, and they produce a lovely soft light. And this is one way they can have a positive effect.
Using this soft light to replace bright artificial light as you wind down at the end of the day and you may well drift off more easily especially as the soft amber glow will not interrupt your circadian rhythms the same way blue light does.
Salt is also naturally hygroscopic meaning it attracts water and this may help to clean the air in your home. This is why you might notice your salt lamp appears wet. You can find out more about why is my Himalayan salt lamp wet here.
However, much of this depends on how much your himalayan salt lamp heats up, as the hotter it is, the better the salt lamp benefits.
How to use Himalayan salt lamps
Using your Himalayan salt lamp is simple. Choose a spot, plug it in and enjoy the soft amber glow. Perfect for relaxing in the evening, using as a nightlight and adding a cosy atmosphere to any room.
Himalayan salt lamps are perfect for therapy rooms, yoga studios, offices, waiting rooms, living rooms and bedrooms. The soft light won’t disrupt your circadian rhythms meaning they are perfect if you do struggle to sleep. And the colour of a Himalayan salt lamp is known to be soothing and relaxing.
But beyond the beauty and the soft glow are there any other ways to use a Himalayan salt lamp?
Where Himalayan salt lamps come from
Himalayan salt lamps are made from Himalayan rock salt which is mined from the Punjab region of Pakistan in the foothills of the Himalayas.
It was deposited around 500 million years ago when an inland sea evaporated and tectonic shifts have led to it being sealed in by rocks and pushed up to form mountain peaks.
Chemically, the salt used in Himalayan salt lamps is very similar to your average table salt, but contains higher levels of some trace minerals that give the salt a pinkish hue and are responsible for many of the health claims you may have heard.
Health benefits attributed to salt
Salt has been a valuable commodity for thousands of years thanks to its many uses. We use it to season and preserve our food, it makes water boil at a higher temperature and keeps cheeses and milk fresher. It’s used for cleaning everything from copper to carpets and we use it to set the dye on our clothes.
Salt has also long been used for health and beauty. You can gargle it to heal a sore throat, make an eyewash with or use it to clean cuts and other wounds. Soak your feet or your whole body to relieve fatigue or massage with a salt scrub to remove dry skin.
The body also needs a certain amount of salt to function properly. We need it to maintain fluid balance, use our muscles, send nerve impulses and prevent low blood pressure.
But will having a Himalayan salt lamp improve breathing, aid sleep, clean the air, and treat depression?
Using your salt lamp
At present most of the beneficial claims for Himalayan salt lamps come from anecdotal evidence that can be loosely backed up by science.
Most of the benefits of using Himalayan salt lamps would come from the production of negative ions which have been shown to have benefits on mood, anxiety, sleep, and general health. You can test this for yourself by spending time in the ocean or by a waterfall.
It’s unclear how many if any negative ions are released when you turn on your Himalayan salt lamp but one thing we do know is that you need your Himalayan salt lamp to heat up to get these benefits so make sure you’re not using an LED bulb if this is what you are after.
You can also now purchase Himalayan salt inhalers which are claimed to have more of an impact.
The Bottom Line on Using a Himalayan Sea Salt Lamp
To put it simply, people use salt lamps because they look nice in any room. They have a gorgeous aesthetic appeal and provide a soothing ambient light. They are just perfect for a living room or any room made for relaxation, even a yoga room.
At night, use them on your nightstand for a soothing atmosphere in your room. They can be placed almost anywhere and come in many sizes. One of the best places for a Himalayan salt lamp is the bedroom, clearing the air, helping with migraines, and helping to sleep better are some of the benefits many have found with genuine salt lamps.
Although they may release negative ions, it is not fully proven out that they do, or even that the number of ions released has any benefit. One thing for sure is that these lamps make a stunning addition to any office or room. They work well in many settings, which is why they are so popular.
Most people buy them purely for their aesthetic value (who can resist the gorgeous glow Himalayan pink salt lamps give off?) so if they do help cleanse the air, that’s a big plus.
