Do Himalayan Salt Lamps Really Offer Health Benefits?
Himalayan salt lamps are decorative lights you can buy for your home. Advocates claim that they can clean the air in your house, soothe allergies, improve your mood, and help you sleep better. Do these claims have any merit? That’s the topic of this blog post.
These lamps are made by placing a light bulb inside large chunks of pink Himalayan salt. They have a distinctive look and emit a warming pink glow when lit. True Himalayan salt lamps are made from salt harvested in Pakistan. Salt sourced from this area is believed to be millions of years old, and although it’s very similar to table salt, the small amounts of minerals it contains give it a pink color.
How Do Himalayan Salt Lamps Work?
Salt lamps are said to provide health benefits because they are natural ionizers, which means they change the electrical charge of circulating air. Ions are compounds that carry a charge because they have an unbalanced number of protons or electrons. They are produced naturally in the air when alterations occur in the atmosphere. For example, waterfalls, waves, storms, natural radioactivity, and heat all produce air ions.
It’s suggested that Himalayan salt lamps may produce ions by attracting water particles that evaporate off as a salt solution when heated by the lamp, forming mostly negative ions. This theory is compelling; however, it has never been tested. Currently, it’s not known if pink Himalayan salt lamps produce ions in any meaningful quantities, if at all.
Do They Improve Air Quality?
These lamps are often claimed to improve the air quality of your home. More specifically, they’re advertised as being beneficial for people with allergies, asthma, or diseases that affect respiratory function, such as cystic fibrosis. However, there is currently no evidence that using a Himalayan salt lamp can remove potential pathogens and improve the air quality of your home. The claim that they’re good for people with respiratory conditions may be partly based on the ancient practice of halotherapy.
In this therapy, people with chronic respiratory conditions are said to benefit from spending time in salt caves, due to the presence of salt in the air. Yet there’s little support for this practice, and it’s not clear whether it is safe or effective for people with respiratory conditions. Additionally, thorough tests on air ionizers, which emit high levels of negative ions—much more than a salt lamp ever would if they do—don’t appear to benefit people with asthma or improve respiratory function. These are ionizers designed for creating high amounts of negative ions. So it really looks like this claim for Himalayan salt lamps is false.
Can They Boost Your Mood?
Another frequently made claim is that they boost your mood and make you feel better. Some animal studies have shown that exposure to high levels of negative ions in the air may improve levels of serotonin, a chemical involved in mood regulation. But human studies investigating claims regarding the psychological effects of air ionization found no consistent effects on mood or feelings of well-being.
However, researchers did find that people with depressive symptoms who were exposed to very high levels of negative ions reported improvements in their mood. The link they found wasn’t dose-related, meaning that people’s mood improvements couldn’t be explained by the dose they received. Therefore, researchers questioned whether the link was causal. Additionally, it’s very unlikely that salt lamps could expose you to the really high concentration of ions that they used in their studies.
Can They Help You Sleep?
Studies haven’t looked at the effects of salt lamps on sleep. However, a review of the effects of air ionization on relaxation and sleep didn’t find any evidence of a beneficial effect. Thus, even if salt lamps do affect the air environment, it’s not clear if this would have an effect on sleep patterns. It’s possible that using the dim light from a Himalayan salt lamp may help promote sleepiness toward the end of the day, if you use it to replace bright electric lights, similar to candles.
This is because bright light before bed can delay production of the sleep hormone melatonin. However, this isn’t specific to salt lamps, and that theory hasn’t been tested.
Final Thoughts
Sorry for being a bit of a downer, but the truth is the health claims of Himalayan salt lamps aren’t true. In saying that, I still think they’re a really great addition to your home. They look cool, they create a nice ambience, and you can use them as an alternative to bright lights in the evening.
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