Recipients of salt therapy treatments sometimes believe that they should be feeling or even seeing a lot of salt in the air when visiting a properly tuned Halotherapy room. However, this is often not true. There are essentially three factors that determine the effectiveness of salt treatments:
1. Particle size: salt particles should be 1-5 microns (much too small to be seen by the human eye) and larger particles aren’t helpful, at least in regards to respiratory health
2. Particle concentration: This can vary a bit but usually should not be under .5mg/m3 and not over 9mg/m3 Our salt cave is tuned to give you between 4mg/m3 and 6mg/m3
3. Duration of the session, determining for how long you are exposed to the dry salt mist
Temperature and humidity also play an important role, but the three factors above are the most important ones.
Some salt rooms/salt caves have particles that are too large and sometimes also concentration levels that are too high. This is primarily because only the best salt generators can separate small particles from large ones and measure the salt concentration in the cave. Only those kinds of halogenerators can adjust their functioning to keep the concentration steady in the treatment room. Most generators just pump salt into the air during the entire session—irrespective of concentration levels in the room. See below for a photo of our salt generator’s parameters during a session (blue line on graph gives you the actual measured concentration; green lines denote minimum and maximum concentration levels)
A high concentration of salt (and often way too large particle size) can feel very attractive, because it lets you know “something is happening” but it is usually not a good indication that the treatment is working well. If it feels by the end of a session that you are ready to get out because the high salt concentration makes it hard for you to breathe, that is usually not a great sign.
Generally, the effects should feel subtle during a session and most of the benefits should become apparent over time (sometimes a few hours after a single session, but mostly after a few sessions spaced a few days apart.)
Usually you should not be able to see the salt in the air with the naked eye, but it can easily be seen by an infrared camera, or if you take a photo with a flash at the end of a session (as in the image above.) It will be washed out from the flash reflecting off the micro particles.
There is one caveat to this: Benefits for the skin can continue with larger salt particle size and also with higher concentrations. The larger particles usually focus the benefits more on the outer layers of the skin, while the smaller particles can also travel to deeper layers. However, since a larger concentration of salt in the air will necessarily make sessions shorter, unless you are willing to accept the discomfort (and possible downside) in regards to the respiratory system, the medium concentration level, small particle size, and 50 minute session length, provide the best combination of parameters for respiratory benefits as well as skin and anti-aging benefits.
