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The salt lamp is a large, hollowed out crystal from Pakistani mines that emits soft light with a light bulb inside. Perhaps you have come across the decorative stone in your aunt’s living room or a pink copy decorates your own desk. Such a salt lamp can create atmosphere, but does it also affect your health?
How does a salt lamp work (according to its supporters)?
A salt lamp is a panacea that improves your entire life, according to the sales pitch. The idea is that the lamp will attract moisture from the air because of all the salt, and that would have all kinds of benefits. For example, sellers believe that pollutants attached to those moisture particles are also attracted to the lamp and bind to the crystal. That way, the lamp would purify the air of your room.
In addition, salt lamp fans claim that the crystal releases more negative ions into the air due to all that moisture. Ions are electrically charged particles, positive and negative. You can always find them in the air everywhere, but they are more numerous outside near waterfalls than inside a building, for example. The water particles attracted to the salt would free the negative chloride ions from the salt (consisting of sodium and chloride) and cause them to evaporate. And all those flying negative ions, so the claim goes, improve your mood, promote healthy sleep, help with anxiety and depression, and so on.
Negative ions? That sounds really scientific. But is it correct?
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The Health Benefits Of Salt Lamps (According To Science)
First the first claim of salt lamp sellers: salt purifies the air by attracting water and thus dirty particles. It is true that the lamps attract moisture, which is why a moist layer sometimes forms on the lamps and they seem to sweat. And negative ions are known to bind to polluting particles, but it has not been investigated whether this is also the case with the ions of these salt lamps.
A lot of research has been done about the effect of negative ions on your health. But the results are not very consistent. In 2013, for example, scientists from the American scientific consultancy Exponent gathered all research on air ions. They concluded that negative ions have no apparent influence on anxiety, mood, sleep or relaxation.
(Psst, in between: do you want to know what scientifically speaking does help with better sleep and learn how to deal with stress? Then don’t buy a salt lamp, but one online course from Quest. And do you never want to fall for nonsense again? Then the course Learn to think (more) critically is something for you.)
The researchers did see a link between high exposure to negative ions and reduced symptoms of depression. But they emphasized that too few independent studies have been done to conclude that the ions do indeed reduce depression. And more research is needed to find out if it is biologically possible at all.
Salt lamps don’t even produce negative ions…
And there’s another problem with the health claims of salt lamps: It seems that the lamps don’t even add extra ions to the air. Jack Beauchamp, professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (USA), placed a salt lamp in front of an ion meter. But even after the lamp had been on for an hour, the meter did not detect a single negative ion in the air.
According to the chemist, this is because the lamp does not get hot enough. In order for the chloride ions to evaporate, much more energy is needed than a light bulb can provide. A salt lamp simply cannot send negative ions into the air. There’s just none here peer-reviewed research (checked by other researchers) has been done.
Do you absolutely need a lot of negative ions? Then it is better to use another device, an air ionizer. These machines do produce demonstrably negative ions. But some of the devices produce ozone in addition to ions. And that substance is certainly not healthy for you.
Can a salt lamp also be dangerous for your health? Probably not, unless as a new hobby you don’t admire the lamp, but constantly lick it and get an overdose of salt as a result. Pets in particular are regularly tempted to do so.
What good are those blocks of salt?
So if the ions don’t bring any benefits, what is a salt lamp good for? It is above all a beautiful decoration piece. With such a lump of luminous salt crystal, your living room or yoga studio will look more cheerful, for example, and the soft orange-pink light is slightly different from the white or blue light that you often encounter in buildings.
In short, you can brighten up your bedroom or balcony with a salt lamp or two, but don’t expect medical miracles. Above all, these sweating stones create a pleasant atmosphere.
You sometimes hear that plants purify the air, is that right? Or is it better to take that with a grain of salt?