As you’ve probably guessed already, Himalayan pink salt gets its name from the fact that it comes from the Himalayan Mountain Range (commonly called The Himalayas). While the Himalayas span several countries in Asia, pink salt is mined in Pakistan’s Punjab region, from the Salt Range mountains. It’s called pink salt because of its rich, unique color, and it can be used for food, decorative lamps, artwork, and even spa treatments.
While the pink color makes it perfect for decoration, this salt has a lot of health benefits. It’s widely used in many over the counter supplements and is also available for purchase on its own. Here are seven ways pink salt can improve your health.
Isn’t Salt Bad for You?
Salt tends to have a bad reputation. In these times, so many people have high blood pressure that salt-free diets seem to be the best way to eat. However, it’s important to remember that it’s not the salt that’s the problem. It’s the choices that people make with the salt.
If you make healthy decisions and only eat the recommended amount of sodium, you won’t have problems eating salt. It’s all about being responsible. In fact, your body needs sodium to survive, so don’t cut it all out of your diet.
Why Choose Himalayan Pink Salt Over Table Salt?
For one, table salt is a commercial product. Like most processed, commercial products, it has a lot of additives. If you prefer to avoid all those additives, go with the natural pink salt.
Pink salt is full of other nutrients that your body needs or that your body can use. It’s a good source of potassium and magnesium. It even has a little iron thrown into the mix.
Consider the fact that table salt has more sodium but less of the other minerals than pink salt. That means you could get more minerals using the same amount of pink salt as you would with table salt. You’ll also be less likely to over-salt your food.
7 Ways Himalayan Salt Can Increase Your Health
Keep in mind that despite Himalayan pink salt having all of these minerals, the salt has a small amount compared to what you need daily. However, that’s okay because you should rely on the salt to give you the full amount anyway.
1. The color improves your mental health.
One thing that makes the salt popular is its beautiful, rich, pink color. That’s one reason it’s used for non-edible reasons: jewelry, artwork, cutting boards, and more. However, the color of the salt does more than improving your aesthetic view.
The effects of color on your mood and mental health have been studied and proven over decades. Pink is thought to be a calming color. It invokes feelings of love, tranquility, femininity, and kindness.
This type of mood effect is great for relieving stress. However, psychologists agree that pale pink colors are better for stress relief, while bright or bold pink colors can be too stimulating. With lamps made from the salt, the soft pink color combined with soft lighting creates a tool that can be used to set the mood for relaxation.
It can also be used as a calming effect for violent or wired people. Some prisons use the color pink to keep inmates calm. Some people even believe that it makes you feel less energetic. However, this is good when you’re trying to relax.
2. It can help with digestion.
Digestion occurs as soon as you begin eating food. The saliva in your mouth breaks down food using certain chemicals in your body. In particular, it breaks down sugars first.
The pink salt can help your mouth break down food faster. It has a natural absorption ability that will help separate certain parts of the food so that your saliva can get to those sugars faster. The salt can also help the stomach and intestine break the food down even further after you swallow it. This helps your body to absorb nutrients quicker than it would without the salt.
3. It can keep your pH levels balanced.
Himalayan pink salt can help with your pH levels. First, you should understand the significance of pH levels, and then you can understand how pink salt helps.
The pH balance of your body refers to your levels of acid and bases in your blood. You need to keep this balance to prevent yourself from developing acidosis or alkalosis, two conditions that will require medical intervention to treat.
Your pH level should ideally be 7.4 on a scale of zero to 14. Zero means completely acidic while 14 indicates no acidity. Even a slight fluctuation in this balance can have negative effects on your body.
There are two ways that your pH levels can be out of balance. These are respiratory causes and metabolic causes. Here, metabolic will be discussed because that’s where pink salt can help.
Metabolic causes, particularly metabolic acidosis, can cause your body to lose too much sodium. The human body needs sodium for multiple processes – like keeping your pH levels balanced – so when you’re sick from one of the metabolic causes, drinking a pink salt solution can help restore the lost sodium. Pink salt is better than table salt for this because it has so many other minerals and electrolytes that you could lose during metabolic acidosis.
4. It can help remove toxins from your kidneys.
Your body is pretty efficient at removing toxins if your kidneys are healthy, but there is nothing wrong with getting a little help. Sodium is an electrolyte, which is one of the substances your kidneys use to filter waste. It can be easy to run low on electrolytes through sweating and other normal bodily functions.
You get electrolytes from food and beverage sources, but salt is one of the most potent sources. Sodium is also the most important electrolyte. Pink salt can give your body a healthy boost of electrolytes, so you’ll be cleaner than ever before (on the inside).
5. You’ll benefit from clearer skin.
There are plenty of spas that use pink salt for skin treatments. You can also use it at home for skin treatments. However, if you can budget in the spa, sitting in a Himalayan pink salt room while relaxing is an experience you won’t want to miss.
Pink salt rooms are usually warm rooms, similar to a sauna. The heat and humidity absorb negative ions from the pink salt blocks used to make the room. The heat and humidity also help to open your pores.
These ions are circulated throughout the room and can settle into your pores, carrying with them the plethora of minerals from the pink salt. You also have the added benefit of inhaling them. The result is skin that has reduced inflammation, redness, dryness, and itchiness. If you can’t go to a spa, you can get a similar effect by buying or making a heated pink salt lamp for your home.
6. It can help you breathe better.
For allergy sufferers, pink salt can be a blessing! Just as it helps to open up your pores, it can open up your airways. If you’ve ever had that feeling of something sitting on your chest as you struggle for air, you know how much of a relief it can be when you feel your airways open up.
Pink salt treatments can boost your respiratory system’s ability to fight inflammation and infections. You’ll enjoy less discomfort from asthma, allergies, bronchitis, and other respiratory ailments.
7. It can help you sleep better.
In this day and age, anything that can help you sleep better is like gold. In this case, pink is the new gold. Pink salt can help control some of the hormones in your body. Some of these hormones control your sleep patterns and quality.
Serotonin is one of these hormones. Not only can it affect your sleep, but it affects your mood also. By increasing the levels of serotonin, you can get to sleep faster, sleep better, and feel more refreshed when you wake up.
Final Thoughts on Using Himalayan Pink Salt for Better Health
Who would have thought that salt could provide so many amazing health benefits? Pink salt is almost like a super substance – it makes food taste great, it improves your health, and it’s pretty while doing all of that. You can even use it for decorating. This may be the one time that it’s okay to play with your food.
Overall, Himalayan pink salt does a lot of the same things that table salt does. However, it simply does it better in smaller portions. It boils down to a matter of efficiency – are you okay with “okay,” or do you prefer “better”? In the end, what matters is that Himalayan pink salt is great for your health.
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