The Salty Air

Our writer checked out the Bethesda Salt Cave

August 20, 2018 12:46 p.m.

The Bethesda Salt Cave is busy year-round. Walk-ins are welcome at the top of the hour, but Narayadu recommends that clients call ahead or book their session online. She and her son, Max Bachmann, who co-owns the Bethesda location, are hoping to expand to Tysons Corner and Annapolis.

Narayadu speaks in bromides about how salt therapy helps with pain, anxiety and stress. She says the salt cave wards off everything from depression to insomnia, that it’s good for mothers suffering from postpartum depression and soldiers combating post-traumatic stress disorder, and that it helps with a laundry list of respiratory problems—allergies, asthma, bronchitis, cystic fibrosis, emphysema, hay fever, even snoring. Several clients bring their children to the salt cave every two weeks, and Narayadu says those parents claim their kids rarely get sick.

But when Narayadu explains that the salt cave’s “negative ionic charge recharges the human battery,” I can’t help but raise an eyebrow. “Computers, batteries, cars—they all bombard us with a positive charge,” she says. “But the cave is negatively charged, so like an iPad on a docking station, when we’re in the cave we draw the negative charge to us.” Then Narayadu tells me that they have a psychic medium and “crystal master” on staff, and I start to get suspicious.

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I decided to contact James Giordano, professor of neurology and biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center, to see if I was being peddled some New Age psychobabble. “Negative ions, particularly at higher concentrations, have been shown to be of positive effect to certain aspects of central nervous system function and vitamin D production,” Giordano tells me. Vitamin D, in turn, can affect calcium levels, and calcium and zinc can work synergistically to fortify immune function, according to Giordano.

Environments with a high concentration of negative ions—such as salt caves, waterfalls, beaches or mountains—can be good for you physiologically, he explains, but everyone responds differently. Seeking out negative ions won’t keep you from getting sick (witness my cold), but it may help with maintaining wellness. Giordano advises me not to discount the power of placebo, either. The very act of doing something for yourself—whether it’s visiting a salt cave or taking a walk in the woods—can help you simply because you’re expecting it to.

Prices at the Bethesda Salt Cave are $35 per person—you share the cave with others—or $250 for a private session for up to 12 people. (It’s free for children 7 and younger; $15 for kids ages 8 to 16.) Does visiting a salt cave two times a week to alleviate, say, seasonal affective disorder, justify the cost? “I know people who get a massage twice a week, and that [isn’t] cheap, either,” Giordano says. “So that’s a commodities question. And a visit to the salt cave might be cheaper than taking a vacation.” He says there’s a distinction between helping and healing, and that people should consult with a physician before seeking out an alternative or complementary treatment.

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