Salt Cave brings ancient healing therapy to Naples

The walls and ceiling of the 25-by-25-foot Salt Cave in North Naples are covered with imported Himalayan pink crystal salt. For thousands of years, natural salt has been known as a panacea. Alchemists called it “the fifth element” — besides water, earth, air and fire— because its qualities were comparable only to ether, the actual fifth element. Salt mines and their therapeutic properties have been noted since Hippocrates. Medieval monks took the sick to salt caves to breathe in salt particles created as the monks crushed stalactites.

Halotherapy is the art of healing utilizing the health benefits of natural crystal salt. Embraced by European countries such as Britain, Poland and Lithuania for several centuries, the holistic treatment recently became available at The Salt Cave in Naples, one of the first such healing centers in the United States.

Salt Cave owner and founder Andrea Geresdi was born and raised in Budapest, where salt caves are quite common. “Looking back at the warm, healing memories I have of visiting salt caves there inspired me to bring the experience to Southwest Florida,” she says.

Halotherapy is a drug-free, natural process that takes place in a controlled air environment that simulates a natural salt cave microclimate.

Visitors entering what seems to be the fairly typical storefront of The Salt Cave are filled with wonder when they step inside. The walls and ceiling of the cave area are covered with fine, pure Himalayan pink crystal salt. Several tons of large salt rocks adorn the walls and fill wooden crates.

The large amount of dry rock salt creates a microclimate identical to underground salt caves, with a humidity level of about 40 percent and temperature between 70 and 75 degrees F. In the dry, sterile and hermetic space, patients relax on comfortable chairs for 45-minute sessions. Soothed by calming music, they absorb the energy and healing benefits of a salt-infused aerosol provided by a salt generator.

Conditions including arthritis, asthma, dry cough, eczema, gout and sleep disorders are said to be assisted and regulated through the consumption of salt.

The Salt Cave is at 4962 Tamiami Trail, N. For more information, call 403-9170 or visit www.saltcave.us. 