HEALTH & WELLNESS

Feel Your Best in 1, 2, 3 ...

Learn more about the ways you can feel your best with three alternative therapies.

By Lyndsay Fogarty

When you’re not feeling your best, you likely have tried and true methods that you use to get back on your feet. Maybe it’s aromatherapy when you’re feeling stressed or a soak in the hot tub to relieve sore muscles. However, if you’re looking for something new try, consider the following therapies.

1. Spend Time in a Salt Room

Salt therapy, or halotherapy, comes in several different forms that could help to relieve a variety of health issues, including allergies and asthma. Salt rooms utilize dry salt aerosol inhalations through salt-infused air and wall coatings. The origin of the modern salt room, a relaxing chamber often equipped with flat-screen TVs or toys, derives from European salt caves. Practitioners of this therapy report a variety of health benefits during and after their steady breathing sessions in salt rooms. While not everyone will experience the same relief, acne treatment and pure relaxation seem to be the most ubiquitous of benefits.

2. Keep it Cool with Cryotherapy

During whole body cyrotherapy, individuals stand alone in a can-like enclosure, which is open at the top, for two to four minutes at a time. The torso and legs are exposed to frigid temperatures while the head stays at room temperature.

While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not have evidence that it can be used to treat conditions such as asthma, anxiety, chronic pain, depression, fibromyalgia, insomnia, migraines, multiple sclerosis and others, both celebrities and everyday people use it for just that. You can find cryotherapy facilities throughout Orlando, but it is important to consult with your doctor before you decide to participate in this type of treatment.

3. Float Away Your Stress

A massage can clear the mind and melt the stress of the week away. So can a soothing yoga class or a meditation session. Popular in European culture, flotation therapy is thought to be equally beneficial for the mind; it just hasn’t caught on fully in the United States yet.

During flotation therapy, an individual floats in a tank full of saltwater — also called an isolation tank — in an experience where he or she will feel completely weightless. This allows for complete relaxation in every muscle of the body. The soothing technique is beneficial for deep meditation practice, and it’s possible that it could also aid in the treatment of chronic pain, anxiety and more.

Next time you’re feeling stressed from work or frazzled from running the kids to all of their activities, consider treating yourself to a flotation experience.