Natural healing: New halotherapy business offers holistic options

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After unsuccessfully trying to land a full-time teaching job, Zionsville resident Shauna Hale decided to pursue an alternate career path.

“I was a kindergarten teacher and decided after many, many years of covering peoples’ maternity leaves and medical leaves, I was doing all these leaves for people as a teacher, but nothing ever got me to a full-time teaching job,” Hale said. “I ended up not getting a job, so I started to look within myself and said, ‘Maybe this isn’t the path I’m meant to go.’”

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Darren and Shauna Hale own Salt for Your Soul, a halotherapy business in Zionsville. (Photos by Anna Skinner)

The path she followed eventually led to opening her own business, Salt for your Soul, a holistic therapy center, in Zionsville. She was drawn to holistic medicine after her mother contracted stomach cancer.

“We started looking at holistic treatments for my mom, and that kind of started our path on the holistic side,” Hale said. “My mom did some teas and we got some really great results from the tea, then the doctor told her she needed to go off the tea and she did, and then my mom passed away but the tea was working. So, to me, every day I think if we had kept her on the tea, maybe she’d be here.”

Shauna’s mother died in 2005. Shauna began looking deeper into holistic treatments for common ailments. She and her husband, Darren, often had sinus infections and began visiting the Salt Cave in Lawrence three years ago for relief.

“We ended up really liking the benefits of the salt,” Shauna said.

Salt therapy dates back to the 1800s, when a Polish physician noticed salt mine workers seldom got sick and had exceptionally healthy skin. After conducting research, he attributed both qualities to the salt.

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Encouraging messages and reviews are written on the walls at Salt for Your Soul.

In March, the couple purchased space for Salt for Your Soul at 3802 W. 96th St. and opened it earlier in the summer. The business offers a Himalayan salt room with halotherapy and a halogenerator. It also sells health products and has space for support groups and a flotation tank.

“(The flotation tank) is for sensory deprivation,” Hale said. “You put earplugs in your ears so you’re cutting off the hearing, but as you’re floating on top of the water, you are morphing with the water. It’s interesting. You can’t tell where your body is and where the water begins. It has magnesium in it, and we are all magnesium deficient. Magnesium helps with cramps and headaches and joint pain.”

The flotation tank holds 100 gallons of water and 450 pounds of Epsom salts.

So far, business has been brisk.

“It’s been good. We have had some walk-ins and referrals already, and so everybody has raved about it and it’s been great,” said Darren Hale, a fifth-grade teacher at Zionsville West Middle School.

Salt for Your Soul is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Prices are $26 for 25 minutes in the salt room. Flotation tank prices are $65 for 60 minutes, $80 for 90 minutes or $50 for a 50-minute introductory float. A portion of profits benefit Prevail Inc. of Central Indiana, which provides crisis intervention and restorative support services to survivors of crime and abuse. For more, visit saltforyoursoul.com.

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Pet halotherapy also is offered at the business. Pictured is an example of what the pet halotherapy booth looks like. (Submitted photo)

Pets welcome

Besides providing treatment services for people, Salt for Your Soul also offers services for pets. Cats, dogs and other small pets can receive treatment in a pet container minus salt on the floor, because floor because it harms pets’ feet. A halogenerator is still used to benefit the pets. Cats, dogs and other small pets are able to use the pet container for $15 for a 15-minute session. A portion of profits is donated to local shelters.


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