Ions

What Are Negative And Positive Ions?
Ions are all around you right now and, whether you are aware of them or not, there is a good chance they are affecting the way you feel and quite possibly your health as well.

An ion is a molecule that has lost or gained an electron through various atmospheric forces or environmental influences. There are both positive and negative ions but, as we shall see, the names are misleading.


What Are Positive Ions?
Positive ions are usually carbon dioxide molecules that have been stripped of an electron. Also known as positively charged ions, they have been demonstrated to have a negative effect on your body.

This is particularly the case with your lungs and respiratory tract but your immune system can also be affected. This is because positive ions can be so small they are absorbed directly into your bloodstream from the air you breathe. An excess of positively charged ions in your environment is believed to contribute to tiredness and a lack of energy, tension, anxiety and irritability. Positive ions have even been investigated as a contributing factor for asthma and depression.

In nature positive ions are commonly formed by high winds, dust, humidity and pollution and are at their highest just before an electrical storm. This has been hypothesized as why so many people feel so uneasy before a storm and why many respiratory problems are commonly reported at this time as well.

If you’ve ever spent a lot of time walking beside a busy road or inside a laundromat you will have experienced the tiring effects of a highly positively charged environment. Unfortunately, our modern-day homes and workplaces have also become chronic generators of potentially harmful positive ions.

At The Office
Office air-conditioning systems, fluorescent lights and electrical and computer equipment are all potent positive ion generators.

In Your Home
In your home, fluorescent lighting and electrical equipment such as televisions and clothes dryers are big outputers of positive ions, as are the fibers in carpets, curtains and upholstery. Women’s hair dryers are particularly strong source as well. Worse still, as many homes are often well sealed from the air outside, there’s little chance for negative ions to counteract this damage.

Additionally, unless you live in the country, opening your window may not be that beneficial anyway. Large towns and city environments have sometimes been tested as having less than a third of the beneficial negative ions in the air when compared to country environments, along with a variety of other damaging pollutants.

Negative Ions Benefits For Your Health
Negative ions are oxygen atoms charged with an extra electron. Here’s how they can both clear the air in your home of allergens like pollen and mold and hazardous airborne particles such as bacteria and viruses, and have some surprisingly beneficial effects on your health.

What Do Negative Ions Do?
Negative ions are created in nature by the effects of water, air, sunlight and the Earth’s inherent radiation. They are most prevalent in natural places and particularly around moving water or after a thunderstorm.

That taste in the air and feeling you get at the beach, near a waterfall or after a storm is your body after saturated in the benefits of negative ions. What if there were a way to take that feeling you have with you and keep it going in your bedroom, lounge room, kitchen or office, as well as cleaning the air of contaminants?

Negative ions clear the air of dust, mold spores, pollen, pet dander, odors, cigarette smoke, bacteria and viruses. They do this by attaching to these positively charged particles in large numbers. This causes the pollen, mold, bacteria, etc to become too heavy to stay airborne. At this point it drops to the floor or attaches to a nearby surface, thus removing it from the air you breathe and preventing it from causing respiratory problems and other health issues.

How Do Negative Ionizers Work?
Positive ion producing air conditioning, electrical equipment like televisions and clothes dryers, and even carpet and upholstery, and our homes have become what has been described as ‘positive ion prisons’. Our homes and workplaces are usually sealed off from the natural benefits of negative ions. Even if you do keep your windows open, aside from all the pollution, if you live in a busy town or city the concentration of negative ions in the air may only be a tenth of that found in country environments.

For a list of the harmful effects positive ions can have on your health see the page on Negative and Positive Ions.
You do have one negative ion generator in your home already though. Your shower, with its stream of hot water and steam, is a good producer of negative ions. That’s part of why so many people need a shower to wake up in the morning.

That’s not much use in the other rooms of your house, but fortunately there's another even more effective way to create these negatively charged ions and receive their health benefits in whatever room you spend time in.

Modern negative ionizers work by using a method called ‘corona discharge’, which is actually modeled on the way lightning occurs. A tiny current of electrons flow down a needle to its point. The nearer the electrons come to the needlepoint, the closer they are forced together. Since electrons naturally repel each other, when they reached the very tip of the needle they are forced off into the nearest air molecule and become a negative ion.

Negative ions repel each other as well, so as more and more are produced they are emitted further and further out into the room they are in. The more powerful the ionizer, the more beneficial ions they can produce and the larger their range.

Top 10 Negative Ion Benefits for Your Health
There are highlighted links to references if you would like to read the relevant scientific research, but for a handy summary here are the top 10 health benefits of negative ions:
1. Negative ions increase your sense of well-being and mental clarity by removing the debilitating effects of excessive positive ions in your environment.
2. Negative ionizers are proven to clear the air of dust, pollen, pet dander, mold spores and other potential allergens.
3. A good ionizer can significantly decrease airborne viruses and bacteria in your home.
4. Improves the function of the cilia in your respiratory tract that protect your lungs from irritation and inflammation, thus leading to less instances of respiratory illnesses like colds and flu and even hayfever and asthma.
5. Negative ionizers have a relaxing effect and have been reported to normalize your breathing rate, decrease blood pressure and relieve tension.
6. Studies show high levels of negative ions can be as effective at treating Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) as commonly prescribed antidepressants (obviously discuss any medication changes with your doctor).
7. Improved energy levels and focus. Research at the University of California showed negative ions normalize serotonin levels in the brain, potentially improving a person’s positive outlook and mood.
8. Better sleep. A French study found using negative ionizers could help you to sleep better. This is once again due to their positive effects in normalizing serotonin production in the brain.
9. Reduces instances of headaches and sickness. The company Norwich Union found installing negative ion air cleaners in a work area full computers and other electronic equipment reduced instances of reported sickness and headaches by 78%. Negative ionizers are also routinely used in hospitals in Europe for their beneficial impact on patient’s health and healing rates.
10. Elevated mental concentration and performance. Testing has regularly shown that subjects exposed to high levels of negative ions perform better in mentally challenging tasks than those breathing normal positive ion dense air. Pierce J. Howard PhD at the Center for Applied Cognitive Sciences says in the Owners Manual for the Brain – “Negative ions increase the flow of oxygen to the brain; resulting in higher alertness, decreased drowsiness, and more mental energy.”
There’s more on the many negative ions benefits for your health ahead, as well as how negative ion generators work to make such a difference to the air you breathe.

How do Himalayan Salt Lamps Work?
Water vapor is always circulating in the air of any room of your house. This water vapor carries with it allergens like dust, pollen, pet dander, smoke particles, and even bacteria and viruses.

What is a Salt Lamp?
Real Himalayan salt lamps are hand chiseled solid blocks of ancient crystal salts like this. They have a beautiful pink color, often pinkish orange, due to the high concentration of minerals.

Inside the hollowed out middle of the salt lamp is a light bulb to generate both light and heat. This is important for their reported benefits and salt lamps won’t work properly without a heat-producing light.

Himalayan salt lamps also come in decorative baskets of crystal salt, with a light and heat source underneath that creates a soft pink glow.

Himalayan rock salt lamps are quite beautiful to look at, but how do they actually work and can they generate negative ions for better health?

Salt is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts water molecules from the surrounding air. A large block of rock salt, like a Himalayan salt lamp, is especially attractive to water vapor and its pollutants.

Once attracted to the salt lamp, these microscopic compounds remain on the salt and not floating in the air where you can breathe them in.

As Himalayan salt lamps slowly become saturated with water vapor they attract from the air around them, the heat, from the lamp inside or beneath, dries them, thus continuing the hygroscopic effect for as long as the light is on.

This heat also re-releases water vapor back into the air. Importantly, any airborne contaminants attracted to the salt lamp remain trapped there and will not become airborne again.

Occasionally, perhaps every few weeks, it’s good to turn off your salt lamp for an hour, let it cool and then gently rub it with a damp cloth to clean away trapped dust and particles. The rest of the time just leave it on and let it work to clean ther air in your room.

Do Salt Lamps Really Work to Generate Negative Ions?
Can salt lamps produce beneficial negative ions? This is the biggest question most people usually have when buying Himalayan salt lamps for their reported health benefits. The answer is yes, but not a great deal of them. Salt lamp benefits do include negative ion generation. It appears primarily from the moisture evaporating on the heated rock salt, though the photoelectric effect may also have a role in ion generation.

However, as a negative ionizer, salt lamps have a limited range and small output and aren’t considered nearly as effective as a good negative ionizer like this.

Some point to the cumulative effect of keeping the salt lamp on at all times and how this can slowly generate more and more negative ions and improve the air quality over time. One reported test showed significantly more negative ions after a few days of having the salt lamp on in the room all day long.


This may well be the case, and the salt lamps are certainly a beautiful addition to any room. Practically though, their negative ion producing range is quite limited. Don’t expect a small Himalayan crystal salt lamps to flood a large room with negative ions. Even very large lamps while stunning to look at, will only produce a small radius of beneficial negative ions. Instead, it’s best to consider negative ions from salt lamps as an added benefit and position them with their short ionizing range in mind.

Other Himalayan Rock Salt Lamp Benefits
Reported health benefits of Himalayan salt lamps include:
Improving breathing problems and reducing allergies.
Less colds and flu (due to less airborne viruses).
Increased relaxation and calmness and less stress.
Improved ability to concentrate and work for longer periods around electrical equipment like computers.
Fewer headaches and migraines.
Reduced symptoms from disorders like rheumatism and arthritis.
An improvement in skin diseases.
Easier to get to sleep at night.
A better overall sense of health and wellbeing.