"Sometimes, the most productive thing you can do, is RELAX."
Melissa Vance is no stranger to stress.
But unlike many, she has found a way to achieve a peace that calms her and helps her manage the stresses of everyday life, motherhood, and entrepreneurship. Her secret? Salt. 1100 pounds of it.
The Journey
Melissa had a busy, high stress corporate tech sales career. When she married and had kids, she switched gears abruptly to become a full-time stay at home mom, which was "stressful in a different way," she says. With so many life changes, she began to experience pain, brain fog and depression. Her fast food diet with no exercise didn’t help. "I knew that I needed a change." She shifted her mind set to include healthy food and exercise and felt so much better. Through her journey, sh realized she could help others as well.
The Trigger
Embracing the power of a healthy lifestyle, Melissa became a certified health coach through the Institute of Integrated Nutrition. Then came the power of mind, body and breath and 500 hours of training to become yoga instructor. People wanted to learn from her and her clientele grew. In connecting with her clients, they shared their problems, their traumas, and their lives with her. In true Melissa style, she took them on, each one. She internalized her clients’ stories, until something wasn’t right. She started to experience night terrors. She realized she was "suppressing her own trauma from years ago". She thought she was being strong and brave to bury it and carry it, but she’ll be the first to tell you that "things have a way of catching up with you eventually."
A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF PEACE
The Remedy
Melissa’s therapist recommended float therapy…said it would re-center her, let her body rest, and lower cortisol levels while tuning out the outside world. She hated it! She explains, “All I felt was agitation and uncomfortable being by myself, with myself.” The therapist had recommended at least 3 sessions, so she went back, a compliant, yet skeptical patient. At the end of the 2nd float, she felt a “little glimpse of peace”. After the 3rd float, she was hooked. “I was a new person, like I took a happy pill.”
The Salt Center Imagined
Float therapy changed Melissa’s life, and, while meditating, she imagined offering a place where she could help others do the same. Her vision fell into place and The Salt Center opened in August 2020. She wondered why she felt led to open in the middle of a pandemic (good question) but soon realized she was SUPPOSED to because people were suffering and needed a calming outlet that focused on mental, physical and spiritual health.
PRAYING IS TALKING TO GOD.
MEDITATION IS TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.
Wellness Services
The primary services offered at The Salt Center are related to salt and its therapeutic benefits. "Dry salt therapy is like a toothbrush for your lungs", Melissa says. It’s a homeopathic remedy for allergies and sinus infections, and has other benefits, too. The NEW Salt Center pods boasts 1100 pounds of Epsom salt in 10 inches of body temperature water and removes all external stimuli as your body becomes one with the water. “Many clients say they don’t feel where the water stops and their body begins.” Regular floating sessions 60-90 minutes reboots your nervous system, gets you to a calm state quicker than meditation alone, eliminates pain, and lowers cortisol levels by 80% in one hour”. Wow!
Still have questions about salt or float therapy? Call Melissa at The Salt Center. She knows first hand the unique self care experience offered at The Salt Center to support your physical, mental and emotional well being. She would love to educate you on the benefits of float therapy, halotherapy (dry salt therapy), and how The Salt Center can help you incorporate more SALT in your life!
The Salt Center Experience:
Float Therapy
Dry Salt Room
Infrared Sauna
Massage
Ion Cleanse
Normatec Compression
Pick up a copy of Melissa's book at The Salt Center or at Amazon. Learn how her depression led her toward uncovering the link between digestion and mood.
By: Tracie Morse
North Atlanta FitLife
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