There are four main areas where negative ions are beneficial to our bodies. 1. They make us feel better. 2. They increase our resistance to disease and help us heal more quickly. 3. They freshen and purify the air. 4. They affect the levels of ‘serotonin’ in your brain
1. They make us feel better because the negative ions help speed the passage of exygen to our cells and tissues. The more negative ions, the faster burned up oxygen is replaced, giving us more energy. So, if we breathe in air from close to water and thus with a lot of negative ions in it, we get more oxygen to our bodies and therefore feel livelier and generally better. It’s quite simple!
2. Negative ions stimulate the reticuloendothelial system; a group of defense cells in our bodies which makes us more resistant to disease (I don’t say I understand this, but at least I can see what they are talking about). This application is very useful in hospitals, and in fact I believe that hospitals in Britain are all equipped with equipment to negatively charge the air.
3. There are lots of dirty bits and pieces in the air, pollen, dander (dead skin from animals), mould spores, dust, etc which are floating around in the air all around us. These particles are charged either neutrally or positively. As opposites attract, the negative ions are attracted to these particles and cause them to all stick together. As they become bigger they become heavier and drift to the ground where they can be cleaned up (in the case of your living room), and therefore removed. This is especially important for people with allergies of one sort or another.
4. Negative ions affect the levels of ‘serotonin’ in your brain. I don’t know whether negative ions increase or decrease the levels of serotonin, but they change the level one way or another. The significance of this change in the serotonin level is that it is often an effective treatment for depression, particularly SAD (seasonally affective disorder), which comes about in northern latitudes and is prompted by the lack of daylight and fresh air.
I hope all this is true, it is only what I have read.
This is an interesting photo, showing the passage of history. I took it along the Greenway. You have the wooden post that was put there in the 1870’s when the railway was built. Then the steel rail which replaced the wooden post, it’s part of real train rail, I think. Then the age of the concrete post, which was probably the 1940’s. The round steel post is something from the 1960’s or later, I guess. And then there is the telegraph pole. You could almost tell the history of Britain from these gate posts! The rise and fall of a society.