How to Ease Your Seasonal Allergies and Hayfever #hayfever #seasonalallergy #sneezing #summer #pollen
Seasonal allergies are an incredibly irritating side effect of spring and summer pollens for many people, and this year seems worse than ever!
As the pollen levels pick up in the air they irritate your immune defences causing those annoying allergic symptoms.
Read on for some natural ways to ease your hayfever allergy symptoms.
How to Ease Your Seasonal Allergies and Hayfever
1. Identify Your Triggers
The first thing you need to do is to find out what triggers your allergic response.
This is true whether you are looking for herbal or medicinal treatments.
Avoiding your triggers is one of the best ways to reduce your symptoms, and hopefully avoid those big allergy attacks.
If you get allergies in the summertime, it is probably from the weather combined with the climate and new growth.
So, your biggest triggers might be weeds, pollen, ragweed, dust mites or dander in your home from shredding pets.
If you had a humid or wet winter and spring, then mould might also be another trigger you are dealing with.
Try to identify your triggers, then work to avoid them as much as possible.
2. Try Honey
As far as treatments go, the main purpose isn’t to treat your allergies, since you will probably still have them.
The point is that they have to reduce your allergy symptoms once they begin, or you can prevent them from occurring in the future.
One way is touse honey as a treatment, but it needs to be raw and organic honey, not with added sugar or preservatives.
Even better if you can find local honey, such as from a local source or farmer’s market.
This is going to reduce allergy symptoms related to pollen.
3. Natural Remedies
The next set of treatments include supplements and various miscellaneous natural remedies, like essential oils.
Some vitamins and supplements that have been known to help with allergy symptoms include probiotics, vitamin A, vitamin B, zinc, and spirulina.
Herbs like stinging nettle can also be useful when treating your allergy symptoms.
Scroll down to read more about these ideas below.
4. Change Your Diet
Believe it or not, your diet can make a big impact on your allergies, preventing allergy attacks and helping to relieve or reduce your symptoms.
There are some foods you should avoid that tend to increase allergy symptoms, such as dairy, as well as excessive amounts of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and processed foods.
Try to stay away from anything artificial and eat more healthily.
Then there are things you can consume that will help with your allergies, including raw honey as we mentioned above, organic fruits and vegetables, and foods with a high amount of probiotics.
5. Use a Neti Pot
If you haven’t tried a neti pot before, now is a good time to try it out.
The neti pot helps to cleanse your nasal cavity where a lot of allergens are going to attack.
The container holds a saline solution to rinse out the nasal cavity and hopefully take all those allergens and debris along with it.
Some people swear by this for getting rid of their hayfever altogether!
Herbal Remedies to Give Relief from Hayfever
When you suffer from hayfever, plants can seem like the problem, not the solution!
But there are some plant-based, herbal supports that can help you get through the hay fever seasons.
And this is ideal if you would prefer not to take antihistamines every day.
Remember that there is more than one hayfever season.
Spring, late summer, and autumn all feature different irritating pollens so you may have different waves of hayfever.
Hayfever symptoms can include a runny nose, itchy and watery eyes, sneezing, coughing, a "tickle" in the throat or chest, and even skin rashes.
Here are some herbs that may help you through the hay fever seasons:
1. Bee Products
Honey, being made from flower nectar and containing pollen, can have a desensitizing effect.
While the evidence is anecdotal, allergy sufferers around the world swear by honey's effectiveness at treating hayfever.
Use raw, unfiltered honey for the best medicinal benefit, and try a tablespoon a day a month or so before allergy season.
2. Stinging Nettle
Sometimes just called nettle, this is not a new remedy for respiratory complaints.
The most effective way to use stinging nettle is by taking capsules of the freeze-dried herb.
It has significant anti-inflammatory effects, and studies suggest antihistamine action.
Like honey and bee pollen, it is best to begin taking nettle a month or so before allergy season.
3. Turmeric
Turmeric is a potent anti-inflammatory that can be liberally added to foods or taken in capsules.
4. Garlic
Garlic contains a powerful anti-inflammatory substance called quercetin.
Like turmeric, garlic can be added to foods or taken in capsules.
Cook up an anti-allergy curry with turmeric and garlic, or this delicious soup recipe.
5. Ginkgo Biloba
Ginkgo Biloba has been hailed as a circulation-enhancing herb, but it can also help with allergies.
The body naturally produces a chemical called platelet-activating factor (PAF), and PAF triggers allergies.
Ginkgo inhibits the action of PAF in the body. Add it as a supplement to combat allergies.
6. Eyebright
Eyebright is a herb with a long history of mucus membrane support. As its name implies, it is good for the eyes.
Make a tea of dried eyebright herb and place the teabags over your eyes, or simply use a cloth dipped in the cooled tea as a compress.
Eyebright can also be taken internally in tea, as drops of the extract, or in capsule form.
Cool cucumber slices placed over the eyes can also help with the swelling, redness and itching.
7. Chamomile
A member of the ragweed family, chamomile can provide soothing relief if applied topically to itchy skin or hives.
Creams or lotions are available commercially, and the tea may also help symptoms.
Just use caution - very rarely, chamomile can make hayfever symptoms worse.
8. Goldenseal
This is implicated in the treatment of colds and flu, and can also be helpful in treating the mucus membrane inflammation associated with hay fever.
Goldenseal is often found with echniacea in supplement form to give your immune system a boost.
More summer health tips:
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