Allergies are an issue that plagues millions of people around the world. Over fifty million people experience allergies each year in the United States alone. Allergies arise from your immune system coming in contact with a foreign substance like pollen, mold, dust, and other particles.
When this happens, your immune system releases antibodies to combat the substance, even though it may not be innately harmful. These antibodies can produce an overabundance of histamine, leading to sneezing, running nose, itchy eyes, and irritated skin. Allergies can be challenging to combat, but luckily there are a few proven methods to lessen your exposure to allergens and reduce their negative impacts on your health.
Limit Outdoor Exposure In High Pollen Season
The first thing we recommend you to do to avoid seasonal allergies is to stay indoors on days that have a high pollen forecast. Many news stations will display the pollen forecasts periodically, or you can simply look them up online. If you have to go outside for some reason, consider wearing a mask or sunglasses to help prevent pollen intake.
When it comes to avoiding allergy attacks, the name of the game is minimizing exposure, so anything you can do to accomplish that will help prevent or lessen the effects of allergies.
Maintain Your Physical And Mental Health
Another thing you should do is keep your immune system in good health. Because an unbalanced immune system causes allergies, you need to ensure that you help keep it healthy and balanced. This can be done through many different methods, such as alleviating stress and taking probiotics.
Studies have shown that high levels of stress can causes severe strain on your immune system, so it is essential to keep your stress well managed. Practicing mindfulness and meditation and reducing and major stressors are proven ways to help with this. Probiotics help strengthen your immune system and wouldn’t hurt to try if you have bad allergies.
Improve Your Indoor Air Quality
Finally, many people don’t realize that allergies can affect you even while your indoors. Mold, mildew, and even pollen often find their way into our homes and will continually wreak havoc on our immune systems. Aside from standard cleanliness, there are ways to help control these harmful elements from inside and affect us.
Professional home humidifiers do an excellent job at decreasing allergy levels indoors, as they allow you to control the humidity inside of your home manually. You can have them installed by a certified HVAC service, and you’ll notice a world of difference for you and your family throughout the year.
To maintain high indoor air quality, it is vital to regularly change your home’s HVAC filters and clean the system and air ducts to keep it working correctly. Clogged filters can’t remove dust and debris from the air efficiently, which will leave more of it in your home for you to breathe.