How to Allergy-Proof Your Bedroom
How to ensure your bedroom is allergy-proof? Here are some tips that will ensure all the allergens stay far away from your sleep sanctuary.
How to ensure your bedroom is allergy-proof? Here are some tips that will ensure all the allergens stay far away from your sleep sanctuary.
Anyone who is dealing with allergies knows what a struggle it is, and according to the data from Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, nearly one-third of the US population have some type of allergy. Most common allergens are pollen, dust, pet dander, mold, but also some types of food, and many other unexpected things. Symptoms such as itchy throat, teary eyes, and runny nose, may sound harmless but they can become so intense that they can hinder your daily activities, and in some severe cases even can cause death.
Today we will be talking about all the things that we can do in order to make our home allergy-proof. Since our house is the place where we spend the vast majority of our time, we want it to be safe for our health. While some allergens are specific for outdoor surroundings, such as pollen, a vast number of them can be found inside of our homes; thus they represent a potential threat to our health, and we need to take care of them. But, before we jump into practical advice, let’s see how what are allergies and how they can impact our sleep.
People who suffer from allergies are usually entirely healthy, but slightly over-reactive, which means that their body releases histamine-like chemicals to get rid of allergens, substances that are otherwise harmless. Histamine forces our body to remove allergens through our nose, eyes, or mouth, and that is how your symptoms are caused.
The vast majority of allergies are triggered by the things we breathe in, so there is something in the air that causes symptoms such as sneezing, itchy nose, eyes or throat, etc. But a lot of these symptoms are similar to the ones we experience when we catch a cold, and it is easy to confuse these two conditions. The duration of the symptoms is one of the important indicators, a cold can last from 3 to 14 days, but allergies can stay around for months if people do not reduce their exposure to whatever is causing their symptoms. Another way to differentiate them is to pay attention to the type of your symptoms, a cold would rarely cause your eyes to be itchy or watery, but an allergy will do that for sure. If you are feeling any pains, aches, it is probably a cold, allergies can make your life difficult in so many ways, but they will not cause you pain, the same thing is with fever.
Allergens, which are everywhere, cause allergies, and the most common ones are pollen, dust mites, spores, mold, dust, and pet dander, and there is no way to eliminate them, the most you can do is to take an allergy test and find out which ones affect you and then try to avoid them as much as possible.
We differentiate two main categories of allergens, seasonal and year-round. As their name suggests, seasonal ones are attached to a specific season, and they are triggered by particular pollen or spores coming from the grass, trees, and other things that flare up seasonally. For example, in spring most of the pollen allergies come from grass and trees, in the summer it is the same, but in the places that are mainly hot and humid, mold can expand quickly also. Autumn is another humid season, suitable for mold and mildew which develops on wet soils and grass, but also for ragweed, which is the leading allergen of the season. Winter is a bit more specific, due to the lower outdoor temperatures there is barely any pollen or other allergens outside, but inside of the house, where we spend the majority of our time during the winter, there is always some dust, pet dander, mildew, etc. to which many people are sensitive.
Year-round allergies are the ones concentrated indoors, which is somewhat the topic of today’s post, and they are always present, but usually more prominent during the winter. While the days are cold, we spent more time inside; windows are shut most of the time, a lot of people use fireplaces, heating vents are not cleaned as often as they should, which all creates conditions suitable for dust pilling, and lowers the air quality. If you live with pets, they are in your home all the time, but during the winter they do not spend much time outside, and that is when they scatter their dander wherever they go, a protein that can be found in their dander, urine, and saliva causes allergy symptoms in people.
It is not hard to assume that if you have any of the symptoms, you will probably have some issues with your sleep, it is inevitable. A study showed that around 48% of seasonally allergic people had disrupted sleep. These people are more prone to developing sleep disorders, such as insomnia, chronic sleep deprivation, daytime fatigue, etc.
If you often wake up in the middle of the night to sneeze, cough, or you cannot breathe, these are the signs that your allergy is taking over the control, and depending on the type of allergen you need to see what kind of precaution measures can you take. Waking up often during the night will mess up your sleep routine, your body will not be able to rest properly, and you will be fatigued on the day after. Some more extreme types of allergies can cause snoring, or sleep apnea if you have a child dealing with allergic rhinitis than pay special attention to these symptoms.
Getting rid of an allergy is almost impossible, the best you can do is to keep those symptoms under control, but first, pay a visit to a doctor, take the tests so that you can know for sure which things are you sensitive, and then follow the guidelines. Possible treatments for alleviating the symptoms include eye-drops, prescribed medications, nose sprays, or some lifestyle changes, for example, if your pet is causing you those symptoms, then maybe keeping him outside of the house, or taking him to your parent’s home, etc. Even the same type of allergy differs from one person to another, the severity of the symptoms does not have to be on the same level; hence, everyone needs to try different things until they find the right one, sometimes, simple things, like removing all the carpets, can create a significant difference.
Out of all the places in the house, the bedroom is one room which should always represent our oasis and sleep sanctuary; hence, it is crucial to create a safe and pleasant environment. People who are suffering from allergies know how difficult it is when they wake up often due to their symptoms, so the best they can do is to ensure that their bedroom is allergy-proof, but how to achieve that? Here are some of our suggestions on how to improve the quality of the time you spend in your bedroom, and most importantly, how to keep the allergens away from it.
Besides practicing all the above-listed advice for a clean and healthy sleep environment, you will, of course, have to take some other measures to reduce your symptoms and go through another allergy season as easily as possible. Allergy control begins from your home, that is why all those things are vital, medical help will not work if you do not get rid of the allergens or at least reduce your exposure to them.
She would be a morning person if mornings started at noon. Art historian, taurus, coffee lover, traveler, F1 fan who hates to drive, and well experienced insomniac with one life goal, to sleep like a coala for up to 20 hours per day.