Allergy Season Can Interrupt Your Sleep Cycle

Allergies have become more frequent in the Western world. In the US alone 50 million people suffer from allergies every year, with most having more than one type of allergy. Most people tend to suffer from allergic rhinitis, also known colloquially as hay fever. Common symptoms include sneezing, itchy nose, eyes or roof of the mouth, runny, stuffy nose, and watery eyes.

What causes allergies, though? Essentially, an allergy is an overreaction of your body’s immune system to a foreign substance. Interestingly, many people start developing allergies later in life. This could be due to a change in their environment whether moving to a new location or welcoming a pet into their life. Other scientists have come up with something called the “hygiene hypothesis.” This suggests that the highly sterile environment of Western countries could cause their immune system to overreact to allergens. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough evidence to back this theory, yet.

Luckily, you don’t have to suffer in silence from allergies anymore. There are ways you can combat the effects. The first step is taking an allergy test. These can tell you exactly what you’re allergic to either via blood or skin testing. Once you have a diagnosis, it will be much easier to treat the underlying issues. Below are some of the most common allergens and how to treat them.

Dust mites

Clean and remove allergens for better sleep

Dust mites are one of the most common allergen and asthma triggers in your house. Unfortunately, you can’t see them with the naked eye. While these microscopic creatures don’t bite, they can leave itchy rashes on your skin. You might not like the idea of these tiny bugs in your house, but they have the important job of consuming your dead skin cells. On average, humans shed around 1.5 grams of dead skin cells every day. This amount can feed millions of dust mites.

As you would expect, dust mites tend to congregate in areas where there’s an abundance of dead skin cells like pillows, mattresses, furniture, and carpets. They also tend to congregate in the corners of your home. While the dust mites can certainly trigger an allergic reaction, it might also be caused by their droppings and shed skin.

So how do you deal with dust mites? Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of them permanently. Still, there are ways you can control their numbers. This includes:

Washing your sheets, towels, pillows, curtains, etc. on a weekly basis. Make sure to use hot water as that kills dust mites
Frequent vacuuming, dusting, and mopping
Deep cleaning your mattress, carpets and rugs
Maintaining low humidity in your house. Dust mites thrive in humid conditions.
Using a certified allergen-capturing air purifier
Covering your mattress and box spring with a zippered mattress cover
Vacuuming your mattress once a month

Insecticides do not get rid of dust mites, so don’t bother bombing your home. The steps above can keep dust mites under control, but they’ll eventually come back. The idea is to prevent them from getting too out of hand.

Mold

Mold is a common problem in many homes, but it can be one of the easiest to manage and prevent, so long as you catch it early. If you’ve looked around the house, you’ve probably noticed mold growing in places like your bathroom, laundry room, and basement. These locations are perfect places for them to thrive. They’re damp and poorly ventilated, allowing the spores to easily spread and grow.

Household mold can be identified by its damp, muddy appearance and can range in color from black, pink, orange, green and even white. While the mold in your bathtub might be obvious, it can grow in plenty of other places that you might not consider. When looking for mold, check hidden areas like under sinks, near toilets, under bath fixtures, around exhaust fans, in crawl spaces in the basement, and so on. Even if you can’t visually see mold, you might still have it. Let your nose lead the way. A musty or sour smell can indicate mold growth. If you don’t see it immediately, you might have a bigger problem on your hands as the mold could be growing in behind the walls.

For mold you can reach, it’s pretty easy to get rid of it:

For tiles, you’ll want to strip and replace any caulking or sealant that has mold growth
If you notice mold on the floors or walls, use mold-killing products like bleach or vinegar and mop away the mold
Make sure to keep your doors and windows open while cleaning for air and the dry out the mold

Of course, the best course of action is prevention. To make sure the mold doesn’t come back you want to make sure you properly ventilate these at-risk locations and keep the humidity down. If you have bathroom rugs, make sure to wash them regularly. Most importantly, remove all of your products out of the shower as they provide great hiding places for mold.

Pet Dander

If you’re sniffling more than usual around your pets, you might be allergic to them or, more likely, their dander. Like humans, pets shed their dead skin cells in the form of dander. Some of the dander might be large enough to see, but usually, they’re small enough that you won’t really notice them.

Size isn’t really a deciding factor on how strongly you’ll react to pet dander as you’re reacting to a protein in their dander. The protein isn’t just found in the dander, it’s also found in your pet’s saliva. So every time your pet licks themselves, they are covering their body in that protein. In other words, it’s not just pet dander you have to worry about, but pet fur as well. With that said, pet dander is more potent as it gets a double dose of the allergen.

Like your own skin, pet dander is light-weight and has ragged edges. The combination of the two means it can travel easily through your home and stick to your clothes, bed, pillows, etc. You might not even realize it, but you could be bringing pet dander with you to work or on a plane!

Pet dander is impossible to get rid of completely, but it’s possible to control it. The best things you can do include:

Brushing your pet regularly
Vacuuming your house on a daily basis
Using a HEPA air filter
Using an anti-allergen spray on your clothes, carpets, sheets, drapes, etc. on a monthly basis
Dusting regularly
Washing your hands after petting

There’s no reason you can’t live a happy and healthy life with a pet even if you’re allergic. It just takes discipline and consistency. If your allergies are very severe, you may need to supplement the above actions with allergy pills.

Pollen

For a lot of people, the bursting flower display in spring doesn’t bring a smile to their face. Instead, it brings a stuffy nose and watery eyes. Pollen is the most common allergens and generally affects people seasonally, usually in the spring and then again in the fall. It’s not just flowers that have pollen. Trees and other plants release their pollen into the air. Some of the worst plant allergens include ragweed, grass, cedar, maple, ash, birch, oak, hickory.

While you can’t control nature, you can control how you interact with it. Nowadays some weather apps also provide pollen counts so you can see whether it’s a high or low pollen day. If you have allergies, you can simply reduce your exposure to them by:

Staying indoors on high pollen count days
Delegating lawn mowing to someone else in your family
Showering immediately after you come back from being outside to remove the pollen from your hair and skin
Wearing a pollen mask
Using a HEPA air filter
Vacuuming often
Keeping your windows closed whenever pollen count is high

Allergies and Sleep Disorders

While allergies are definitely annoying in the daytime, they can make it hard to get a good night’s sleep. In fact, a recent study has found that there’s a link between allergies and sleep issues. In fact, a large percentage of allergy sufferers have felt that they aren’t getting enough sleep compared to those who do not have allergies with a high amount of respondents saying they suffer from insomnia. As allergies conditions worsen so too did the severity of the sleep disorder.

Sleep deprivation is a huge problem. As studies have shown, poor sleep quality can lead to serious health issues such as a higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. Of course, there’s also the more immediate negative side effects like trouble thinking and concentrating, memory issues, swings, increased risk of accidents, and weight gain.

When is Allergy Season

Depending on what you’re allergic to and your location, allergy season may or may not affect you. If your allergies are triggered by the seasons, then you’ll definitely have to worry about allergy season. The worst of allergy season tends to be in the spring and fall. With that said, summers could also have high pollen count.

If your allergies persist throughout the year, then you’re probably allergic to pet dander, dust mites or mold. For the most part, these aren’t affected by the season, but you’ll probably run into more dogs during the warmer months than colder months. As well, since dust mites and mold thrive in humid environments, you may end up having more in your house if your area tends to get more humid during the spring and summer seasons.

Solving Allergy Issues

Solving seasonal allergies for better sleep

If you want to combat your allergies a better quality of life, your first step is to go to your doctor to get an allergy test. Once you know what you’re allergic to, you can find effective ways to tackle the issue as outlined in the sections above. In general, the best way to reduce allergens in your home is to keep it clean. Items like HEPA air filters can remove airborne allergens while anti-allergen sprays can remove allergens from soft fabric items.

If these aren’t enough, there are several nonprescription medications that can help ease the symptoms such as:

Oral antihistamines - if you have allergies, you probably have popped a few to get through an especially difficult time. Brands like Zyrtec and Allegra help relieve the sneezing, itching, runny nose, and watery eyes that you experience from hay fever. You can take these every day if you have year-round allergies or if you’re preparing for a trip to someone’s home who has something you’re allergic to like a cat. Just remember that if you want the medicine to be effective, you need to take it a couple of days in advance of your trip.
Decongestants - oral or nasal decongestants are great options if your main symptom is a stuffy nose. If you’re already taking oral antihistamines, you can supplement that with a nasal spray before you go to bed to ensure your air pathways are clear. When using a nasal spray, make sure to only take it for a few days in a row as longer use can actually make the symptoms worse.
Neti Pot - Rinsing your nasal passages with a saline solution can help relieve nasal congestion. It might be a bit weird to do at first, but it’s a quick and inexpensive way to clear your sinuses. When using it, make sure to follow the directions and use distilled water. What makes a neti pot so effective is the fact that it actually flushes the mucus and allergens from your system.

Manage Your Allergies For Better Quality Sleep

Allergy season starts way sooner than you think. Just because you have allergies doesn’t mean you have to put up with the symptoms. Sure, you might have to clean more and make a few purchases, but you’ll be able to manage your allergies much better. If anything, a combination of non-prescription medication, regular cleaning, a mattress protector and managing the air quality in your home with a HEPA filter can pretty much remove almost all allergens.

Once you are able to manage your allergies, you’ll realize what a difference it makes in your quality-of-life. You’ll be able to breathe better and, considering the connection between allergy symptoms and sleep deprivation, sleep better too. This can cascade into more energy, better memory, improved mental functions and more. So if you’re suffering from allergies, consider making a few changes in your life and see how much better you feel after a few days.

Shana Thompson is a full time professional writer and editor. Shana has worked extensively in the fields of content marketing, on-page and off-page SEO (guest posts, backlink acquisition), and creative writing. As an experienced pro content writer, Shana has worked on several magazines, publishing companies and marketing agencies. Many recent projects have included everything from nutrition and health services, where a lot of research and citations were needed, to writing about health, sustainable, eco-friendly products.

Follow Shana at Shana Thompson