How Can I Get Rid of Allergies Naturally?
Although there’s no cure for allergies yet, there’s a lot you can do to significantly reduce the severity and frequency of symptoms.
Based in personal experience and 20 years of clinical acupuncture practice, here’s my top 8 list of things you can do to take a load off your system and get relief:
- Get enough sleep, at the right hours.
Night time is when the liver restores itself and cleans the blood. If you’re awake at night, especially between the hours of 1-3 am, the liver will not be able to do its job, and allergens will stay in the bloodstream, causing bigger reactions to smaller exposure.
Also, the body needs its energy to build the immune system and adrenal function to respond to life. Without enough rest, all systems underperform, and allergies will be exacerbated.
- Watch Alcohol Intake
Sadly, alcohol does at least two things that make allergies worse. It congests the liver and causes inflammation, specifically in the capillaries of the extremities—including the head and face. When the vascular system in the head and face is inflamed, nothing can get through, and it feels very uncomfortable—puffy, stuck, full in the sinuses and head.
A congested liver is like trying to wash dishes in a small dishpan full of dirty water. It can only do so much.
- Instead of Congesting the Waters, Clean Them
There are certain foods and herbal medicines that clean up the bloodstream, and specifically help with allergies. Vitamin C is one of them. Lucidia is also formulated to gently and regularly clean the lymphatic system and blood stream. Parsley, clear vegetable broths, greens, fresh fruits and vegetables, lemons, can also cleanse on a regular basis.
Fried foods, processed foods, hydrogenated fats, highly sweetened foods do not help clean up–rather they slow things down and add to the work the body needs to clean up.
- Minimize Exposure to Chemicals, Synthetic Fragrances, and Allergens
This may seem obvious, but sometimes we don’t realize how strong some of the fragrances are in laundry detergents, cleaning products, and bodycare that we expose ourselves to on a daily basis. That’s a lot of unnecessary clean up for the body! Also some people don’t realize that you can’t go rolling your kid in the grass if she is allergic, or get a cat if someone in the household is allergic! Make it as easy as possible for your body, and minimize exposure to dust, mold, pollens, down (in comforters and pillows), even tissues that let off dust particles into your eyes when you blow your nose.
- Check Your Hormones
If you got allergies all of a sudden now that you turned 50 (man or woman), or they get worse around your menstrual cycle, sometimes hormonal balancing can really help. This can be done naturally, with an acupuncturist or holistic practitioner. Pregnancy can also bring on extreme allergies, which is one of reasons we created Lucidia—for natural supportive relief. Most people don’t connect hormones with allergies but both adrenal and sex hormones can affect severity of allergies.
- Exercise
Exercise can help detoxify through the skin by sweating, open the lungs, and improve circulation to move allergens through and out of the lymph and blood stream. It also tones the organs and improves their regulating functions.
- Emotional Healing
If you suspect this could be helpful to you or are interested in how emotions and attitudes affect allergies, you can check out this simple self healing workshop here: Fresh Squeezed
- Meditation and Breathwork
With a little practice, you can learn how to calm down your allergy symptoms in a few minutes. I created this mini training here: Hawaiian Breezeway Breathing for Immediate Relief
I’m big on keeping it simple. This isn’t a laundry list to add to your things to do. If you’re aware of which one of these is the one that applies to you now, focus on that one. Overwhelm happens to be part of the picture when it comes to allergies—over congested pathways. We can make big progress with one simple change at a time–the change that’s really going to make a difference to your body and well-being.
Peace, and good health for us all.
Nathalie Babazadeh, L.Ac.
