Does shower help hayfever? if yes, to what extent? Can it give any long-lasting benefit? And how can you get the most out of your shower time? Answers to these questions will cover in this blog.
If outdoor allergens trigger your hay fever, it is imperative to shower immediately after coming home. When pollen counts are high, pollen can become intertwined with your hair and rest on your skin. Yes, showering will help in hay fever to eliminate those allergens.
The above is from the general perspective that we have about hay fever. But what does Ayurveda have to say about it?
From Ayurveda perspective, the trigger of hay fever is the food you eat and hot and cold body imbalance. So, getting rid of little pollen from your skin and hair will not make any significant impact on your response to hayfever or to your hay fever symptoms.
In most parts of the United Kingdom, winters are colder, windy and wet.
In the winter, cold temperatures and especially cold food knock down the cold balance of the body. For many people, effects or symptoms of that imbalance starts showing after winter. However, throughout the year, you can use shower time to help you restore that cold imbalance a little.
Here are the recommendations from the Ayurveda perspective to make the most out of your shower time especially if you have hayfever cough and hay fever wheezing, hayfever sinus headaches, congested nasal passages:
• Shower time should be no more than 5–10 minutes.
• Shower only before 2 pm because the climate begins to cool down later. And cold is not good for you when your body is suffering from cold imbalance.
• Shut the door to the bathroom to keep the steam in and increase the humidity.
• You can try breathing steam from a hot shower. The steam from the hot water shower helps open up your nasal passages and keeps them from drying out. Inhaling the steam from a hot shower helps clear congested sinuses as well.
• Make sure when you come out of the shower, your body and hair are dry and you are covered. If you washed your hair and they are wet then cover them well when you come out of the shower. Keep yourself and your hair covered until your body slowly adapt to the temperature outside of the bathroom.
• Dry your hair gently but immediately. If you are using a hair dryer to dry your hair then don’t use cold air but use warm or hot air to dry.
On this site we have more tips and information on managing hay fever, to read, click on home and ‘Healing Hay fever’ section.
Please write to us if you have any questions.