Ah, the glory of spring — the time of year when life emerges to the call of the light, plants break ground, bird song fills the air and our spirits lift in celebration of the return of the sun after a long winter. Unless, of course, you’re an allergy sufferer….
From April’s rain showers to May’s sprinkling (and sometimes downpour) of pollen, it’s a cruel joke for many where such a beautiful time of year — full of the yellow hope of new daffodils and the tremendous beauty of nature returning after a cold interior winter — is filtered through the misery of spring allergies, red eyes, endlessly dripping noses, and even mental fog. The trees and plants become harbingers of runny nosed and stuffy eye suffering, releasing a plague upon your sinuses making it so hard to appreciate. Bah!
Spring is also a time of hope, and there is hope, even for sufferers of seasonal allergies; and it’s the time of the liver in traditional Chinese medicine. There is a direct relationship between an overworked and overburdened liver, inflammation, and the flare up of allergies. (Yes organs also get overworked just like we do at times.) The liver helps us process toxins and ‘clear house’. A build up of toxins, clogged up channels, stress, gut barrier and flora issues, all lead to an increase of inflammation in the body, trigger specific immune and histamine responses, and the experience of seasonal allergies.
In the Eastern medical traditions, such as Tibetan Medicine, this has a lot to do with the excess phlegm built up in our system over winter, which begins to ‘melt’, irritating the membranes and leading to symptoms like allergies, sinus infections, coughs, running noses, hay fever symptoms and asthma flair ups.
So what can we do?
Lots actually.
- Make sure to drink lots of water, especially first thing in the morning, to help the system cleanse itself of built up mucus and phlegm.
- Drinking cleansing herbal tea like ginger and cinnamon during the day will also help.
- Eat more lightly and incorporate bitters like dandelion leaf or arugula into your diet.
- Exercise and stretch daily.
- Dry brushing the skin before a shower can get the lymphatic system moving. (Recovery Extra Strength also helps in this.)
- Periodically rinse the nasal passages with clean warm salt water.
- Curcumin can has been used to dry out excess phlegm, in Eastern medical traditions, and reduces irritation and inflammation in general.
- Try incorporating Grapeseed Extract or Recovery Extra Strength to help with the allergen side of things.
- Regular use of good probiotics can help inhibit the entry of pathogens into the bloodstream in the first place, enhance our protective mucosal ‘moats’.
- Then there’s Reishi mushroom. Oh how we love Reishi. By regulating immune response and also supporting liver health in more ways than one, according to Chinese medicine, we not only lower the burden on an overworked liver which is being blasted by allergens, but also relax our minds and settle our physiological systems with a top down approach, easing physiological reactivity. (Along side many more more beneficial effects we aren’t allowed to say here in relation to specific releases and defensive response in the body.)
- And immune balancing and modulating supporting — powerfully offered by Immune 7 — will help keep the system ready, adapted, and strong in general.
As for lifestyle support:
Cleaning up and lightening our diets, lowering processed sugar intake, dairy and heavily fried foods; staying well hydrated; avoiding outdoor activities in the early evenings when trees and plants release more pollen; exercising to get that lymph system flowing; and washing or wiping our hair with a damp cloth before bed to get any pollen out, can all add up to a tremendous change. All this can help minimize or eradicate allergy symptoms.
Plus, it can help to remember that, if your nose is pouring, eyes watering, as much of a pain in the butt as it is, look on the bright side — it’s your own body’s way of spring cleaning so you can be healthier and ready for summer. But there are ways of helping this happen with far less irritation and suffering so you can breathe easy and love the healing balm of nature!
We hope this helps you and your body flow with the rhythm of nature, clean up, and rise to the clear eyed vision of spring’s beauty. (Also, related to the liver!) Feel well everyone.
