Protect your sleep from the havoc allergies can wreak on it with these tips.
If you have trouble sleeping a full night due to your allergies, you’re not alone. Studies have shown that 75 percent of allergy sufferers wake up in the middle of the night due to their symptoms and 93 percent report having some trouble sleeping. This makes sense, since the highest allergen counts of the day often occur in the early morning. However, if your sleep schedule has been suffering from the onset of spring allergies, there are a few things you can do to help yourself get better sleep:
- Keep your sheets clean. Although most people wash their bed sheets about once every 10 to 14 days, a better length of time for allergy sufferers is about a week. Washing your sheets every week will keep allergens like pollen and dust from building up in the sheets and aggravating your symptoms while you sleep.
- Don’t let pets sleep in your bed. Even if you have no animal allergies, your pet’s fur can still bring out your allergy symptoms by accumulating allergens. To keep your pet from dragging dirt, dust and pollen onto your freshly cleaned sheets, make a policy of not allowing pets in the bed until allergy season is over.
- Shower at night. This is one of the best ways to keep your allergy symptoms from flaring up at night, as allergens collect on your hair and skin throughout the day. Showering at night will keep these allergens from building up in your bed and causing more allergic reactions later.
Another great strategy for getting a better night’s sleep with allergies is to invest in a HEPA air purifier for allergies. The HEPA filter traps common allergens, cleaning the air so that you can sleep undisturbed by allergy symptoms.