Coughing, sneezing, itchy eyes, mucus, tiredness….ugh what about allergies IS good? Nothing! In all my clients over the years, I’ve noticed one thing: allergies are getting worse, not better.
An increasing number of people have allergies, and the severity of the symptoms seems to be on the rise. What is causing this phenomenon, and is there anything we can do to alleviate allergies from happening in the first place?
The one thing I love about holistic medicine is that the answer to this question is always YES! You don’t have to live with allergies or go through your day drowsy and miserable from over-the-counter medicines.
1. Eliminate All Food Allergens
This includes all genetically modified foods (buy organic foods only), foods filled with chemicals (again buy only organic foods or make your own from organic grown foods), wheat, soy, corn, and peanuts.
These foods are not inherently bad, but because of how these foods are now grown, they have been morphed from what they originally were into foods that cause reactions within the body. When you are trying to calm down the immune system, steer clear of foods known to over stimulate the immune system.
2. Eat Fresh Fruits And Vegetables
During the allergic response, oxidants in your system team up with histamines to attack the body, causing an allergic response. Carotenoids, a phytopigment (chemically active color) in plants, defend against those oxidants.
Food sources of carotenoids include carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, kale, collard greens, papaya, bell peppers, and tomatoes. Fresh fruits and vegetables also help to flush the buildup of toxins in the body. Choose organic produce to reduce your exposure to additional body-harming toxins.
3. Regulate Antioxidant Production
Antioxidants help to defend against oxidants that can trigger the allergic response as previous mentioned, but other specific antioxidants have been found to help eliminate or reduce seasonal allergy symptoms. Recent studies have shown that supplementing with antioxidants can actually do more harm to the body than good.
So a better approach is to increase the body’s own antioxidant production. You can do this by eating foods and herbs that activate “Nrf2” in the body and fresh foods high in antioxidants.
4. Take Probiotics
Probiotics are friendly bacteria in the gut and intrinsically related to a healthy immune system. Probiotics are killed and naturally depleted in most bodies because of the high amount of antibiotics and toxic food additives circulating in our food system.
A high-quality probiotic supplement and eating only organic foods can help to replenish friendly bacteria and naturally strengthen the immune system.
5. Get More Sunlight
Sunlight is important to a healthy body and healthy immune system. Without it, our bodies lack vitamin D, which is needed to regulate hormones and also for a strong immune system.
Know your body and skin type and never allow your skin to burn, but do get some sun exposure on bare skin every day.
6. Have Living Juices
Living juices, juices that have not been processed, refined, or heated, remove toxins stored in tissues and cells, deeply hydrate the tissues, and infuse the internal environment with high levels of vitamin C, antioxidants, oxygen, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals.
Juices, specifically, remove toxins from the insulating sheath that surrounds the nervous system, helping to calm and restore balance to an overly active nervous system.
What Causes Allergies?
If you think the answer to this question is pollen, you are in fact WRONG. Nothing outside of the body causes any health symptoms. This includes colds, flu, and allergies.
[pullquote]If your body is healthy and strong on the inside, even if you come in contact with germs or in this case pollen, your body is intelligent enough and designed to take care of the problem.[/pullquote]
In a study, cold germs were physically placed on the inside of the nasal tissue of the participants. If you think all the participants came down with the cold virus, you’re wrong. More than half of these people did not get affected. Why? In the famous words of Louis Pasteur’s, “The germ is nothing, the soil is everything.”
Allergies are simply a sign of an over-reactive immune system. They tell us that the body’s immune system is overburdened, not functioning optimally, and is now reacting to anything and everything. Of the immune system, 80% resides and is created within the gut. The most important influence right now on the increase in allergy symptoms is our food supply.
Food products like wheat and soy are contaminated with toxic chemicals and GMO organisms and assault our gut and the body. They kill important cells of the immune system and cause confusion within the body and immune system.
Foreign objects, such as man-made chemicals and genetically modified organisms, would normally be processed by the body, made inactive, and disposed of. Because we overwhelm our immune system daily with these contaminants, the immune system goes on high alert. At the same time, it functions less effectively and efficiently because of how damaged and overrun it has become.
A recent study showed that those exposed to certain types of pesticides had a higher rate of allergies. These chemicals are called dichlorophenols (DCPs), created by the breakdown of common pesticides, including chlorinated chemicals used to purify drinking water. They are also found in moth balls, air fresheners, deodorizer cakes in urinals, and certain herbicides sprayed on crops.
Is it any wonder then that a small amount of spring or fall pollen causes the immune system to over react? As this cycle continues throughout someone’s lifetime, allergies and other health symptoms begin to increase.
This is one of the main reasons children these days have such a higher rate of allergies. They are bombarded with processed, sugar filled, chemically laden GMO foods.
