Relief of Hay Fever - part 1

We're having a particularly lovely Spring this year with clear, sunny days and longer evenings, encouraging us to get out into our green spaces and enjoy the flourishing flora, which is truly wonderful - unless you suffer from hay fever .... (or seasonal allergic rhinitis, to give it it's official name).  

Your immune system is over reacting to certain allergens, which in the case of hay fever is tree and flower pollen at the time when they are most prevalent in the atmosphere.  Ideally, it's best to receive preventative treatment during the months when you're not experiencing the symptoms (autumn and winter) but nevertheless, there are ways of treating the symptoms when you are in a full blown attack.

General Symptoms

• stuffy or dry nose
• itchy nose
• itchy and/or dry throat
• itchy and/or watery eyes
• headaches
• tiredness

Over the next few posts, I'll be offering some different and effective ways of helping relieve the symptoms of hay fever and today we're focussing on:

Acupressure Points

Here is a simple, gentle but powerful routine that not only provides you with on-the-spot relief, but with regular daily use, you may well find that your condition  improves.  It takes just 4 minutes and only involves 7 points.  

We'll start with the point locations (in the absence of a decent model, I've taken a selfie and marked the points):  

Point Locations

Large Intestine 20: place your fingers at the base of your nostrils, slide your fingers laterally just a tiny bit (c. ½cm max). An indicator that you've found the points is that they might feel a little bit sore or like a dull ache.

Bi Tong:  At the top of your nostril grooves, again slide your fingers out laterally just a very short way, level with the LI20 point.

Stomach 2:  You might need to look in the mirror for this one.  Looking straight ahead, in line with the centre of your eye, the points are on the border of your eye socket (where the bony bit meets the flesh).

Yin Tang: On the same level and slap bang between your eyebrows.

Routine

I would recommend you find a comfortable place to sit.  You might like to sit at a table where you can rest your elbows.  

You will be massaging/stimulating each pair of points together (exception being Yin Tang as a sole point) and I recommend the following order:  LI20, BT, St2, YT.

For each point:

Start by taking an in-breath with your fingers gently resting on the points.  On the out-breath gently massage the points with tiny circles. Relax the fingers as you breathe in but maintain contact with your skin and then massage again on the out-breath. Continue to massage the points for c. 30 seconds up to a minute then move to the next point.

And that's it!  Would love to hear how you've got on, and here's hoping you can enjoy this season outside and not have to shut yourself away with boxes of tissues.

We'll look at the power of essential oils in my next post.