It’s allergy season again and if your allergies are anything like mine, you’ve had trouble sleeping through the night this time of year. These are a few of things, I’ve found that help me sleep.
What are some steps you can take to sleep better?
Where is the best place to start?
Here are some things that have helped me give my sinuses a rest, so I can sleep this summer and fall.
How best to clean your bedroom?
- Go for a spartan look – clear out your bedroom of all surplus stuff as much as you can. Extra things on top of bureaus and dressers just collect allergens and dust.
- Microfiber cloths It’s best to clean all the horizontal surfaces in your bedroom by wiping them down with a microfiber towel. The microfiber has smaller fibers and a positive charge that will collect smaller particles than if you used a normal cloth or cotton rag.
- It’s best to follow a top down cleaning method, start at the top of things and work your way down.
- Eliminate all the dust with a good quality HEPA Vacuum Cleaner. This means using special tools to get into those hard to reach places such as tops of pictures, door headers, corners, blinds, lampshades, underneath the bed or furniture. Use the vacuum twice weekly. Do not use a cloth dusting rag, it just redistributes the dust and aggravates your allergies.
- Take out as much carpeting and as many draperies as you can possibly stand, they are a prime harbinger of dust mites.
- Wash your bedclothes weekly in 140° degree water (turn up your water heater setting) so it kills dust mites.
- Use a fine filtration material at point of entry to your bedroom for force air heating systems.
- Have your duct work professionally cleaned.
- Don’t forget to change the filters for your portable Air conditioner.
- Change the filters on your furnace once per month. Use the pleated disposable kind or better Electrostatic Furnace Filters.
- Close your closet door.
- Cover your bed with Dust Mite Covers, and vacuum the bedding on a weekly basis.
- Use a Vapor Steam Cleaner on your bedding to assist in killing dust mites between washes.
- Use a high quality Hepa Air Filter to filter out allergens. Find one that will do the job at low frequency so that you do not have to live with noise of a filter at high speed.
For a more extensive discussion of the “allergy free bedroom” look out for the next issue of Allergy Consumer Review.