I came across the idea of nasal cleansing when I was looking through a yoga manual. As far as I understand the basis of yoga and its Buddhist routes, the principal is one of purity; purity of mind and purity of body. I have to admit, as much as I agree with the principals of keeping your body as ‘clean’ as possible, I suffer from hay-fever every summer and was wondering if nasal cleansing might be the answer to my problems.
Nasal cleansing is an ancient practice which can easily be adapted into today’s lifestyle. A saline solution is poured into the nose, removing excess mucus and any other debris that may coat the nasal passages. A ‘neti pot’ may be used to easily pour the solution into one nasal passage, so that it runs freely out of the other.
I, as usual, was apprehensive at first. I looked up a lot of information about how to pour and the equipment I was using was pretty easy to understand. I bought sachets of pre-measured saline solution, in the interest of safety and was very careful to follow all instructions to the letter. For seven days, I rinsed my nasal passages, running 120 ml of saline solution into each nasal passage in turn.
After a week, the results were astounding. I have no affiliation with any product (although you should know that I may gain revenue if you click through to one of the products from the links below!), but I can honestly say that after only a couple of days I could breathe more freely, and after one week all my summer symptoms of hay-fever (which had been terrible the previous week, in very similar weather and pollen count) had completely disappeared. I was astounded. I would love to see whether it has any sort of effect for sufferers of asthma or any other type of allergy.
There was only one real side-effect, namely the taste of the salt solution in my mouth afterwards! It isn’t pleasant, but I would rather put something simple, such as salt, into my body instead of taking complex medications. I always like to try the most natural of remedies. If you are interested in trying out nasal irrigation, please make sure you follow any guidelines provided by the manufacturer though, as putting stuff into your body could otherwise do you more harm than good! The products I used are below – they were fine for me, but I cannot vouch for how they may work for you.
