Why Sports Athletes Experience Allergies and What Can Help
Can allergies affect your sports?
Allergies can easily affect athletic performance. When you’re engaging in physical activity, your allergy symptoms may actually worsen as you breathe heavily. You can take in more air which can contain allergens such as pollen, mold spores, and pollution. Allergy symptoms can also make breathing more difficult, affecting your performance.
There's three ways that allergies can affect your athletic performance.
How Allergy Symptoms Impact Your Breathing
The first is obvious if your nose is filled with snot and it's narrowed, you're not gonna be able to breathe through it. And I've seen this with my patients who are marathon runners, who feel like it affects their time. I've seen this with my weekend warriors who just want to be able to get through a soccer game without having to stop, to blow their nose.
And a bunch of my friends are obsessed with Peloton and they feel like it affects their ability to get to the front of the pack because they have to keep blowing their nose and they can't perform.
How Allergies Affect Your Sleep
The second way, is that it affects your ability to recover because if your nose is stuffy every night, you're not going to sleep well because we sleep better when we breathe through our nose. And so this also affects your ability to recover after your performance.
Sinus Infections and Asthma Attacks
And the third thing is chronic allergies can lead to increases in sinus infections as well as asthma attacks. And obviously these will affect your ability to perform as well.
How Do Seasonal Allergies Affect Running?
Seasonal allergies can negatively impact one’s endurance while running because common symptoms include coughing, sneezing, and congestion. These symptoms can affect airflow and the respiratory system. When people breathe in pollen or other seasonal allergens it can irritate their nose. This can cause inflammation and decrease the amount of airflow allowed through the nose, which can make breathing while running more difficult.
Improve Your Athletic Endurance
So if you're someone who's trying to increase your athletic performance and you feel like your allergies are holding you back, you may want to try some of the over-the-counter medications or even the prescription medications or immunotherapy.
Take Our Allergy Assessment
If you’re tired of allergies affecting your ability to exercise outside or participate in sports, choose Wyndly. Wyndly will help you determine the best allergy treatment plan for you to get long-term relief from your allergies. Take our 2-minute online assessment now to get started!
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