Spring is a time that many people love to dread. Most of us (especially those in colder climates) get tired of drab, dirty snow and begin to long for green leaves, blooming flowers, and warmer temperatures.

Unfortunately, the improved weather inevitably brings high pollen levels with it, which means a runny nose, watery eyes, sleepless nights and more sneezes than we care to count.

The worst part of hay fever however, isn’t the list of physical symptoms. The worst part is the disconnected, “foggy” feeling that leaves you feeling completely detached from the world around you.

Yuck.

I know these symptoms well, because for most of my life I had terrible springtime allergies, to the point where I would hate going outside, always being afraid I’d find a yellow film of pollen that had accumulated on the hood of my car, as if to taunt me. I, like so many others, desperately wanted to be “Claritin Clear.”

It wasn’t until this spring, when everyone around me seemed to be commenting on how awful the pollen was this year, or bumming Zyrtec off of one another that I fully realized that I was much better off than I usually was this time of year.

I remember noticing an improvement in my symptoms last year as well and passing it off as good luck… but two blissfully allergy free years in a row was just too much of a coincidence to ignore (not that I’m complaining!). My previously debilitating symptoms are now reduced to some mild sneezing and a slight tickle in my throat for 5 or ten minutes in the morning.

No more congestion, feeling like a zombie or having to alternate what side I sleep on every 15 minutes at night just to be able to breathe!

As thrilling as this change was, I couldn’t figure out what had brought it on. We had moved, but we were only a few minutes from our previous address, in the same town and honestly surrounded by more flowers and trees than we had been before, so that wasn’t it. I wasn’t taking a different allergy medication, heck I hadn’t really taken any medications since we…

…and then it hit me. I’d never been a big fan of unnecessary medication, and allergy season was one of the few times I was willing to compromise and pop a pill for relief, but even that had tapered off a couple of years ago, when Lynne and I made a shift to a diet of predominantly organic foods.

For the last two and a half years or so, Lynne and I have done our grocery shopping almost exclusively at Whole Foods, and at least 95% of the food we prepare at home is organic.

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. There really is (to put it as simply as possible) a lot less crap in organic foods, and not processing the extra preservatives and chemical additives in all the food I ate made springtime a lot easier on my entire system.

Think about it this way: if your body is constantly inundated with artificial flavors, dyes, partially hydrogenated oils, and other harmful ingredients, your entire system is going to be drained and out of balance.

The definition of an allergy is “an abnormal reaction of the body to a previously encountered allergen introduced by inhalation, ingestion, injection, or skin contact…” which basically means your body encounters something it views as a pathogen or threat (even if it isn’t) and responds accordingly.

This leads me to two conclusions. First off, why would your body react abnormally to a substance such as pollen? It stands to reason (especially after my recent experiences) that the introduction of various substances that don’t belong in your body (artificial ingredients in food for example) could disrupt the balance of your immune system, causing it to inaccurately perceive allergens as a threat.

Now, does this mean everyone who doesn’t eat a natural, healthy diet is going to have terrible allergies? No, but for those of use who are susceptible to hay fever, it probably doesn’t help!

The other thing to consider is that when our bodies are weakened due to infection, our immune system is obviously somewhat depleted, making us more susceptible to infection from other sources. Wearing your body down with foods full of various toxins is going to have an impact on your overall susceptibility to various issues, including allergens.

If your system is already worn out by constant exposure to the chemicals in your food, it’s likely to be that much more sensitive to a potential allergen such as pollen, where if you are limiting your exposure to harmful substances you will probably be less sensitive.

Now, not all allergies are the result of food, and eating more healthy, organic foods isn’t guaranteed to eliminate them all together, but it certainly hasn’t made mine any worse. Just some food for thought

Be sure to leave your thoughts and experiences in the comments regarding hay fever and any natural remedies you’ve had success with.