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“I would wake up in the morning and it felt like my face would crack from the dryness,” says New York City resident Carole Klein. “But once I started using a humidifier, I had no problem.”
Dry skin is just one reason that experts recommend using a humidifier, a device that emits water into the air to increase moisture levels (humidity) in your home or office. The National Institutes of Health recommends the use of humidifiers to help relieve congestion from the common cold, flu and sinus infections. And humidifiers can also help alleviate the symptoms of dry eyes, eczema, itchy skin, dry nasal passages, cracked lips and nosebleeds due to dry air, allergies or asthma.
Riley Greene, M.D., of the Denver Skin Clinic says that in the case of eczema or itchiness due to dry skin, a humidifier can do more than just alleviate symptoms — it can prevent them altogether. He counsels his patients to turn on their humidifiers at the same time they turn on the heating system in their homes.
“Using forced-air heating in your house can decrease the humidity level to 10 percent,” he explains. “The skin needs humidity levels of at least 30 to 40 percent to stay healthy.”
And when your skin is healthy, it won’t just feel better — it will look better too.
“When the skin dries, wrinkles appear more prominent,” says Greene. "If your skin is hydrated, it will look plumper and hide the wrinkles."
Generally humidifiers provide the greatest benefit in the cold winter months, but in dryer climates they can be used year-round. Aside from making your skin feel and look better, boosting the moisture in your indoor air can help your nasal passages, too.
Sandra Freed has been using a humidifier in her Denver home for the last five years to combat nose bleeds. “My allergist recommended I get a humidifier to moisturize my nasal passages at night while I slept,” she says. "I did, and it stopped the nose bleeds immediately."
While using a humidifier generally won’t prevent colds, sinus problems or allergies, they can alleviate the symptoms to help you get to sleep and get on with your life.
Erin Sturga, who also lives in Denver where the climate is very dry in both winter and summer, uses her humidifier all year: cool mist in the summer and warm mist in the winter. “I find that it keeps my sinuses happier at night while sleeping,” she says. “Before I used one, I would wake up congested at times, and with a sore throat at other times. Also my skin was extremely dry. I find that I need to use less skin lotion when the humidifier is on nightly.”
Parents often use humidifiers to help ease their children’s cold symptoms, since there are so few medications you can safely give to very young kids.
“Parents are desperate to do something when their baby is sick with a cold — and there aren’t too many things that they can do to relieve that snotty nose or cough,” says Ari Brown, M.D., author of Baby411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for your Baby’s First Year. “The mist can help loosen up the mucus and make it easier to cough or swallow those secretions.”
Which type of humidifier should you buy?
When choosing the right humidifier for your house, start by deciding whether you want to humidify just one room (usually a bedroom), or the whole house. Generally, a unit for your bedroom and/or your children’s rooms will suffice. But if you live in a very dry climate or have severe sinus symptoms, you might want to invest in a whole-house system.
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