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| Neti-what? |
A tea pot? What did you say? I know it's strange right? Even stranger is what you do with it...pour water in one nostril and have it come out on the other side. Just lovely. But the concept is simple, by "washing out our nostrils" at least once a day, we are able to remove dust, allergens, and other environmental irritants that we may have "collected" throughout the day. With those "little nasties" gone you can breathe easier, not be hassled by sneezing and sniffling, and know that we've cleaned one of the most important parts of our bodies! Now if you can get over the crazy way it looks and in the beginning, how it may feel, it will be so worth it.
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| Twice a day, you'll find me doing this. |
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| See that spout? It goes in your nose! |
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| All you need: a Neti pot and some salt! |
There are many types of Neti pots on the market, some ceramic and some plastic. You can use what works for you. You can probably guess that since I'm a bit of a plastic-phobe that I went with the ceramic version and I love it. They run about $10-12 and can be found online like here, or at local drugstores or health food stores. The next question is what to put in the Neti pot for rinsing. Well nowadays you can find all kinds of solutions, sprays, and mixtures to put into your Neti pot when rinsing your nose, but those seem complicated for me. I kick it old school and just use water from my sink and some sea salt that I bought from Wal-Mart. If you want to get the fancy, expensive stuff, that's cool...do what works for you.
Neti pot tips:
- I use the Neti pot right when I get up and right before I go to bed.
- I make sure to use warm water...not hot (ouch), and not cold (will feel like you got water up your nose at the pool)
- I always add some salt, it just feels better that way.
Here's a video of how I use the Neti pot (with a little help from Avery):
Here's a play-by-play of how I do the Neti pot:
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| Gather what you need: 1 cup measuring cup, some type of salt (I use sea salt), and a Neti pot. |
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| 1. Add 1 tsp of salt (you could use more or less) to a measuring cup. |
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| 2. Add some WARM water to fill the measuring cup. |
Update: Since posting this, I've got a lot of feedback from readers about how unsafe it is to use tap water for neti pots...something about dangerous amoebas being passed into your sinuses and possibly killing you...seriously? I thought it was pretty bogus and blew it off, because I've been using tap water for years. But, since doing this post about filtering your shower water, I learned more about the nasties that are in tap water. So, just to be safe, I started using my warm, filtered shower water each day to do my neti pot. This makes it a little more challenging to do in the shower, as opposed to the sink, but I just turn the shower on, get my water, and turn it back off (if I don't just do it while I'm taking a shower). Now most "anti-tap water neti potters" suggest simply boiling the water before using it in the neti pot, I'm assuming that using my shower filter will take the place of this since it is supposed to get out not only chlorine, but also lead, mercury, hydrogen sulfide, iron and bacteria, fungus, and mildew are inhibited from growing.
Do you take any precautions with your neti pot water? Or just use tap? Share below.
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| My new neti-pot water source. |
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| 3. Add half of the water/salt mixture to the Neti pot. |
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| 5. Once your done rinsing, blow your nose into a cloth napkin (if you're feeling green). You may notice it might still trickle out of your nose a few minutes afterwards, that's normal! |
So that's how I go green with my allergy routine by using the Neti pot. Sometimes if my allergy symptoms really hit me hard, I supplement with Natural D-Hist, which I blogged about here. Have you ever used a Neti pot before? What kind of solution do you put in yours? Share below!
Recently this post was linked up over Frugally Sustainable as part of the "Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways Blog Hop." So check it out and find more ways you can go green!
