Dry air can have a serious impact on your overall health and wellness. Be aware of how your body, sleep, and concentration can be adversely affected.
When winter hits, temperatures and humidity levels plummet. There is a reason why you tend to get sick more often during this time of year, as dry air negatively impacts your overall health and wellness. While you may run the heat during the winter to keep temperature levels comfortable, heaters often dry out the air even more.
It’s no wonder why humidifiers are a popular winter season product, as you do anything possible to add necessary moisture to the air to feel and function at your best. There are several ways dry air can put your health at risk for illness this season. Read on to learn about the adverse effects of dry air and how proper humidification can be the problem solver.
Dry Air: The Enemy of Wellness
The human body is composed of 60 to 80 percent water, which is why you have such an adverse bodily reaction to extremely dry air. To function properly, you need to be in an environment with ample levels of moisture in the air. When this does not happen, discomfort sets in, and you become more susceptible to sickness. Respiratory ailments such as asthma, bronchitis, sinusitis, and nosebleeds are common forms of negative health effects of severely dry air.
When air is exceptionally dry, you may notice it first in your nasal passages. Inside the nose are tiny mucous membranes that need moisture to function properly. These act as a protective filtration system for your respiratory system, preventing potential harmful irritants from entering the body. When these membranes get dried out, they stop functioning properly, unable to filter out bacteria or viruses.
This is why your risk of colds, the flu, and other respiratory illnesses are higher during periods of very low humidity. One study even found that viruses survive longer and spread more easily when humidity levels are low. Nosebleeds are also more common when exposed to extremely dry air.
Dry air also disrupts the moisture balance needed for your eyes to have a healthy surface, resulting in irritated and itchy eyes.
Dry air can be detrimental to your body’s natural protective layer, the skin. When moisture is pulled from the skin during periods of low humidity, your skin becomes rough, itchy, and often leads to cracking. Dry skin loses its ability to function as the natural protective barrier, making it easier for germs, allergens, and chemicals to infiltrate the body through cracks in the skin.
For those who already suffer from chronic skin diseases like eczema, dry air can be especially irritating and painful as it is harder it treat skin that is already sensitive under these conditions.
Dry Air Affecting Sleep
For many, getting a good night of sleep is difficult enough. When you factor in the dry winter air, a comfortable night’s sleep is that much harder to achieve. As mentioned above, dry air can have unhealthy effects on the body. It can be difficult to get a good night of sleep when breathing becomes difficult due to a sore throat or dry nasal passage.
Sleep is your time to rest, recharge, and rejuvenate from the day. If that is disrupted due to feeling uncomfortable from dry air, you are even more susceptible to getting sick.
Taking dry air out of the equation, your body naturally loses moisture through perspiration and respiration. It is common to wake up feeling thirsty for this reason, but additional factors like dry winter air and heating systems become an even bigger sleep disruption, making you feel extremely dehydrated and fatigued upon waking.
Dry Air Impacting Focus and Concentration
It is no secret that dry air has an impact on your productivity. Several studies have shown how air quality in schools and office buildings has a significant effect on focus and concentration.
For a majority of those in the workforce, you spend roughly 40 hours a week in the same indoor environment. If the air quality is poor, it is most likely to start taking an effect on your health. Constant daily exposure to dry air results in respiratory illnesses and other ailments like dry skin, headaches, and irritated eyes. This makes it more difficult to focus and concentrate on work and can lead to absences and sick days.
Humidification: The Solution to Dry Air
For any of the mentioned problems due to dry indoor air during the winter, a humidifier is an obvious solution. Ask anyone who lives in a climate that experiences extreme changes in temperature and humidity levels: when winter arrives, so does the humidifier. It is essential for living areas, bedrooms, and offices, as dry air is a debilitating factor that gets in the way of performing everyday activities.
That is why we have worked so hard at Venta to perfect the humidifier. We know how critical proper indoor humidification is to feel your best. The Venta Humidifier is built with your health and wellness in mind, never over-humidifying due to our cold evaporation system, ensuring that your air only takes the moisture it needs, never producing too much humidity, which can be dangerous.
The Venta Humidifier units do not produce any sort of hot steam or cool mist, proving to be a healthy alternative to traditional humidifiers. According to Consumer Reports, some humidifiers put you at risk of illness by releasing harmful bacteria into your air. Venta is proud to manufacture a room humidifier that is not only safe but also works efficiently without filters.
Our patented Disc Stack technology naturally reduces airborne pollutants, retaining them in the water reservoir, and by way of the cold evaporative humidification system, only pure, humidified air is released into your space.
The Venta Humidifier is the dry air solution, making your health and wellness a priority. Learn more about how dry air affects your health and wellness on the Venta website!
