Dry air can cause moisture to evaporate from the skin and can cause respiratory problems to worsen over time. This happens especially during the winter season when different ailments may become pronounced due to the harsh cold dry air.
In addition, the heating systems in your home and office tend to dry the air on the inside which may lead to numerous issues. Therefore, adding moisture to the air with a humidifier can counteract these problems.
Humidifiers can also help persons who experience:
- itchy and dry skin
- dry and irritated eyes
- dry nasal passages, throat or airways
- worsened asthma and allergy symptoms
- frequent coughs
- nose bleeds
- sinus headaches
- cracked lips
Here are the benefits that come along with using a humidifier in your home or office:
1. Helps Prevent the Spread of Viruses
Viruses and bacteria can’t travel in moist air. Moisture has the ability to prevent the movement of germs, as they combine with this moisture and simply drop. This happens because the airborne particles are now too heavy to float around in the air.
A recent study found that raising indoor humidity levels had a dramatic effect on airborne viruses making them virtually ineffective. As a result, researchers are now encouraging hospitals to increasing their humidity levels to protect doctors, nurses and visitors from also getting sick.
Moreover, a study noted that humidifiers may reduce the risk of catching flu as researchers found that humidity levels above 40% rapidly deactivates virus particles, making them less likely to be infectious.
2. Helps Reduce Snoring
We tend to snore when our sinuses and throats are dry. Increasing the amount of moisture in the air can reduce snoring by soothing the tissues at the back of the throat, so adding humidity to the air by running a humidifer at night is very beneficial.
Additionally, running the humidifier throughout the day may also help your throat stay moist and prevent the irritation that is commonly associated with snoring. A moist environment also tends to feel warmer and more comfortable, which can encourage a good night’s sleep.
3. Makes Cough More Productive
Dry air can lead to a dry, unproductive cough. Adding humidity to the air can get more moisture into the airways, which can make a cough more productive. A productive cough releases trapped or sticky phlegm.
4. Helps Prevent Dry Skin
Many types of conditioning units release dry air through the house or office resulting to a dry, itchy, or flaky skin. When your skin is dry, it may crack and wrinkle more easily which can be very uncomfortable.
Additionally, skin-related conditions causing itchy skin such as eczema can disturb sleep. The National Eczema Association states that a damaged skin barrier alongside with uneven humidity levels can worsen these symptoms.
Thus, running a humidifier can help prevent your skin from drying out. The added moisture in the air may help improve your dry or itchy skin, peeling or chapped lips and dry eyes thereby helping you maintain that glowing, vibrant look for all your holiday parties and group reunions.
5. Benefits For Your Home
Studies have shown that humidified air may actually feel warmer than dry air. This can be attributed to the fact that with more water in the air, sweat evaporates more slowly, leaving people feeling warmer.
- Reduced heating bill. If you add some moisture to the air, it will feel warmer, so thermostats can be lowered, thus conserving energy and saving money.
- Healthier houseplants. Moisture-loving houseplants, especially those of tropical variety, will be able to survive and thrive longer making it become more vibrant.
- Long-Lasting Furnishings. A humidifier can help preserve the integrity of your wooden furniture, moldings and doors, maintaining your pieces for years to come. It can also maintain the textured paint on the walls and ceilings and make them last a lot longer.
6. Relieves Symptoms of Allergy
Allergy sufferers tend to feel more comfortable with heightened humidity, as it may help soothe the tissues in the throat and nasal passages. Nonetheless, newer and modern models of humidifiers can help relieve allergic symptoms without creating an environment for unwanted house guests like dust mites that worsens allergy.
7. Reduces Static Electricity
Humid air may reduce static electricity. This situation can be very annoying when associated with your laundry or frizzy hair and notice that touching certain fabrics, other people, or your pets can cause a little shock. Also, it can even damage sensitive electronics as well as create sparks which could damage flammable gas or dust.
Properly humidified air may help alleviate this annoyance and may prevent most problems that originates from it.
8. Benefits For Your Babies and Children
For babies and young children, dry air could potentially cause health issues. Using a humidifier may help keep the air within acceptable moisture levels and therefore provides some great benefits:
- Helps them breathe easier. A good humidifier can keep the air in your child’s room moist, which may help keep their nasal passages clear and loosen nasal congestion.
- Protects their sensitive skin from becoming too dry. Putting moisture back into the air could help your child’s skin stay moisturized every day.
Possible Risks of Using Humidifier
Aside from the advantages of using a humidifier can provide, it also has its own drawbacks.
- Growth of bacteria and fungus caused by uncleaned humidifiers. As an example, the Legionella pneumophila which causes Legionnaire’s disease is a serious form of pneumonia.
- Just another thing to clean because humidifiers must be checked and cleaned faithfully to avoid the potentially serious problems from occurring. Check the appliance every three days or so, watch out for residues collecting on the water’s surface, hard water deposits and any other signs of stagnant water.
- Noise can be produced by some humidifier models. You may want to opt for ultrasonic models which are the quietest ones.
- Excess moisture produced by those humidifiers which are not self-regulated. Humidifiers on the market with humidistats or hygrometers, devices used to measure the amount of humidity and water vapour in the air, are available and worth the extra money since overly moist air is just as bad, or worse, than air that is too dry.
- White dusts produced when the minerals from the water in the humidifier evaporate and fall. Though the effects of breathing dusts are unknown, it is believed to be potentially unhealthy. It can be avoided by using distilled water, which has less mineral content than tap or bottled water.
If you notice moist on your interior windows, water drops on your kitchen table, molds growing anywhere in the house, not having a humidistat in your home, or noticing any of the above mentioned factors simply use your air humidifier less often.
Types of Humidifiers
Most humidifiers have the same basic functions but they usually differ on their ways of adding moisture to the air.
- Steam vaporizers create steam, by heating the water, cooling it down then pushing it to the air. These are the most portable and cheapest models, however, there is a risk of burning the skin because the water is boiled first killing all those bacteria and fungi, therefore people should avoid using steam vaporizers around children. You may find it from Amazon.
- Ultrasonic humidifiers uses ultrasonic vibrations to vaporize water. With both cool and warm mist options available, ultrasonic humidifiers are versatile. You may find a range of these from Amazon.
- Evaporators produce humidity by blowing air past evaporating water. It is an affordable option but may be problematic as it may produce excess moisture in the air.
- Impeller humidifiers are generally child-friendly and use rotating disks, rather than heat, to vaporize water. You may find this from Amazon.
- Central humidifiers have units connected to the central air conditioning of the home or office to add moisture to the entire space. It helps humidify the entire household instead of just one room. However, it is the most expensive model. You may find one from Amazon.
- Warm mist humidifiers operates just like the steam humidifiers but they cool the water first before it comes out lowering the chances of burn. You may find one from Amazon.
- Cool mist humidifiers are those units where the impeller releases water at a screen that breaks the water into a fine mist. They are self-regulating. The ultrasonic humidifiers fall under this category. You may find a range of these from Amazon.
- Console humidifiers are large enough to humidify your whole house. Some can even be installed at your work along with your furnace.
Basic Tips
Essential tips to perform when using a humidifier involves:
- Using distilled or demineralized water which contains fewer minerals can save you a lot of work as regular tap water has minerals that create deposits on your machine and promote bacterial growth
- Changing the water in the humidifier daily to avoid molds to grow
- Cleaning the unit regularly or once a week using a disinfectant
- Cleaning the filters, if the unit has one, as instructed by the manufacturer
- Keeping track of the humidity levels
- Being cautious when using it around children
Conclusion
Humidifiers can benefit people with skin issues or respiratory problems especially those who live in areas with low humidity levels. However, it is important to understand that humidifiers cannot treat underlying conditions, such as asthma. They may be beneficial as a home remedy but they should not replace medical treatment.
Stop using a humidifier and consult your doctor if you have symptoms that don’t improve or seem to be getting worse because of the humidifier.
Author’s Notes
Air purifiers and humidifiers are two different units with different functions, so you should not be confused. A humidifier produces moisture in the air while a purifier removes pollutants and odors. Some brands combine the two, but typically the combination counteracts the effects of the other. Nevertheless, using an air purifier at the same time can also help improve indoor air quality.
Personally, I have been using the InnooCare Cool Mist Humidifier (shown below) which I have bought from Amazon several months ago.
Fortunately, I can say that it really reduced snoring episodes of some of our family members. Also, it lessened the occurrence of my allergic rhinitis which I always complain having every morning after I wake up. It even helped my dry skin which usually becomes flaky due to the harsh cold air produces by our air conditioning unit. Aside from that, considering the benefits of having plants inside your room, I also have few succulents which now became livelier than those I have had before.
How about you? Do you have a humidifier at home or are you planning to buy one? Consider it as it’s totally worth having one.
Have we missed some benefits or tips? Please let us know by leaving a comment down below. Cheers!