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Your allergies leave you miserable--so you do what you can to avoid the problem. You wash away any allergens and maybe even take the latest remedies, but have you thought about checking your stress levels?

Benjamin Norman knows a thing or two about stress. "I'm a single father raising a teenage boy," he explains.

To add to his anxiety, his allergies leave him hurting year round. He complains, "clogged up, wheezing, runny nose, eyes watering, so that's, it's pretty extreme."

Allergy stricken and anxious--what does one have to do with the other? A lot! Ohio State researchers set out to show what happens to hay fever sufferers under stress. Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser is a clinical psychologist. She explains, first they exposed the subjects to the allergens, then they added the stress factor.

"To stress these people what we did was bring them into the laboratory and tell them they had five minutes to prepare a speech about why they were the best person for a particular job and then they delivered it to a panel of two or three people," Dr. Kiecolt-Glaser says.

Researchers compared the size of the wheals, or hive-like reactions, before, during and after stress. The size of the wheals didn't change with people who were not stressed, but if people were moderately anxious it was about 75% bigger. If they were really anxious, it was about 200% bigger.

Researchers like Ronald Glaser, Ph.D, Professor of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics agree stress has effects.

"Stress affects allergies at least two different ways. There's an early event, acute and up to 24 hours, or late phase response," Dr. Glaser explains.

It's well documented that stress impacts the immune system. Researchers now suspect stress causes increased levels of compounds that heighten an allergic response, and the resulting symptoms may be more persistent.

"One of the symptoms will be perhaps runny nose, or symptoms very similar to having a cold so you can treat with typical types of cold medications but you can't use antihistamines, which is typically one of the most effective drugs to use," Dr. Glaser warns.

The recommendation: Try to decompress so you can stop the sneezing. Ben says he'll try. "Everybody deals with stress differently. Some people get ulcers and I've never had ulcers so maybe it's affecting my allergies."

A physician at the American Academy of Allergies, Asthma and Immunology tells us this study provides confirmation that there is a connection between stress and allergies. Our expert believes this is just the beginning for studies on the subject.