The average person spends 65 percent of their entire life inside their home. Your home is your health. It’s that simple. How can you make your home a "healthy home"? Learn more below.
Healthier Overall Home
- Ventilate your home: If the outside air is clean, use it. If not, install interior air filtration. The concentration of air pollutants could be 2-5 times higher indoors.
- Remove your shoes: You don't want to know what attaches itself to your shoes throughout the day. Don't bring this into your home and spread it around.
- Be certain your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors work and change their batteries regularly.
- Any home built before 1980 probably has lead paint somewhere. Remove lead (professionally) from your home. It's a harmful neurological toxin.
- Let in the light. Humans need light. And they need to see nature. Open up windows and shades to see what is outside and let the outside in.
Healthier Kitchen
- Use a vented hood, or open a window to ventilate when cooking, especially with gas.
- Always have a fire extinguisher within easy reach.
- Use filtered drinking water. A whole-house water filter is best.
- Use Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, which emphasizes tiered strategies to prevent pests. Chemicals are mostly hazardous.
- Avoid plastic and non-stick cookware: Glass and cast-iron are best.
Healthier Bedrooms
- Make the bedroom the room where you focus on healthy sleep. Remove things that activate the brain.
- Darken the room thoroughly and eliminate any blue light that stimulates.
- Make it quiet. Heavy curtains or those lined with sound-reducing lining work well. Add a layer of sound-proof windows. Use earplugs.
- We breathe about 11,000 liters of air every day; a third of all that air you breathe will be in your bedroom. A goodair purifier is wise. A houseplant works wonders too.
- Most humans sleep best in a room with a temperature between 65-70 degrees. Keep the bedroom cool at night.
Healthier Bathrooms
- Reduce moisture and vent outside or open a window.
- Avoid air-fresheners
- Look for effective green cleaners labeled as certified safer by a third-party organization like EPA Safer Choice, Green Seal, or ECOLOGO.
- Many personal products contain toxins. The more fragrant, the chances are the worse they are. Buy products with few ingredients.
- Soaps contain antimicrobials and are marketed with a health claim about killing microorganisms. Avoid them.
- Install preventative fixtures to prevent falls and injuries.
Healthier Outsides
- Don't use harmful pesticides and herbicides. They are cancer-causing.
- Beware of the air quality of attached garages. Never leave a car running in a garage. Ventilate your garage well.
- Secure the envelope: seal exterior cracks and holes and have a proper vapor barrier.
- Be security conscious and secure the perimeter of your home. Motion detecting lights can be effective.
- Have an action plan and tools in the event of a natural disaster or blackout. A generator, flashlights, batteries, food, water, etc.