A healthy life starts at home. It becomes easy to make good choices in every aspect of your life when the home is a temple of healthy living. How is a healthy home achieved? Is this costly and difficult? Contrary to what many believe, having a healthy home is not that complicated.
To achieve a healthy home, starting small but sure is the trick. Take a look at the following tips and essentials and a healthy home will be within reach.
1. Plants
Bringing in more plants into the home is one surefire way to having a healthy one. Indoor plants offer significant benefits. They make the air fresher and smell nicer, they are natural humidifiers, and they reduce the levels of benzene and nitrogen dioxide in any space. They are also useful for reducing the airborne dust levels in a home.
Keep in mind, though, that not all plants that are available in the garden center are ideal if you have pets. It’s best to get some research done first before buying a pot or two to put in the living room. After all, when considering a healthy home, the lives of pets should be taken into account as well.
2. Dry & Warm Air
Guess what forms when the air in a home is damp and cold? That’s right, mold does. And mold is a clear indication of a home that’s not good for the health. To achieve a healthy home, make sure that you test it first for molds. Once that’s done, make sure to keep the temperature of your home at least 18 degrees. Proper insulation and heating will make keeping a home warm and dry easy to do.
3. Water Filter
There is no telling how clean the water that comes out of your faucet is. One essential for a healthy home is a good water filter. A good filter will remove the chlorine that’s pumped into the municipal water. This essential isn’t just for drinking water. A filter is also recommended for the shower and bath. Again, this is to keep your skin and hair safe from chlorine. A filter is especially helpful for those living in places with hard or mineral-heavy water. With a filter, shampooing is a more delightful experience.
4. Efficient Energy
A healthy home makes use of energy efficiently. This applies to just about anything in the home that makes use of energy — from grinder pumps that handle waste fixtures, to the sources of light, to the various appliances used in every room. Thankfully, having an energy-efficient home is easy nowadays. Most products sold in the market are always proud to market how green or energy-efficient they are. Go for those and a healthy home will be achievable, one appliance at a time.
5. Teflon-free Cookware
There is no point to using energy-efficient appliances in the kitchen if all cookware still comes coated with Teflon. Research has shown that when heated quite intensely, Teflon-coated cookware releases unhealthy fumes to the air. Great alternatives are stainless steel pots and pans. For the non-stick variety, there’s always ceramic cookware.
6. Green Cleaners
And last but not least, a healthy home is kept clean using green cleaners. This means keeping it free of contaminants that come in the disguise of sprays, wipes, and other cleaning agents. To maintain a healthy home, make sure to stock up on eco-friendly products. There are wonderful options available in the market today. You can also create your own! Finding great DIY recipes for cleaning products is easy. These recipes call only for natural ingredients; no harmful chemicals whatsoever.
To reiterate, the essentials for a healthy home help keep it clean, warm, dry, and efficient when it comes to energy use. As long as these goals are kept in mind, maintaining the healthy status of a home should be easy. And once this becomes second nature, it also becomes easier to be healthy in other aspects of your life. Again, you simply have to start small but sure. Maybe bring home a cactus on the way home from work today.