Many of us know that our homes could use a thorough “detox” of you will. The word detox simply refers to detoxifying your home to remove as many toxic chemicals as possible. It’s one of the ways we can create a healthy living environment and healthy home. You might be wondering why it even matters. After all, a healthy lifestyle is generally comprised of healthy eating and exercise. While this is completely true and essential part of living a healthy lifestyle, studies are also showing that our exposure to toxins and chemicals through our living environment is also causing a great deal of complications in our bodies.
The reason that the home is focused on so often is for a couple of reasons. First, it’s within our control. You may not be able to change your workplace, but you can change the chemicals you bring into your home. This is what we call “being the gatekeeper of your home.” It’s a powerful concept: You are completely in control of anything you allow into your house. You are in charge of the habits that revolve around your cleaning products and personal care products.
The second reason the home is such a great place to focus our energy is because we spend the majority of our time there. Research has been shown that many of us spend about 80% to 90% of our time every day indoors. While some of this time may be at work or school, chances are most of the time is at home from the evening through nighttime to the next morning. I recently took a continuing education class that shared with us that stay at home moms are at a higher risk of a cancer diagnosis than moms who work outside the home. Obviously this could be for various reasons, but it should cause us to look at the area we surround ourselves with.
When you think of your home in terms of health, you might feel overwhelmed. Many families have no idea where to even start, so they never do. The sheer feeling of overwhelm and information overload prevents them from making a positive change in their own homes. Concepts like indoor air pollution feel so vague and nonspecific. But truthfully, they shouldn’t be just glossed over because we don’t understand them fully.
Gaining some knowledge and understanding of what is affecting your home and which synthetic chemicals you should remove right away is the first step to improving your home to make it a haven of health. There are so many amazing resources available to help take steps to reduce harmful chemicals and improve the indoor air quality in your own home. And if you’re thinking this is a costly process and a huge time commitment, I can assure you it’s not. I too had this exact mindset. I never started making changes for fear of the money I would spend and not knowing where to start at all. But the more I learned, and the more I surrounded myself with resources and other families who made these healthy choices, I soon realized it was much more doable than I thought. A few simple changes in the beginning have snowballed to bigger changes and better decisions. And the great news is that ANY family can do these things.
BLOGS & ONLINE RESOURCES
This is a great place to start when you’re just not sure how to get going or if you’re looking to reduce toxins in a specific area of your life or home. For example, I really didn’t start out wanting to learn about changing my entire house. Who really does? That sounds like a lot of work and it sounds overwhelming. But I was interested in learning about my tap water. My family lived in an area where the drinking water had ceomc contaminated and I need to know what I could to do protect us. I learned about water filters and different chemicals that affected our water.
From there it transpired into changing our cleaning routine and has moved on to other areas of our home like personal care products, fabrics and textiles. As a home inspector and building biologist, I also like to focus on creating a healthy environment through increased air flow and reduction of chemicals in building materials. It’s a snowball effect and one thing leads to another until your home is more of a natural haven than a toxic environment.
You can get really specific solutions to areas you want to improve in your own house through resources in my Online Learning Library:
GET ACCESS TO MY ONLINE LIBRARY OF FREE RESOURCES TO PRINT AND CUSTOMIZE FOR YOUR OWN HOME
HEALTHY HOME DETOX COURSE
Sometimes you get to a point where you literally want to go through your entire house and clean it up from toxins and have almost a fresh start. For me it was when I began to learn why indoor air is five times more polluted than outdoor air. I began to learn that volatile organic compounds (VOCS) were in many of the products I was using as I DIYed my way around our house. While I stopped a lot of my DIY projects, sadly, I was still horrified to know what was outgassing in my home and what products really contained.
This is when I got to the point that I’m at now: I wanted to really go through my home and change my habits and make a plan to change the materials within our home to be healthier and more natural.
If you’re at this point, my Healthy Home Detox Course is perfect. It walks you through each and every area of your home with intentional tasks, tools and ways to make your home more healthy and natural. We talk about everything from flame retardants to the importance of a HEPA filter on your vacuum. Once you enroll you get all the downloads and videos that strategically walk you around your home, through your habits and give you actionable steps to improve these areas.
GET LIFETIME ACCESS TO VIDEOS, WORKSHEETS AND GUIDES TO HELP YOU IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF YOUR HOME
CONSULTATIONS
This is another great option if you’re looking for someone to help you one on one and go through your entire home. Everything from addressing EMF exposure to improving your cleaning routine. It’s for when you’ve hit a wall or you just want to trust yourself to a professional.
There are some of us who live in the realm of helping others create a healthier living space through maintenance, toxin removal and habit changes. You may have someone in your area that does this sort of consultation and can create a plan for your home, or you could opt to find someone who does virtual consultations.
Virtual consultations are an amazing tool as you can still walk through your home with someone who is trained to improve your space, even if you don’t have them in your local area. A healthy home consultation can really help you get your footing if you’re having trouble knowing where to go and where to make changes.
But no matter how you make changes in your house, whether it’s as simple as changing your cleaning routine from store-bought to a plant-based cleaner in a glass spray bottle, or as complex as installing a filter to remove heavy metals from your drinking water; every step forward is a positive action. Any change you and your family choose to make is an intentional step towards a healthier house and home.
You can simply and inexpensively begin by removing cleaning products that have toxins and chemicals in them. Second, you can begin to reduce home decorations, textiles and furniture and replace them with a more natural choice. Lastly, consult with a professional about how to make better choices at home.
This is such an awesome idea for a workshop! I have been eliminating chemicals as we finish products and replace them with my essential oil cleaners. We are working on having no plastic or chemicals in the house as much as possible.
It’s a lot or work, but so worth it!
What a great resource! You are so right about indoor air being way more polluted – my daughter and I both have allergies and asthma, so we pay a lot of attention to our indoor air quality, but I know we could still do even more…
I’m glad you could find it helpful, Flossie!
This is a wonderful idea for a workshop! We try to keep chemicals out of our home when possible, but I am sure we still have a lot to learn.
I think we all are learning all the time 😊
Thank you for sharing such great information!
Of course, Janice!!
I can’t believe indoor air is five times more polluted than outdoor air! This post was so informative!
Yuck! Definitely a reason to make some changes!! 👍
Your course would be so helpful for me! We have two dogs and two cats and plan to start a family soon. Being responsible for all these little bodies, I want to make sure they live in the best environment possible!
That’s great that you’re thinking ahead, Elaine. Just being aware is the first step.
Ooo how exciting. I would be well up for taking part in a home detox challenge. Great idea and a healthy thing to do too xx
That’s great!! 😀
These are great ideas and I love the idea of a detox home. I’ll have to give some of these a shot.
Yes!! 🙌
I’ve never thought about detoxing a home, but the concept is brilliant! I would definitely be interested in learning how to do it!
That’s great, Nati! If you want more info I can send it over 😊
this sounds like a great workshop! we stopped using all the harsh cleaning products in our home, and it feels so much better to clean with natural cleaners!
That’s great!!
I totally agree with the fact that you are completely in control of anything you allow into your house. I think this is the preset to how you act, behave with others and how you run your life.
Such a good point, Kristen! It’s an empowering feeling!