Can we just stop and take a minute to really appreciate just how possible it is to really embrace healthy living and create a healthy home? I mean this from the bottom of my heart — we have so many resources and a wealth of information at this current time that we can really take our homes and healthy living to the next level.
But one of the biggest hurdles I see otherwise healthy families facing is that they just don’t know where to go next. Yes, we have all these resources, but WHICH ones are the next right step? Which healthy home task will impact my home the MOST?
It makes sense to see this confusion, doesn’t it? There’s almost TOO much information out there telling us all kinds of different advice. You can head to the Google search bar to find a solution to ANYTHING you need, but the results may be conflicting and overwhelming at best.
Just imagine the steps being laid out for you when it comes to reducing toxins in your home. No wondering what you should do next. No more Googling. Instead, imagine you get a list of the most impactful steps to take and what order to take them in to create the ultimate healthy home space.
All you have to do is go through and check the items off as you do them. You get the easy part of simply doing the actions instead of figuring out what those actions might be.
This blog post is going to walk you through the first 8 steps I like to take my families through when they’re working to reduce toxins in their home. The full set of steps is all laid out in the Healthy Home Blueprint, which is essentially what you might think — a blueprint for a healthy home that you can create on your own timeline. (And I have a 50% discount for you when you watch my free training)
MINDSET SHIFT FOR HEALTHY LIVING
Let’s be honest, sometimes you just have to start thinking about things differently for them to call into place. Creating a healthy home doesn’t have to be all about consuming and buying new products or items. It doesn’t have to cost you a lot and it doesn’t need to be an intricate process of complicated projects.
By adjusting your mindset for healthy living to embrace flexibility and be open minded to new habits and changes, you’ll move along the healthy home track at a more rapid pace.
Sometimes we have to remember with healthy living the things we STOP buying and the things we STOP doing are almost more important than the things we start doing or purchasing.
Another adjustment you can make is to really embrace the idea that you can only do the best with what you have. If that means just working on the habit changes rather than bigger projects, that’s great. Any step forward in healthy living is an improvement to your overall health and wellness.
WHY IMPACTFUL, YET SIMPLE STEPS ARE BEST
I love to help my clients figure out what the most impactful changes are to their space. And once we know what changes are going to have the most impact on their healthy home, it’s time to find the SIMPLEST of those to change.
This is the best way to start when you’re taking your healthy living into your living space. By focusing on the changes that will be the simplest for you to make, it’s easy to start to snowball your changes and habits. By layering on one change after another, your home becomes healthier, more quickly.
This also helps habit changes stick. It’s much easier to add just one habit at a time that will help reduce toxins from your space. You’re more likely to stick with these changes to your lifestyle as you add more on without getting overwhelmed.
HIGH IMPACT STEPS TO CREATING A HEALTHY HOME
ONE: Improve Indoor Air Ventilation
By Improving indoor ventilation, you can reduce CO2 in your air, VOCs, and other toxins like formaldehyde that off gas inside your space. The more energy efficient your home is, the more important ventilation is to your healthy home.
Ventilation does two things in your home. The first way it improves your air is by moving your indoor air (and toxins) from inside to outside. The second way your indoor air benefits from ventilation is by diluting the indoor air (and toxins), with fresh air from outside.
So you can see that ventilation is a HUGE part of improving your indoor air at home by reducing toxins that can impact your immune system, respiratory system, endocrine system and natural hormone production.
My exact formula for improving ventilation at home can be found in the Healthy Home Blueprint, but essentially, it’s four simple steps:
- Open Windows
- Run HVAC Fans
- Use Vented Fans
- Turn on Ceiling Fans
This post really dives into creating a healthy home and improving your healthy living habits through ventilation.
TWO: Make Getting Rid of Dust a Habit
I say this all the time, dust is more than just unsightly. It’s actually filled with toxins and bacteria. In fact, some of the worst toxins end up inside our home as dust: pesticides, flame retardants, PFCs and phthalates.
These chemicals have been labeled as carcinogenic, endocrine and hormone disruptors as well as creating reproductive problems.
There are some REALLY simple ways you can start working in dust removal to your healthy living habits. And I promise you’ll actually love the results in your home, which will help off-set the dread of doing these chores.
Use a HEPA filter vacuum and get in the habit of vacuuming on a regular basis. Some areas like an entry area or mud room might need vacuuming even once a day. (I prefer the Shark Navigator LiftAway or Dyson V6 or better).
And then get in the habit of dusting your home every one to two weeks. Make sure you don’t miss areas like HVAC grates, ceiling fans and hard to reach places that collect dust. (This dusting mitt is by far my favorite thing I’ve tried for dusting my home).
And finally, make sure you replace your furnace filters on a regular basis. Make sure your filters are at least a MERV12. If you can find a furnace filter with carbon, it’s a total healthy home bonus. I prefer NordicPure Filters for my home — they’re affordable and high quality.
As a HUGE bonus to reducing dust, getting a high quality air purifier is KEY. After tons of research, I chose MedifyAir purifiers for our home. Not only are the extremely cost effective, but after using them for the past three years, I can tell you they are one of the BEST purchases we’ve ever made for our home. (You can use my discount code HHOTB15 for $15 off)
This post will guide you even more on removing toxic dust from your home.
THREE: Leave Shoes & Bags at the Door
Removing shoes at the door and creating a no-shoe policy in your own home can help reduce the amount of dust and dirt coming into your house in the first place. Utilizing a rug to help catch the particles before they get tracked around your home is another great idea.
Shoes and bags can bring in toxins from asphalt, which has been linked to an elevated risk of cancer. We can also bring in pesticides, bacteria and viruses when we walk through the house in shoes. (STUDY)
The idea is that your entryway is like the gateway to your home. You can use this space to leave bags, backpacks and anything else that has been out in our toxic world instead of letting them in on countertops and beds.
One of my favorite posts I’ve done is this one about creating a healthy entryway in your home. It’s a great place to start tackling the gateway to your home.
FOUR: Throw Away All Air Fresheners & Scented Candles
Synthetic fragrances are basically a concoction of chemicals mixed together to mask the smell of a product. These chemicals often contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs), that affect hormone production and reproductive function. (STUDY).
Anything with fragrance generally contains neurotoxins. Phthalates are found in fragrance compounds, which are considered to be “trade secret” and so the specifics are often unknown. These toxins as well as chemical sensitizers that are added to products both have been classified as neurotoxins that negatively impact the brain. Imagine how you could detox your space if you got rid of scented candles, air fresheners, wax melts or air sprays? It’s a huge source for your home’s toxic load that can easily be avoided.
What if you were able to get rid of all your air fresheners and scented candles? Do you know just how beneficial that would be to your home?!
I know you think you’ll miss them, but I promise you, as someone who LOVED scented candles, you will barely even notice.
This workbook is a great printout if you’re ready to ditch fragrance all over your home.
FIVE: Work to Reduce Humidity Levels
The ideal humidity level for a home is between 35% – 40%. Anything lower and you’ll feel incredibly uncomfortable; and any higher, you’ll increase your chances of mold growth, dust mites and increase the rates at which VOCs off gas. A simple hygrometer is key to knowing what your humidity levels are, and I highly recommend having this tool in your own home.
Most of the time you can manage to high humidity levels with just some habit changes:
- Run vented fans during and after cooking, bathing and laundry
- Use ceiling fans to circulate air
- Don’t overwater your lawn or garden near your home
- Don’t overwater indoor plants
- Refrain from line-drying laundry inside
- Cook with lids on
If that still doesn’t work, you can always add a dehumidifier to your space. This download for creating the perfect indoor humidity levels is super helpful if you need to raise or lower your humidity levels in your healthy home.
SIX: Get Electronics Out of Your Bedroom
My recommendation to all my clients is that they actually remove electronics from their room completely. But I totally get that sometimes you may need a baby monitor or a sound machine in your room to get a good night’s sleep too.
So the second best scenario is to at least keep all electronics 6 feet from your sleeping area if at all possible. The reason is the EMFs produced by electronics are harmful to not only our sleep, but also our body as a whole.
First we must understand that our body has natural electromagnetic fields. Our natural EMFs vibrate at a low number of cycles. Electromagnetic fields from electronics vibrates at a higher rate of oscillation. The discrepancy between these two rates of humans and electronics is what can prevent you from falling asleep. They have also found that the higher vibrations of unnatural EMFs can pull you out of a deep sleep, which will disrupt your sleep process, leaving you tired. A study performed in 1999 showed that magnetic fields in the same room as a sleeping person caused a decreased time in REM sleep as well as a broken sleep pattern.
The same study also that showed the pineal gland’s production of melatonin, which helps you fall asleep was decreased when individuals were exposed to more EMFs during the day. That’s right, your exposure to electromagnetic fields during the day can actually inhibit your sleep at night.
The other way that electronics and electromagnetic fields can disrupt your sleep is by the light given off by the electronics that create the EMFs. When you watch TV or look at your phone, your body’s natural response to the blueish light is to decrease the production of melatonin. Melatonin is what your pineal gland produces to help you fall asleep and stay asleep. This is why we sleep in dark rooms and why it’s generally easiest for us to fall asleep at night.
This post is SUPER helpful to understand electronics and your health.
SEVEN: Pair Down Your Cleaning Products
Don’t gloss over this section if you think you already use a healthy cleaner. I’m here o tell you that even brands that are touted as healthy have been TOTALLY greenwashing us all.
Take inventory of your own cleaning cabinet with the help of a third party app and get rid of anything with toxic ingredients. (This post will also help you understand your cleaning supplies)
One of the best changes we ever made when we were adjusting our healthy living habits was to use a concentrated cleaner that worked for multiple uses. I researched and tried the most popular ones, and the one we settled on and have been using for the past few years is AspenClean. I love this one for everyday use to clean kitchen counters and tables and even the bathroom. It is EWG verified and that concentrated bottle lasts FOREVER.
And then I also use simple things that I have around the house for cleaning such as peroxide, vinegar, baking soda and Tea Tree Oil.
I realized that by simplifying my cleaning products, I was naturally bringing in fewer toxins and creating a healthy home in a very organic way.
EIGHT: Invest in a Water Filter
That’s right. Before you even consider getting an air purifier, I would LOVE for you to have a water filter added to your healthy home. We consume SO much water throughout the day, and this water, even treated city water can come to us with SO many contaminants.
PFAs, Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, Radon, Nitrates, Pesticides — the list goes on to over 200 harmful chemicals and toxins that end up in our drinking water. We ingest these toxins when we drink or eat food that uses our water, which can not only impact our overall body, but specifically, our gut microbiome, hormone production, brain and cardiovascular system. Contaminated drinking water is a serious issue in many homes and it goes unnoticed by many until health concerns arise.
The great news is, you don’t have to get an expensive filtration system right away. Anything is better than nothing, and so you can start with a water pitcher and then work up towards a water filtration system for your sink and then your whole home.
If you were to break down the steps, it might look like this:
- High Quality Water Pitcher (first tier)
- Point of Use Multistage Water Filter System (second tier)
- Whole House Water Filtration System (third tier)
I have tons of resources on my site that pertain to water and water filtration systems:
Whether you’re at the very beginning stages of figuring out how healthy living and your healthy home go hand in hand, or you’re ready to take new steps forward, I’m here with resources to guide you through the journey and process. It can feel like big changes, but remember that any small step forward has a positive impact on your health and wellness.
