Tips for Making Your Home Greener and Healthier

Jori Hamilton is a writer from the pacific northwest who is passionate about environmentalism and social justice issues. You can follow her on Twitter @HamiltonJori

Posted on Wednesday 22nd May 2019
Woman wearing blue dress pushing wheelbarrow in outdoor garden

Whether or not home is where you spend most of your time, it’s often where you go to feel cozy and safe at the end of a long day. Therefore, it’s good to invest in the environment you create in your home to make sure it’s a place where you can relax. One way to feel better about your home is by making it an eco-friendly environment that you can feel good about residing in. Another way is by ensuring it’s a stress-free environment where you have what you need to be a healthy person, both mentally and physically.

This can be difficult to achieve if you’re busy or live alone and don’t see the point in organizing the space for just you. However, taking the time to make your place somewhere you want to live will provide you with the essential peace of mind you need to feel comfortable at home. Below are a few ways to work towards transforming your living space for the better:

Deep Clean Your Home

Even if you prefer your home to feel lived in, it’s good to do some deep cleaning every once in a while. Dusting and mopping every few weeks will help your home stay cleaner for longer because it removes the dirt and dust that builds up while. Using eco-friendly cleaning products will keep the quality of your home in good shape and clear the air and ground of bacteria that can be bad for your health while promoting sustainability. A clean home is also beneficial for your mental health and peace of mind, as it reduces the distractions you experience in your home.

Practice Aromatherapy

While you’re decluttering your home and making it as pleasant as possible, consider practicing some aromatherapy in your home. Essential oils are concentrates of natural substances that can relieve stress and evoke calm feelings from people who smell them. They are often used to help with an individual’s emotional and physical health, and they can be used to relieve stress resulting from a variety of mental health issues, including depression and anxiety. Having these in the home can produce a calming environment at any time of day.

Stock Nutritious Foods and Drinks

If you’re working towards a healthy and calming environment, it’s important to remember that a huge part of our physical and mental well-being is our diet. Healthy foods will provide you with the nutrition needed to feel energized throughout the day, which can improve your mood. Similarly, beverages like tea can help you unwind at the end of a stressful day and improve your heart health, boost your immune system, reduce inflammation, regulate your sleep cycle, and improve your overall physical and mental health.

Promote Healthy Sleeping Habits

Maintaining a healthy home means keeping a peaceful environment that helps you relax and promotes positive sleeping habits. Sleep is crucial to a person’s overall health, as it gives the mind and body a chance to recharge from each day. The amount of sleep people need varies from person to person; however, most individuals need between 7.5 and 9 hours of sleep each night to function at their best. Ensuring your home is free of nighttime distractions will help you avoid the consequences of missing out on sleep, such as an inability to concentrate.

Keep an Outside Garden

It’s not just what’s inside your home that matters though. Gardens can be valuable areas of your home for a lot of reasons, including providing you with fresh and natural produce that you can use in your cooking and being a healthier outdoor space than simple grassy lawns. Whether you’re planting produce or flowers, garden use less water and produce a better outdoor environment for insects and bees to live and thrive in. This contributes to both your health as well as ow environmentally friendly your home is.

Grow Plants in Your Home

As beneficial as it is to keep produce, flowers, and plants growing outside your home, it’s also valuable to keep flowers and plants inside your home as well. Plants can improve the health of your home by creating a nice ambience, as well as by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in each room. They can also boost your mood and productivity. However, you only reap these benefits if you keep the plants inside your home alive by watering them regularly, as well as placing them in a spot that allows them to receive the amount of sunlight they need to flourish.

Welcome in the Sun

Opening the windows of your home to sunlight can regulate the amount of energy you spend regulating the temperature of your home and lighting the various areas of your home. This can decrease your carbon footprint by reducing your energy usage. The sun can also serve as a mood booster, as sunlight helps energize and elevate moods by producing vitamin D in the body. It can also individuals maintain a healthy blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and enhance brain function in general.

It’s easy to ignore our home environments when there are other more pressing issues going on in our lives. However, the environment at home often sets the precedent for each and every day,  affecting our overall health. A nice morning at home can set us up for a good day, and cultivating a green and healthy home can ensure that we start each day on the right foot.

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