Oftentimes trying to live a cleaner, healthier lifestyle can feel a bit overwhelming and sometimes so dang expensive. But with these 5 Simple (and Free) Ways To Detox Your Home, you’ll get the ball rolling and in no time be ready to step up your game!
5 Simple (and Free) Ways To Detox Your Home
Open your windows daily, if at all possible.
Believe it or not, the air inside your home is often more toxic than the air outside of your home. Even if you live in a smoggy city. Crazy, right? This can be due to the off-gassing of furniture, painted walls, carpet (in fact, I read once that it can take up to two years for the chemicals from new carpet to complete off-gas), different types of cooking, and toxic cleaning products or air fresheners.
Opening your windows just 10 minutes a day can make a huge different. It’s like your home takes a big deep breath. You can actually feel a difference in the home when the windows are open. Opening them first thing in the morning can be a great morning routine and you get that cool morning air, as well. Unless you’re in Texas in the summer, then you just get humidity all-day-every-day. In which case, you just do what you can do.
Related: How And Why To Off-Gas New Furniture
Use simmer pots to scent your home, rather than candles.
Unfortunately, most candles are actually poisoning your air as they spread their scent. From the wax, the wick, and the chemical fragrance they use to make the scent, all contribute to indoor air pollution. While there are some clean candle brands out there, I prefer to simply put a simmer pot on the stove and let the aroma spread throughout the house all day. A simmer pot is a pot that you fill with different ingredients to create a scent. You put that pot on the stove on low and let it simmer thoughout the day, adding liquid to it as needed. Some of my favorite combinations are rosemary, lemon, vanilla or apple, lemon, cloves and cinnamon. Just add the ingredients to a pot of water and simmer away.
Switch to using vinegar and water for house cleaning.
House cleaning products, while often helping make the house smell clean, actually dirty up the air, poisoning you and your family. Even ‘clean’ brands have been found to include questionable ingredients in their products. Enter vinegar and water. It’s the OG of cleaning products, will clean any surface in your house, and is cheaper than dirt. Grab a couple of glass spray bottles and designate one for windows, one for counters and surfaces, and one for floors. Each will have a little different vinegar to water ratios but a quick Pinterest search will help you find the ratio you need. Your house may smell like pickles for a few minutes but honestly, I’ll take a funny pickle smell over a good spelling poison any day.
Unplug your wifi at night, or whenever not in use.
Wireless devices and bluetooth devices emit something called electromagnetic frequencies. These frequencies and actually harmful to our bodies and have been linked to anything from poor sleep to cancer development. And while it can feel like everything these days is causing cancer, if we can reduce the risk as much as possible, I’m all for it. Simple changes like unplugging your internet at night can make a huge difference. It would be an interesting experiment, too, to see if you notice any change in your sleep from this simple change. We also do not use any kind of wireless security system such as Ring or the like. A friend asked us what we do for home security. We lock our doors, have a dog with a good bark and my husband is trained in tactical skills. You can read more about EMF’s here: https://www.testmyhome.com/learn-about-emfs
Put your phone on airplane mode at night, or whenever not in use.
This goes along with the whole wifi thing above. Our phones are pulsing out EMF as they search for a tower signal, search for a wireless signal and search for a bluetooth signal. And even if you have wifi and bluetooth completely turned off, the EMF emitted is off the charts. Trust me, I’ve checked with our own meter. So while you may not feel like you can turn your phone on airplane mode during the day, doing so at night will stop the EMF from emitting. And you may even sleep more soundly too. I often get pushback regarding getting an emergency call in the middle of the night. If this is a legitimate concern then you can simply get a land line. Chances are, that land line will never ring.
With these 5 Simple (and Free) Ways To Detox Your Home you’ll start creating a happier, healthier, more havenly home in no time!
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