…Could Your Home Be Ruining Your Health?…
When you dedicate yourself to your fitness, you slowly learn of all the bad habits you’ve racked up through the course of your life. Not just bad habits in terms of eating calorie dense and nutrient poor foods, and not getting enough exercise. We start to notice bad habits in every aspect of our daily lives. Bad habits that not only dull the fine edge we need to be at peak fitness but could also end up seriously endangering our overall health. The path to fitness and a healthy lifestyle is about effort, sweat and exertion, sure, but it’s also about self reflection and constantly striving to be at your best; setting ourselves targets and smashing them accordingly and trimming away the lifestyle habits that impede our ability to do this.
Most of us have already carried out a thorough audit of our working environment and the health risks that it represents. We know that sitting at a desk all day can seriously impact not only our spinal health but our digestive health too, slowing our metabolism and increasing our risk of depression. We also know that the vending machine is full of temptation, loaded with convenient but fatty, salty and sugary foods that will derail our fitness goals so we bring in healthy snacks to help curb our cravings. We try to avoid driving to work when we can, choosing instead to walk, jog or cycle.
Yup, we’re pretty sure we’ve got our health on lockdown. Anything that could compromise our health or fitness is identified and eliminated before it can do us any damage. Far too few of us, however, give much serious thought to how our homes can damage our health. Why would we? Our home has our back right? Unlike our gym or our working environment everything in there has been chosen by us with the express purpose of improving our quality of life. While this is absolutely the case, despite our best efforts and constant diligence, our home can end up affecting our health negatively in ways we had never even considered. Here we’ll look at how your home may be adversely affecting your health and what you can do about it.
Your bedroom
Let’s start with where the magic happens. Your bedroom should be a calming environment that’s conducive to rest and relaxation and nothing else… Well, one thing else, and getting plenty of that is also important for your health. Your bedroom is not, however, the place for watching TV, catching up on Facebook or playing video games. Watching TV in bed is a fun treat at the weekend but it can all too easily encroach on our sleeping time. Moreover, the proliferation of mobile devices means that we’re usually never far from a screen even in this sedate temple of sleep.
The ubiquity of tablets and smartphones is proven to impede restful sleep by stimulating the nervous system and interfering with your body clock. Not to mention the addictive nature of social media and mobile video games.
Then there’s what you’re sleeping on. Most of us choose our beds for their aesthetic value rather than their ability to aid restful sleep. Thus, we can find ourselves woken up at night by aches and pains that over time can translate into serious mobility issues that can ruin our posture and prevent us from achieving the gains we deserve at the gym. Fortunately the right mattress can cure all ills. Check out https://mattress-guides.net to see just how much a memory foam mattress can aid restful sleep. If you need a little extra support from your mattress my personal recommendation is a core of pocket springs with a memory foam top. This will help you to manage the essential balance between comfort and support.
Sleep is absolutely essential for your health and should be considered a key component of your fitness regimen. It’s while we’re asleep that our bodies build muscle mass and repair injured or damaged muscle tissue. Moreover, if we fail to get enough sleep, our bodies start craving the nourishment that they’re missing from food sources meaning that we start craving all the wrong fatty, starchy and sugary foods.
Your windows
Most of us know that exposure to sunlight and nature are conducive to good mental health. Obviously these are best enjoyed among the great outdoors but there’s even value in looking out of the window to see your back garden or even the greenery of your surrounding neighborhood. Yet we often find ourselves doing everything we can to keep natural light out of the home, suffocating our windows with heavy blinds and drapes to seal out the natural and cause us to rely on artificial light sources.
For the benefit of your mental health, you should make the most of your natural light. Cast open the blinds and drapes for as long as you can (except of course when your privacy needs to be protected) and you’ll find that your disposition becomes sunnier along with your surroundings. This is because sunlight boosts your brain’s serotonin levels resulting in good feelings throughout the day. If you work from home, this is particularly important.
The air
When we were kids our parents constantly told us to go outside and play because spending too much time indoors was bad for our health. Turns out they were right. The very air you breathe at home could be compromising your health in a number of ways. If you live somewhere very hot you likely rely on the AC to keep the temperature of your home clement. Unfortunately the AC can invite a lot of contaminants into the air of your home such as carbon dioxide, trichloroethylene, benzene, formaldehyde, xylene and ammonia. There are also a great many of these air pollutants in everyday objects around the house from your furniture to your dryer sheets.
If, however, your lifestyle necessitates long hours spent at home you’ll be delighted to learn that certain plants like the Japanese peace lily can naturally negate the effects of these pollutants as well as oxygenating the room.
You may also use aerosol sprays to add a burst of fragrance to your home (especially if the cat has recently left a deposit in her litter tray). While scent is one of the oft neglected but extremely important facets of home decor this is to be expected but be wary of overusing aerosols and scented candles as these can fill the air with pollutants. Opt instead for combinations of essential oils to lend natural scent to the room.
Your bathroom
The average family bathroom sees a lot of action on any given day with people hopping in and out for baths and showers regularly. All the hot water and steam create the perfect conditions for fungi such as mold and mildew which can not only ruin the pristine effect of your pricey bathroom suite but lead to health hazards especially if you have a naturally sensitive to toxic molds. Prolonged exposure to these unsightly fungi can lead to allergic reactions and respiratory problems. Fortunately, they’re fairly easy to eradicate without the need for abrasive chemicals such as bleaches. Simply apply a paste of water and bicarbonate of soda, leave for fifteen minutes and rinse away with white vinegar. If the smell of vinegar persists use some essential oils to mask the smell. It should fade away naturally after around 24 hours. If the mildew keeps coming back you may need to look into your bathroom’s ventilation or invest in a dehumidifier.
Your kitchen
The kitchen’s greatest crime is neglect. Many of us spend a fortune on a beautiful and well appointed kitchen… Which they barely use. As we find ourselves leading busier lifestyles, working longer hours and experiencing more stress, the allure of high calorie, low nutrient take out becomes incrementally stronger. Make sure that your kitchen is filled with fresh veggies and fruits and the recipe books to enable you to work them into your diet quickly and easily, and master meal prep and you’ll save your wallet and your waistline!
The C Word
Most homes face a daily battle against clutter, but few of us are fully cognizant of the effects that clutter can have on our health. As much as we tell ourselves “this is how we like it”, clutter invites stress into our minds in a space that is supposed to be conducive to relaxation. Elevated stress levels cause our body to produce more of the stress hormone cortisol which causes our body to store more fat, particularly around the belly area.
It can also cause us to cling to the past in ways that aren’t necessarily helpful for our mental health. It can be a cognitive distraction, robbing us of our productivity, making it anathema for those who work at home. It can even aggravate allergies. A cluttered environment is inherently more difficult to clean, resulting in dust gathering in hard to reach places.
With a little reshuffling and a whole lot of diligence you can ensure that your home aids your health every day instead of detracting from it.
