Boost Your Immunity & Your Dog's by Improving Indoor Air Quality
Home is where you and your family are supposed to feel the most safe. However, when your living spaces are filled with pollutants, you can find threats in every nook and cranny. As part of our Toss The Toxins blog series, we're going over step-by-step how to detox your home and turn it into your safest space.
WHY THE HOME ENVIRONMENT MATTERS
Indoor air quality impacts our health in more ways than we realize, and focusing on better air quality will mean better health for the entire household, dogs included. The EPA estimates indoor air may be 2 to 500 times more contaminated than outdoor air; and up to 1000 times if you’ve just cleaned your home using chemical products. With that in mind, the EPA has named indoor air quality as one of the top health threats to American families.1
In a New York Times article dated March 27, 2020 titled: “Now Is the Time to Take Care of Your Lungs. Here’s How the Times states that increased exposure to chemicals/pollution in our outdoor and indoor air impacts our immune system and increases our susceptibility to infection. And what are millions of well-meaning people doing to try and “be safe” right now? Over-using the very chemical-based disinfectant cleaners that are polluting their indoor air and thus, compromising their health.
Bottom line: products with harmful chemicals that pollute our homes are immune stressors and actually make us more vulnerable to disease and contagious illnesses.
In fact, studies from around the world are directly linking the exponential rise of degenerative disease in our country to exposure to harmful chemicals in our air, workplaces, water, food, and homes. Today people buy non-toxic products, but they forget the many products with chemicals that emit harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that still sit under their kitchen sinks, in cabinets, bathrooms, closets, and attached garages. Having these products in the home inhibits and even blocks the healing process. They can also contribute to the onset of health complications in both humans and animals. A home free of toxins enables us to take a break from the day’s exposures and use energy for rejuvenation and healing instead of detoxification. Removing this immune stress gives the body power – and literally the breathing room – to maintain health or to recover and heal.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HAVE A TRULY HEALTHY HOME?
A healthy home is a place of refuge and regeneration that is free from contaminants and products that harm our health. We're all exposed to nasty toxins beyond our control when we're out and about, but we can make our homes a safe haven. Creating a healthy home by eliminating these toxins saves money that might otherwise be spent on vet visits, doctor visits, medication, and missed workdays. We just don’t realize how having harmful chemicals in our homes undermine not only our health but that of our dog(s) too. At its core, we’re talking preventative health care.
HOW TO DETOX YOUR HOME
Often the “dirtiest” place in a home is the invisible air you're breathing (especially after cleaning). Thankfully, you can create a radical shift and clean up your home’s air quality today with simple, practical steps.
We know change can feel overwhelming. So we're taking out the guesswork with a step-by-step protocol using Branch Basics clean sweep method.
By taking the first steps, you can immediately (and often dramatically) improve the air quality of your home. Follow along as we teach you how we combine the “Clean Sweep” method of creating a healthy home with “The 3 Rs of Clean” so you can create a healthy living environment for all its inhabitants (pets included!). Just think of the last time you walked down the grocery store aisle where the pesticides and cleaning products are. The lids are not only closed, but sealed, and yet the whole aisle smells of chemicals. What you smell are the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from the products and they escape from their containers in parts per million (ppm), billion (ppb), or even trillion (ppt). All products with VOCs in a home under sinks and in cabinets do the same, their emissions creating a low-level chemical soup that spreads throughout your home, requiring your body to constantly detoxify. The complete removal of these products dramatically improves your home’s air quality and reduces immune stress on all those that live under your roof. (Think: whole-family liver cleanse!)
We'll take you through a number of product categories to remove from your home or store in an airtight box (we suggest Sterilite BPA free, phthalate free, airtight plastic containers). By sealing products in a box, they will no longer be part of your home’s chemical soup.
Without further ado, let's check out the first step to detox your home and create a truly happy, healthy environment:
STEP 1, REMOVE ALL PESTICIDES FROM THE HOME AND GARAGE
Toxic pesticides are the most dangerous chemicals used inside and around the home. Exposure to pesticides impacts the immune system and creates vulnerability to illness. They've been directly linked to childhood cancers, learning disabilities, lowered IQ, lowered immunity, leaky gut and digestion issues, mood swings, and neurologically-based illness such as Parkinson’s and ALS.
There's no reason to even review or read a label on these products – just take a box and do a walk-through of your home – look in cabinets under the sinks, in the bathrooms, in the laundry room, closets, and garage. Remove insect repellents, DEET, mosquito sprays, ant, wasp, and roach sprays, flea and bed bug treatments, foggers, lice shampoos, bleach, non-alcohol-based disinfectants and sanitizers (they contain EPA registered pesticides), and herbicides. Exposure to pesticides and herbicides impacts the immune system and creates vulnerability to illness.
It’s an easy, no-stress step, with much gain! The “Clean Sweep of Pesticides – Take Em Out” approach packs a powerful air cleansing punch.
Come back tomorrow to learn about the next proactive steps you can take to make your home a healthy haven.
References:
https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/indoor-air-quality