Getting Started with a Green Clean Healthstyle in 7 Simple Steps

Through my experiences in studying and putting into practice healthier living techniques, I have found it more and more vital for you to incorporate more green living into your lives.

No, I am not passionate about saving energy by buying a different light bulb or turning off the lights after I leave a room (my husband is the one who usually goes behind me turning them off).

These may be important for saving energy and I am not here to discredit their validity, however, it does not find its way up on my “important to do list”.

What I have learned and am very passionate about is limiting the amount of toxic chemicals that our families are bombarded with on a daily basis from cleaning products, to shampoo, food, and even cosmetics.

By cutting down on the potential exposure your family has to these dangerous chemicals, you are taking one more step to creating a lifetime of health for your family.

Today I really want to talk to you about how you clean your home and really rethinking what you view as clean.

What makes up a truly green clean home?

1. A truly clean home will have no ingredients that will harm your family
2. A truly clean home will have no ingredients that will hang around in your home environment to harm your family.

Let me tell you a little secret: that lemon-y clean smell that is advertised as clean and what you come to expect in your clean home actually consists of dangerous chemicals that are hanging around in your environment.

These chemicals are breathed in by your family and can lead to so many issues such as breathing problems, asthma, allergies, and many others that are all due to toxic chemical exposure.

So how do you protect your family from these chemicals and make sure your home is truly green clean?

• Research “what is green clean?” in order to understand that clean does not mean you have to use dangerous chemicals and smell it afterwards. Real clean is odorless. Remember how you felt the last time you were outdoors in the middle of nowhere or up in the mountains? Fresh and clean just feels light and airy not full of lemon chemicals.
• Decide right now to protect the health of your family by switching to green clean. (Switching to green clean does not sacrifice ability to actually clean…those chemicals don’t make it any better to clean your home)
• Start small by choosing one room in your house to green clean.
• Throw away any toxic chemicals and cleaning products in this room. Those that have “danger” and “caution” warning labels really do mean they are toxic for your family.
• Did you know cleaning manufacturers do not have to label all their ingredients that they use? They can easily be leaving out others you are not aware of that can be very hazardous to your health. Check out hpd.nlm.nih.gov to see what is in your cleaning products.
• Before throwing these products in the trash or dumping them down the sink which ends up leading back to our clean water, call your local sanitation department and dispose of them correctly.
• Buy green cleaning products that will be better for your whole family and may even ease a lot of the already existing conditions. A good brand that you can find at most stores is 7^th generation. Otherwise Shaklee products are great (Shaklee.com).

Take the next step and start taking your family’s home environment and health seriously by making sure your home is as green clean as possible. Become green clean and finally be able to breathe in fresh air and live in a very clean environment!

YOUR TURN! Let me know what you think of this article by leaving a comment below! Are you green clean? If not, what is holding you back? Don’t forget to share this with your family and friends and help them protect the health of their families by “sharing the love” below!

15 Ways to De-Stress your Nest for a Happy, Healthy Home

Creating a comfortable and inviting home can have a large impact in your overall health. If you do create this environment, you can encourage healthier behaviors. You may be surprised how easy it is for you to focus on matters that are important to your health and your family when your home is uncluttered and appealing.

Your home is where is all comes together!

Now ladies, don’t misinterpret what I am trying to say here. I am not saying that your home must be clean, orderly, and look like it came out of a designer magazine. The key to a healthy home environment centers on making your home a place you can relax, rejuvenate, and recharge so you can better deal with the world around you.

Take a look around your home and ask yourself how you feel when you are in that space. Does it make you feel stressed or does it help you feel comfortable and relax? Your home does not have to be perfect. It just must be a place that feels inviting and warm to you!

When your home feels warm and inviting to you, you can spend your time focusing on your health. A healthy home can help encourage and promote healthy behaviors in other areas of your life.

Here is a list of my top 15 favorite small changes you can make to your home today to make it a haven for you and your family and promote health and de-stressing for your whole family.

1. Create your relaxation zone. Make one place in your home a comfortable place you can escape to in order to relax. This can be a simple chair and lamp in the corner of your bedroom that makes you feel comfortable and stress free.
2. De-clutter your home room by room. When you have less clutter around the home, you are able to think more clearly and feel more comfortable and relaxed. Take it one room at a time and clear the extra clutter.
3. Bring fresh flowers inside to help brighten the mood and atmosphere. There is nothing more relaxing than dealing with nature and beautiful flowers.
4. Create an organization station for papers. Do you find a counter in your kitchen seems to be the catch all for papers? Create and area or a wall station where you can organize everything and take away the stress from seeing a mess of papers in the kitchen.
5. Hang a large family calendar next to the organization station so that you can easily keep track of your family’s activities. This creates less stress in home trying to remember what exactly you had going on tonight.
6. Set out big bowls of fruit and vegetables in your kitchen for décor. This creates a great smell in your home and promotes healthy eating from the whole family.
7. Make sure you have plenty of natural light coming into your home. Get rid of heavy and dark drapes. Natural light will lift your mood and promote relaxation.
8. Turn off the TV and facebook. Start working on a hobby of yours.
9. Choose natural paint colors for a more relaxing atmosphere. Bold colors can promote stress.
10. Laugh often.
11. Get social. Go out and have fun with friends. Research has shown that people who spend more time being social are happier and have less stress.
12. Create a family game night. In our world today, families are so busy they hardly even get to eat together any more. Mark off one day on your calendar and label it family game night. Spend time together as a family playing board games or whatever games are interesting to you. This will help your family be happier and closer overall.
13. In addition to game night, make sure your family sits down and eats together as a  family, old fashioned style. This will help build stronger family relationships and give the parents and kids time to
    talk about what is going on in their world and what they may be struggling with.
14. Put the computer in the office and limit time spent mindlessly on it. It is more important for your comfortable, inviting, and healthy home that you spend less time on the computer and more time as a family or working on hobbies you enjoy.
15. Last but not least, make your bathroom into an oasis. There is not better place to relax than in the bathroom. Make it inviting and a great place for you to de-stress.

By focusing on creating a home that is comfortable and inviting, you are setting it up to promote healthy behaviors and create a happy and healthy family.

Do you have some healthy home tips you would like to add? Leave me a comment below and let me know: what is your favorite way to create a comfortable home?

The Top 7 Easiest Ways to De-Stress your Home

Our lives are busy. We rush around day in and day out. From full-time jobs to raising kids to all those extra activities going on, it is no wonder we are so stressed out! It seems there are always things that need to get done, bills that need to be paid, and those extra responsibilities at work that must get completed by the deadline.

What else is causing stress in your life?

Did you know stress can negatively impact your health? It can lower your immune system which can set you up for catching more colds and the flu. Chronic stress can even increase your risk of heart disease, stroke, headaches, migraines, high blood pressure, ulcers, alcohol dependency, and depression.

It is so important that we make sure to take time to relax and rejuvenate to maintain an optimal level of health.

I don’t know about you guys but I love HGTV! There are so many great ideas on there about awesome rooms for our homes that promote relaxation and healthy living. But, it wasn’t until recently that I realized how important having a home that allows you to get away from your hectic lives is! So, this post is a little different from my usual health posts but I love talking about homes as much as health so Im combining the best of both worlds today!

Today I was looking around my home and thinking how the home can be just as stressful as a job. So, I decided to put together a short list of a few things that can help you de-stress your home and create a place where you can relax.

The 7 Easy Ways to De-Stress your Home

1. Use calming colors throughout your home. Calming colors such as blue, green, and beige can offer a more calming effect on your life. According to psychologists, when bright and intense colors are present throughout your home, it can change your mood pretty quickly to such a mood as anger and can actually quicken your pulse and raise your blood pressure.
2. De-clutter your home. When you have tons of “stuff” all of the place, even if the room is “clean”, it can actually create more stress in your life. Make your most common living spaces free of extra clutter and save the extra little things for other rooms in your home.
3. Add lots of houseplants to your living space. Houseplants are great ways to bring the outdoors in. By using more of nature colors and by incorporating more of the outdoors, you are creating a naturally calming atmosphere. There is just something about nature that is calming. Don’t you agree?
4. Create your happy and relaxing zone in your house. Whether you designate a chair in the corner, or a lounge outside, make sure you have your place you can go to relax at home. This way when things get hectic you have your escape to rejuvenate!
5. Make your bed every day. I didn’t realize how this can actually make you feel great just by simply spending the extra 3 minutes a day making your bed. When things look put together especially in your bedroom, you don’t have to worry about it and can more effectively deal with everything else going on in your life.
6. Create a “catch all” place in your home. Designate a place in your home, whether in the kitchen, entryway, office, or wherever that you put a cubby or holder that can catch all the mail, your kids homework, or all those extra papers. This will help keep the rest of the house cleaner and allow your family to be more organized and on top of things that need to be taken care of.
7. Clean your sink before you go to bed at night. I know this sounds funny, but it really makes a difference. My husband’s aunt actually told me this one and it really works! As the woman of the house, the kitchen can easily be put on the back burner for all the time we spend in there cooking, cleaning dishes, etc and create a source of stress for us. There are so many other things to worry about that cleaning the sink with Windex at night makes sure the sink is clean and shines. You can then go to bed relaxed and be ready to start the day again in the morning.

By incorporating these 7 Simple Steps into your daily lives, you might be surprised how many little things in your home are creating more stress that YOU DO NOT NEED! All it takes is maybe an extra 5 minutes a day to have a home that can help you relax, rejuvenate, and get AWAY from stress causing agents.

What more can you accomplish in your life without the stress and health conditions that go along with too much stress? Try it out!

Let me know what you think about the above strategies and how you can de-stress your life by leaving a comment for me below! Don’t forget to share the love by sharing this post with your friends!

14 Tips for a Healthy and Eco-Friendly Bedroom

In recent years, making sure your family is as healthy and eco-friendly as possible has become very popular. A few years ago I really had no desire to be eco-friendly and really didn’t know of ways to be healthy besides exercising and having healthier eating habits.

The more I have studied up on these subjects, the more I find out how clueless I was! It can get kind of scary when you learn about all the dangers of the environment right in your own home.

Now that my husband and I are in our first home and I have started envisioning how I am going to decorate and furnish this home, I have decided to share with you ways to clean up your environment and maybe become a little eco-friendly starting with the bedroom!

Here are the top 14 tips I have found through my research that will help you create a true bedroom oasis:

1. Refurbish antique furniture or buy furniture that is made with renewable materials. Do not buy furniture that is made of particleboard or composite wood due to the glue and chemicals used. These chemicals include formaldehyde which is a known carcinogen and some studies have linked it to the development of allergies and asthma.  This also applies to upholstered furniture due to the flame retardant that is used that emits formaldehyde vapors.
2. Choose bare floors with rugs made of natural fibers to help decrease the amount of allergens present in your house.
3. When it comes to choosing curtains, choose natural fabrics such as organic cotton, canvas, linen, or hemp to cut down on allergens and harsh chemicals. Curtains are great dust collectors so make sure to buy washable fabrics.
4. When buying blankets to keep warm during the long winters, choose natural linens such as wool, organic cotton, linen, or hemp. Do not dry clean blankets because some of the chemicals that are used have been linked to various cancers. If you do choose to use an electric blanket, warm up your bed before you climb in and then turn the blanket off. Electric blankets create an electromagnetic field as you sleep.
5. Choose fabrics such as organic cotton, wool, buckwheat, or natural latex when you buy pillows. Regular pillows are often made of foam which can contain flame retardants.
6. Sheets should be 100% organic cotton and not contain any dyes. Make sure it isn’t treated with formaldehyde or any other chemicals. Do not buy permanent press sheets because it contains formaldehyde of which vapors you will inhale when you sleep. Remember, your skin is your largest organ in your body and will absorb anything that comes in contact with it. Be careful what dyes and types of fabric you want touching your skin!
7. Did you realize that you should pay attention to what type of mattress you are sleeping on? You should choose a mattress made of organic materials. It is quite common for mattresses to contain flame retardants which are carcinogenic, reproductive toxicants, and endocrine disruptors. It has the flame retardant because of the foam which is made of petroleum-based products which are flammable. Wool is a natural fire retardant that is great for mattresses or even mattresses that are cotton filled. Savvy Rest is a great choice for organic mattresses that are made of latex.
8. Choose organic cotton mattress pads which will cut down on dust mites.
9. Choose air filtering plants. Visit NASA website for more information on best plants to choose.
10. Change your air filter on a regular basis to decrease allergens and purify the air.
11. Keep windows open for better air quality. Cross ventilation is a plus. Outdoor air is typically cleaner due to all the chemicals and dust that are found in furniture, fabrics, and other products in your home. Choose an air purifier or vacuum with a HEPA filter.
12. Choose low/no-VOC paint for walls, furniture, and ceiling to cut down on chemical pollutants in your home.
13. Wash your bedding each week with fragrance free detergent to decrease mold, mildew, and dust mite accumulation.
14. Choose a stylish ceiling fan to help circulate the air in your home which will help with cross ventilation when you have your windows open. Choose one made of renewable natural materials. You will also save on your electricity bill!

Do you have any thoughts or more tips to add? Leave me a comment below!

Today’s question:

What is one way you can improve the health of your bedroom starting today?