Health In The Home: Making Your Home Work For Your Body

Modern homes are built to be comfortable, long-lasting, and nice and affordable. This makes them great for most people, providing everything they need to live a relatively easy life, at least when compared to people of the past. Of course, though, most homes fall short in at least a couple of different areas, and keeping you healthy is usually one of them.

There are a huge range of different areas around you home which can impact your health. To give you an idea of how far this can reach, this post will be exploring each of the unhealthy parts of your home, giving you tips which will make it far easier to start making changes in the right direction. Making your home work for your body shouldn’t have to be too hard.

Pests

No matter how hard engineers work to create pest prevention for homes, animals and insects will always be an issue for modern people. Ants can find their way through walls with ease, and there are loads of other pests which can be found around modern homes. Bed bugs, for example, can cause severe allergic reactions in some people, and it can be hard to know that your home has been invaded by these small pests until you start getting bitten.

Talking to professionals like your local mosquito authority will always be the easiest way to free your home from issues like this. Going down this route will give you the chance to have all of the unwanted creatures removed from your home, ensuring that you don’t have to deal with this sort of issue going into the future.

It’s always worth taking pests seriously. While they may not seem to have a major impact in the short term, their numbers will always grow, and this will begin to overwhelm your home as time goes on. Thankfully, creatures like spiders don’t tend to multiply like this and can actually help to remove other pests, and this will make a lot of people feel far more comfortable about having them inside their home.

Mold & Mildew

Builders and engineers do a tremendous job of keeping homes sealed against the elements, but this is rarely enough to keep all traces of moisture out. When a home has too much water in the air or ground around it, the walls inside it can begin to soak it up. This can be almost unnoticeable, as it won’t impact the structure of your home, and will usually be quite a slow process.

Once the walls are moist enough, though, they will become the perfect breeding ground for mold and fungus, like mildew. Aside from not looking very nice, this sort of issue can also cause some major health risks, especially for the very young and very old. Mold and mildew can affect your respiratory system, making it harder to breath, especially when people have existing conditions.

Getting rid of mold and mildew can be a constant effort if you’re simply cleaning it away every month or so. To have a more permanent impact, using waterproof paint can be a good way to stop the surface layers of your walls from being moist enough for life to take root. It won’t take long to apply this sort of product to your walls, but the results will last for a very long time.

Temperature

Having a warm home is lovely during winter, and having your place be cool can be a godsend when summer is in full swing. Most people only consider these areas in terms of comfort, though, rather than thinking about the real impact the temperature of their home could have on their bodies.

Being in a cold place can make it easier for various diseases to propagate within your body. For example, if you live in a cold home, you could find yourself more likely to be stricken with the flu, and this only gets worse when you throw young or old people into the mix. Warm temperatures aren’t as likely to cause serious health issues, though you could find your home getting hit by mildew and mold faster when you have a very toasty house.

While having the temperature turned down during winter can save some money, it’s always worth trying to find a level which feels comfortable. Your body knows which temperatures it can operate under best, and this means that you should listen to the warnings it gives you. Being uncomfortable is always a strong sign that you’re not in the best position.

Posture

Standing, sitting, and lying down are all things which most people are very used to. You will know which positions make your body feel the most comfortable, and a lot of people are very happy with the furniture around their home. Of course, though, being comfortable in the moment isn’t the same as maintaining good posture.

Having good posture will help to alleviate the strain on your back, hips, and other joints when you are in various positions. For example, standing with your back bend and your shoulders slumped may give your muscles a rest, but it will put a lot of pressure on your spine and shoulder blades. After many years of standing or sitting badly, people will usually start to feel the impact this is having on their body.

Thankfully, a lot of modern furniture companies work to ensure that their products force users to adopt healthy posture. You don’t have to buy new sofas, chairs, and beds, though; you can simply buy cushions which fill in the gaps. Wedge cushions are one of the best options for this, but it can also help to learn what is meant when people talk about good posture to make sure that you’re working in the right direction.

Pollution

It’s easy to ignore something like pollution when you can’t see it in the air. When you live next to a main road or near industrial complexes, though, you will usually be breathing air which contains a lot of different harmful chemicals. In some cases, older homes will also have many years worth of pollution built up and trapped within their walls.

Some people report that this will give them headaches, make them short of breath, and can even cause long-term health issues if it isn’t addressed whatsoever. Like many of the issues covered in this post, this will usually be worse for those with preexisting health conditions, but is something which anyone should take seriously.

Air purifiers can be used to help with this, but you will need to choose one which has a good filter inside it. HEPA filters are generally considered the best for this job, as they are fine enough to trap even the smallest of microbes within them. Alternatively, a lot of people also like to use plants for this sort of job. This will make your home look nicer at the same time, and won’t cost anything when it comes to electricity or buying new filters.

Light

In the wild, humans wouldn’t be able to avoid natural light for much of the day. As people are spending more and more time working inside, though, it can often be hard to get enough of the stuff. While this will make your life quite gloomy, it can also have some surprising health implications, and most people will simply ignore this.

Sunlight contains vitamin D, and is your body’s main source of this important nutrient. Without enough vitamin D, people will often experience muscle weakness, bone pain, and an array of other strange health complaints. In the long run, this can make your bones soften and bend out of shape, causing issues which will be far worse than a little bit of pain. This makes it well worth getting as much vitamin D as you can.

Letting more sunlight into your home is nice and easy; you can simply start opening some curtains. Along with this, though, you could also change the way that you use your home. If you have a garden or balcony, for example, you can start spending more time in these spaces. Those who tend to drive to work could start walking once or twice a week, and anyone who works on a computer could spend their breaks outside. All of this will enable you to get a lot more vitamin D in your life.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to start tackling the health issues which could be caused by your home. A lot of people struggle with this, finding it hard to know what needs to be done when they are worried about the health implications of living at home. Of course, though, there are a lot of ways to solve this sort of issue, and most people can begin working on it right away.

You might also like to read:

• Make more money with these subtle and powerful lifestyle changes
• 4 Practical Tips on How to Recover From Water Damage
• How to pest-proof your home the healthy way
• Turning A Dull Wall Into An Exciting One
• Signs You Need To Clean Your Home Office