Creating a Healthier Home for You
Given the current times, have you ever thought about whether your space is truly your space anymore? Similarly, is your space best serving your general health and wellbeing? Our living spaces play a large role in our livelihoods, yet we often neglect whether or not if we create a healthy space for us to inhabit.
Have you ever thought about how the types of materials used in your home, home layout and organization, and lighting play into your health and emotional wellbeing? Scientists and doctors have data to back the claim that our homes play a major role in how we feel daily, ranging all the way from how we sleep at night to how long we’ll live. It’s crazy to think that these factors could play such a major role in the longevity of our lives.
Being more intentional with the way we design our home space can, therefore, provide a tremendous opportunity for you to thrive on a daily basis. The following are some tips on how to create a healthier home designed specifically for you!
Home Entrance
As soon as you step back into your home, you are bringing in all the toxins from the outside world back into your personal space. The most obvious potential toxin would be from the dirt on your shoes. Growing up in an Southeast Asian household, I have been of the norm to take off your shoes before entering the home and agree that this is a great rule to follow in creating a healthier home. If you have little kids, they may often find themselves playing on the floor, so it would be apt to minimize the amount of dirt on the floors as much as possible.
Similar to taking off your shoes, refreshing yourself to a scent that is emblematic of your healthy home is a great way to remove yourself of any toxins from the outside world. Try utilizing this automatic spray air freshener kit to refresh your home environment right at the entrance at predefined periodic intervals!
Kitchen Layout
The kitchen is one of the most frequented spaces in the home, yet it is one of the most disorganized spaces in your entire home. Your kitchen should functionally serve you as a space to encourage healthy eating and preparing healthy meals.
Consider how your kitchen cabinets, counter space, sink, cooking stove, etc. are all organized in the grand scheme of things. How easy is it to prepare a healthy meal or grab a nutritious snack from your kitchen given the current layout? You may be thinking that it’s not as simple as that or as easy to accomplish. I’d like to challenge that thought by urging you to have multiple workstations and organized food storage spots in your kitchen. It can be as simple as placing some fruit right next to your coffee maker if you know you’ll be grabbing a cup or two of coffee during the day. Similarly, trying to have some counter space between your cooking stove, or oven, and the sink allows you to prepare, cook, and wash your food all without having to move all that much!
Home Office Desk
Being able to carve out a little work niche in your home just got all that much more important given the ongoing pandemic. For those of you working from home full time or even part time, you realize that you’re often sitting at a table for a larger percentage of the day now than you are in any other part of the home. We all know the serious health consequences of being seated for eight (truly that’s an understatement nowadays) hours a day, but how about how your work space has affected your mind? Yes, I’m talking to my sleepy self as I type this out.
If you’re able to, consider investing in a standing desk, whether mechanical like this or makeshift, to provide some variety to your work space. By allowing yourself to stand while working, you will help improve your mood and energy levels throughout the work day. Similarly, by subconsciously not being rooted to a chair, your mind will be more adept to taking breaks throughout the day and moving around your home to keep the blood flowing!
Windows
No matter where you are in the home, I’m sure there might be a window in the room. Windows provide another great means from bringing in fresh air to your home and can also light up your home in a snap. Whether you’re in the living room relaxing or at your desk in the office space you’ve created for yourself, natural sunlight coming in through a window can prove beneficial in increasing productivity and improved mental health.
Similarly, and this is likely myself talking to me again, windows bringing in natural light can greatly help in maintaining our sleep cycles. Studies have shown that folks who are exposed to natural light first thing in the morning to noon were much more likely to fall asleep faster and sleep through the night without waking up as much as those individuals who did not get natural light in the early morning hours. Guess it’s time for me to open the blinds up for that good old natural sunlight in the morning!
Fitness Space
With gyms and fitness studios all shut down, it’s imperative we find a natural way to incorporate fitness into our lives while cooped up in your home. While I understand that it isn’t feasible to get a fully decked out mini-home gym for everyone, I highly recommend that you carve out some space for fitness related activities in your home.
No matter if your fitness space has to be in your own bedroom, I’m sure you can find a way to incorporate fitness somewhere in your home. The most important thing about creating your fitness space is that you want it to be clearly visible to you and not tucked away in a part of your home that you barely see. Whether that means buying some weights or a yoga mat, it’s important that you physically place your fitness equipment in a space that you’ll see everyday. We know the saying, “Out of sight, out of mind.” Well, in this case, keep it in sight so you ensure you have fitness on the mind.
Those are just a few tips to help build and craft a healthier home for yourself. While I know that times are tough and not everyone has the means to implement the tips and strategies specified above, it’s the intention to demarcate spaces in your home for set activities and to ensure that they all functionally serve a particular purpose that aids in improving your health and general well-being. Have fun designing your healthy homes!
“We shape our dwellings, and afterwards, our dwellings shape us.” – Winston Churchill
