There are chemicals hiding all around us. They’re in our homes, in the products we use daily, in the air we breathe, and in the food we eat. With over 85,000 chemicals in our environment today, we really need to take back control over what we use on a daily basis.
How To Have A Healthy Lifestyle?
It may seem overwhelming, like there’s nothing we can do and it’s out of our control. Let me tell you, there’s a lot we can do. We can start by not supporting companies that are harming us.
Making simple changes to what you purchase and bring into your home can make a world of difference in your health and our environment.
Here are my top tips to helping you and your loved ones feel better, save money, and minimize your exposure to harmful ingredients.
1. Eat Whole Foods
The closer you eat to nature, the better you’ll feel. By choosing fresh, organic foods you’re avoiding things like pesticides and herbicides. Studies have shown that by consuming more organic foods you can lower the pesticide levels in your body very quickly.
While many argue that buying organic food is too expensive, I see it as an investment in my health. The less processed, packaged foods you eat and the less you eat out, the better you’ll feel and save money.
These products aren’t giving you any nutrients that your body needs to stay healthy and strong. When you feed your body what it needs (fruit and veggies), you’ll get sick less often, which means fewer missed days at work and fewer trips to the doctor’s office.
2. Water
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. With all the news stories about contaminated water, everyone should have a good water filter. There are filters available for every budget. We use a good brand in our home and can tell the difference in how our water tastes. We love it!
You’ll save money (and produce less waste) by not purchasing plastic water bottles too. We use glass containers for storing our clean, filtered water and stainless steel or glass refillable water bottles when we’re on the go.
And if your budget allows, include a good shower filter in your home too. Remember, we need to protect our skin. By not showering in toxic chemicals you’re only helping minimize your exposure to them.
If you’re a bath person or have small children, using Vitamin C tablets in the bathwater will help neutralize the chlorine added to most municipal water supplies.
3. Make Your Own Products
OK, now this may seem daunting to you, but let me share that making your own products is easier than you think.
When you make your own body care and cleaning products, it puts you back in control of the ingredients that go into it. It also saves you space in your cabinets since you don’t need a ton of different products.
The majority of body care and cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that have never been tested for safety. Yes, this includes many of the “organic” and “green” ones! Keep in mind that organic is only regulated when it comes to our food, not the products we use.
Since your skin is your largest detoxifying organ, the majority of what goes on it ends up in your body and in every organ. There’s a saying that if you can’t eat it, you shouldn’t put it on your body.
Inhalation is the quickest way to get something into your body. When you spray toxic chemicals in the air around you, you’re breathing those fumes in and causing serious damage to your health. Don’t forget about the air fresheners you’re using.
You can easily make your own cleaning products using baking soda, vinegar, and essential oils. And body care products are almost as easy.
My body moisturizer is made using coconut oil and essential oils, and my deodorant consists of baking soda, corn starch, coconut oil, and essential oils.
Can’t get much more basic than that!
4. Storage Containers
I grew up with plastic storage containers; my grandma and my mom had a ton of them.
After learning how bad they are for my health, I switched my plastic food containers out for glass ones. You can easily switch to the many glass containers on the market today, mason jars, or even re-use your old glass spaghetti sauce jars.
It just didn’t make sense to spend money on organic foods and store them in plastic, ruining all the goodness of my foods. Plastic containers can leach the chemicals used to make them directly into your foods. Then you end up eating the chemicals right along with your foods.
Doesn’t sound very appealing to me, how about you?
5. Air Out Your Home
This is one of the easiest things you can do to minimize your exposure to harmful chemicals.
Everything in your home off-gasses, releasing the chemicals used to make it into the air. When you open your windows (even for an hour a day), you’re letting all the bad stuff out and fresher air in.
It has been proven that the air inside your home is actually more polluted than the air outside. As the weather permits, open your windows daily to let the fresh air in so you and your family can breathe better.
As you can see, there are simple steps you can take, starting today, to ditch the chemicals around you.
Living a healthy lifestyle doesn’t take thousands of dollars or a college degree. Do what you can with what you’ve got, and start your journey to improved health today.
Are you ready to transform your health?
