FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JANUARY 2, 2020 • HEALTH • THE QUEENS COURIER 29
health
Easy ways to improve your home’s health
Maintaining a healthy home is a goal
most Americans share, but not all are confi
dent they’re doing the best job they can
to protect their home’s health.
According to a survey conducted by
Second Nature, the nation’s largest home
wellness subscription service, 62 percent
of respondents admitted they could do
a better job of attaining a healthy home,
with clean air ranked as the most critical
factor in achieving home wellness.
Gain more confi dence in the health and
cleanliness of your home with these tips:
• Remove your shoes when you enter the
house. Add entryway seating to encourage
guests to take off their shoes. Th e
bottom of a pair of shoes can contain
anything from fecal matter to E. coli and
pesticides. Leaving shoes at an entryway
is one of the easiest ways to combat
home pollution and promote a healthy
home.
• Replace air fi lters regularly. Th e air fi lter
in your home dictates the air you
breathe and ensures that it is healthy
enough for ingestion. More oft en than
not, air fi lters are not top of mind when
thinking about home wellness, but they
are crucial to every home. Th at’s why
it’s important to replace air fi lters on
schedule - every three months as recommended
by the National Institutes
of Health.
If you’re like many homeowners who
struggle to remember when it’s time to
change your fi lter, or never have a fi lter
handy when you do remember, you
may benefi t from a service like Second
Nature, which provides a home delivery
subscription that ensures your air fi lters
are replaced on time. Th e company’s
high-quality air fi lters help reduce the
risk of contracting allergies, sickness and
infection while also ultimately lowering
costs associated with energy bills, repairs
and health-related expenses.
• Change out your light bulbs. Choose
the right color temperature for a calmer
home and use energy-effi cient bulbs.
Th e selection for light bulbs is massive,
and with smart home technologies that
allow you to change the color of your
bulb with the swipe of a fi nger, you can
also easily control your mood. Warm
lighting typically has an overall positive
eff ect on everyone in the home. One of
the keys to home wellness is ensuring
you are truly happy in your home, and
lighting can play a pivotal role in cultivating
this emotion.
• Open windows on good weather days.
Most Americans (61%) believe the
air inside their homes is cleaner than
it is outside, according to the survey.
However, the Environmental Protection
Agency estimates indoor air is 2-5 times
more polluted than the air outside. Th is
is in part because Americans tend to
enclose themselves indoors, where the
same air is recycled over an extended
time. Th e smell of the meal you cooked
for dinner, the trash in the garbage can
and the candle you light on your nightstand
all have an impact on the air quality
in your home. Opening windows
allows for polluted air to release itself
from the home and, in turn, allows for
cleaner air to circulate the space.
• Filter your water. Water is essential to
any healthy lifestyle, and drinking clean
water is a luxury that is oft en overlooked.
However, what is also overlooked
is how many chemicals and toxins
that can aff ect your health are in
the tap water you drink on a daily
basis. Filtering your water is one simple
step that can benefi t not only your
own health, but the health of everyone
in the home.
— Courtesy of Family Features
/WWW.QNS.COM
