You may have heard that you can improve your indoor air quality by adding houseplants to your home. While they won’t get rid of mold according to research from Nasa they can help remove some chemicals from your air. If you have dogs or cats, you’ll want to make sure that the houseplants you choose are…
Category: Health
Food Issues: When Food Was Making Me Sick
About 15 years ago, things were bad. I’d come home after work nearly every day holding my stomach, collapse on the bed, and writhe in pain. When my stomach wasn’t bothering me, I might be having a migraine, the storm taking its merry time to pass through my head. One night I woke up in…
The Truth about Being a Building Biologist
How I became a Building Biologist, a niche profession focused on some contentious environmental health issues.
Homekeeping: Why Do I Have Mold?
Understand why you have mold in order to get rid of it That musty smell, those unsightly splotches… could it be MOLD? Should you be concerned? And what should you do about it? If you, poor thing, are dealing with a mold problem, it will be a big help to you in the long run…
Food Issues: Vegetarian – To Be Or Not To Be?
Why I Embraced Vegetarianism… And Why I Gave It Up One evening as a young teen I was babysitting for some family friends. The baby was safe and sound in bed and all I had to do was eat my dinner and peruse a pile of magazines. I happened upon a blurb about Madonna being…
Tips: One Way To Fight Stress
I’m one of those people who gets stressed out easily, as much as I hate to admit it. I practice yoga, try to eat a healthy diet, exercise, and have positive relationships, yet I still do not do well with stress. I am a sensitive person and seem to be more prone to the ill…
A Miserable Hike that Makes You Feel A Lot Better
Fellow hikers, does this sound familiar? I have certainly been there. Usually I love hiking. Being outdoors, observing the plants and animals, pondering the geology and topography – these things just make me happy. But occasionally I find myself on a hike that I’m not really enjoying in the moment. Maybe the weather is miserable…
Homekeeping: Improving Air Quality for Multi Pet Households
Are you one of those kind souls, too? One who has an undisclosed number of dogs or cats as co-residents of your home? If so then, like me, you probably catch yourself saying, “How can all that hair be on the floor? I just swept yesterday!” While the floor may be the thing that catches…
Homekeeping: Let In Some Fresh Air
Open your windows to let in fresh air and you will get a brain and body boost. This is the easiest thing you can do…
Quotes: Nature for Calm and Focus
“Compared with people who have lousy window views, those who can see trees and grass have been shown to recover faster in hospitals, perform better in school, and even display less violent behavior in neighborhoods where it’s common. Such results jibe with experimental studies of the central nervous system. Measurements of stress hormones, respiration, heart…
Homekeeping: Good and Bad Smells in the Home
When most people think about bad smells they think about potty smells and body odors. That’s probably because these things embarrass us culturally. But when indoors today, we are more likely to be assaulted by a different type of offensive odor – that created by chemicals.
Homekeeping: The Difference a Window Makes
Consider the exterior doors on your home. Are they solid or do they provide views to the outdoors? Even a small window like this half circle window in an otherwise solid door provides a view to the backyard, lets in a bit of natural daylight, and provides information about weather and time of day. As…
Homekeeping: Let In the Light
There is no more powerful element to create beauty and mood in a space than natural daylight.
Homekeeping: Make a Stress-free Space
If you aren’t quite ready to make your entire home a healing, rejuvenating refuge, can you at least give yourself one small space?
Homekeeping: When You Don’t Have a View…
When the space is challenged with no windows, create the illusion of view with art work that depicts a nature scene. Green soothes…
Cultivate Patience
One of the lessons of Permaculture is to first of all, observe. In other words, be patient and survey the scene before you take action. This is something I personally struggle with since I get very excited and enthusiastic about new ideas. While I do like observing, sometimes the patience part just gets away from me….
Homekeeping: What’s Your View?
When arranging your home or workspace, don’t forget to consider what your view is going to be. The ideal view will depend on what the space is used for. If you are setting up a home office or work station, you will want something that is pleasant but not distracting.
Health: Questioning the Logic of the “Nocebo effect”
If you aren’t familiar with the term, while a placebo is an inert source (such as a pill) that causes a positive health outcome, the term “nocebo” is often used to describe an “inert” source that produces a negative health outcome. In other words, it’s all in your head. The nocebo effect is sometimes used to…
Homekeeping: What’s “Toxic Black Mold”? Is it Dangerous?
Earlier this week a friend asked me about “toxic black mold.” As with many health subjects, there is a lot of confusion as to whether mold is truly dangerous, or if this is all just hype perpetuated by mold remediation companies.
Homekeeping: The Affordable Organic Sofa
If you’re interested in creating a healthy, healing natural environment in your home, don’t overlook the sofa. Conventional sofas are made with petroleum-based foam and have added flame retardants. It may be somewhat easier to find a conventional sofa without adding flame retardants now (Ikea carries some), but a sofa made with only natural ingredients…
Tips: How to Sleep Better at Night
If you’ve spent any time at all watching TV in the past several years you know one thing, Americans don’t sleep well and big pharma has plenty of little pills for that! Rather than turn to medication to fight insomnia or sleep disturbances, why not try preventing the causes of the problem in the first…
Health: Death of a Hairdresser
Yesterday I learned that a dear friend died during surgery for tracheal cancer. The death of this friend was a rude and rough reminder of mortality, and engulfed me in a tsunami of regret. As I looked at Jacques’ memorial photo, what rose to the surface was how incongruous were the word “cancer” and the mischievous smile…
Hearthwilde 