Sustainable Interior Design for Health at Home
Our homes are a perfect environment for cultivating health. Chances are you already spend a good amount of time choosing healthy food, exercising, and getting a good night’s rest. Along with these core pillars of health is one more—the fourth pillar of health, which is the health of the home. Because everything we bring into our homes to enjoy can either foster a nontoxic environment from the start, or create one we’ll need to clean up. Whether it be furniture, finishes, or housewares, the choices we make for our homes matter.
Nontoxic Living and Sustainable Interior Design
Sustainable interior design aims to reduce negative impacts on the environment while also being mindful of an individual’s health and well-being. Within the design process, sustainability is important as it’s about how a resource is extracted, what toxicants it is treated with, how it impacts the occupant during its use, and how it affects the environment when disposed of.
Nontoxic Lifestyle Design aims to reduce the negative effects of toxicants in the home by focusing on overall human and environmental health. Both practices have a similar goal of reducing toxicants in the natural world, as well as in our homes.
Our own approach at Artisan Home Health is to promote products that use fewer chemicals in how a product is derived, produced, used, and disposed of. Afterall, we know that the rise of chemicals and heavy metals is affecting the health of our homes, our environment, and the planet.
This is why nontoxic living and sustainable interior design matter in relation to one another and why choosing nontoxic pieces for our homes is an act of sustainability. We have the ability to reduce the toxicants in our homes by embracing sustainable interior design, and it can begin with just one investment. This is an example of one such company that is leading the way.
How to Know It’s Time for a Home Detox
Diving deeper, we can look at what we bring into our homes and how it can impact our health. The more we know about the health of our home, the more we can make informed decisions.
Our home environment and our health are deeply connected. Did you know that according to the World Health Organization about 1/5 of the factors that affect our health come from within our homes? Here are some things to know:
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), 85% of all diseases are influenced by environmental factors.
More than 85,000 chemicals are registered for use in the marketplace, and most of them have not been tested for safety by any regulatory body.
The European Union has banned 2k chemicals while the U.S. has only banned 12.
While we can’t control everything within our homes, we can control some things. And instead of remedying a problem with a home detox, how nice would it be to have what you needed from the start? For example, if you chose a cleaner version of a product you use, you could be saving yourself time, money, and energy from the start, plus you’d be taking care of your health.
Choosing nontoxic products from the start sets the tone for your health at home. If you don’t bring toxicants into your home in the first place, you are protecting your health from the beginning and you are helping to promote cleaner options in the marketplace.
Remember this—the gift of health is the greatest gift you can give. We all deserve to choose what we put into our homes, and if we are able to make small, nontoxic changes, it creates a ripple effect and reinforces the idea that everyone has a right to health at home.
Want to learn more about sustainable nontoxic living? Artisan Home Health works with clients virtually and in person in Boulder, Denver, and surrounding areas.
