Detoxification is always a hot buzz word – and rightfully so as its so important to rid our bodies of accumulated toxins – but an often overlooked area of detoxification is the home. I don’t want to scare you, but our homes contain a lot of toxic substances from personal hygiene products to toxins on furniture to indoor air quality.

Think about how much time we actually spend at home – we sleep there, we shower there, we get ready there and we relax there. Whether we realize it or not, we spend more time in our homes than we think and its important to make sure this space is safe so we can support our bodies daily and make the detoxification process easier for our bodies to handle.

Detoxifying the home can be a huge task to take on and it can get overwhelming. I always like to start small and pick a few key things that can be changed easily and inexpensively. A major way to reduce the toxic exposure to your body in your home is to replace personal hygiene products with natural ones. Conventional products contain harmful hormone disrupting chemicals. These chemicals can trick your body into thinking it’s a natural hormone, except that these fake, chemical-induced hormones are super toxic and can greatly interfere with normal hormone production and hormone signaling.

Changing over your personal hygiene products may be a big change, as we all have our go-to products that we’re used to. There’s no need to change everything over all at once, start small! I always recommend changing your laundry detergent first because this has such a widespread impact. By making this one small, inexpensive change, all of your sheets, towels, and clothes that touch your body have been cleaned using a non-toxic cleaner.

Another small change that can help detox your home in a big way is to replace any plastic food storage containers with glass ones. Plastic containers contain harmful chemicals like BPA that leach into food – especially when the food is hot or the container is heated (ex in a microwave). BPA is a known hormone disrupting chemical that can interfere with normal hormone production and hormone signaling. Abnormal hormone function is linked to many health issues including certain types of cancers.

Indoor air quality can actually be 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air. When I first found that out I couldn’t believe it, but it’s true – unfortunately! Our insulated homes do a great job of keeping us warm but they also don’t let air out so all of the chemicals on our furniture and flooring and chemicals used when we clean all stay trapped inside unless we air them out. It’s a good idea to open your windows as much as possible to change out the air and this is especially important when painting, cleaning, and unpacking new furniture. A great way to clean the air on a daily basis that isn’t expensive is to buy some plants! These are beautiful for decoration but they also serve as detoxification agents and filter out common household air pollutants like formaldehyde.

Again, I like to start small and I recommend one good plant for the bedroom so that way you’re getting 8 (hopefully!) hours of cleaner air every night. My personal favourite is the snake plant – it’s super easy to take care of and it converts carbon dioxide to oxygen at night (a lot of plants do this in the daytime) so this makes the snake plant perfect for the bedroom.

Don’t let the idea of detoxing your home overwhelm you – it can actually be a really fun process! Starting small is key and always remember that any change, even if it's small, has an impact.