Is Your House Making You Sick? 7 Reasons to Detox Your Home

Did you know most of us spend about 90 percent of our lives indoors? That alone might not sound alarming.

But when you pair it with this fact, it gets your attention fast. According to the EPA, indoor air can be two to five times more polluted than outdoor air. In some cases, it can be far worse.

So here’s the honest question most of us never think to ask:

Is your house making you sick?

For a long time, I would have said absolutely not. I ate well. I moved my body. I avoided smoking and pesticides. I bought products labeled clean, natural, organic, and green. I truly believed I was doing everything right.

And yet, my health told a very different story.

What I learned next completely changed how I look at my home, my products, and what “healthy living” actually means.

In this post, I’m sharing seven ways environmental toxins inside our homes can impact our health without us even realizing it. This is the first post in a series all about detoxing your home in a realistic, non-overwhelming way.

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A Piece of My Story

First, let me tell you a little bit about why this even showed up on my radar. And why it’s something I honestly believe everyone needs to be doing.

Several years ago my husband and I sat, shell-shocked, in the office of my new oncologist.

I had just been diagnosed with a frightening, precancerous condition. One that spreads relatively quickly.

We had also just learned that the only course of action was a total hysterectomy. And that time was of the essence.

So, in a bit of a numb daze, we scheduled my imminent surgery. And when I shared my shock with my doctor, he confided that he was also quite surprised I had this condition.

First, he pointed out that I didn’t have any of the typical risk factors normally associated with this condition. He spoke at length about this piece.

Secondly, there was also no family history of this condition.

The only explanation, he explained, was that it was caused by environmental factors.

Environmental Toxins in Our Homes Are Making Us Sick

It didn’t make any sense to me. I honestly believed I was living a really clean and healthy lifestyle.

My diet was clean. I made sure I got at least the recommended 10,000 steps most days.

There was no smoking or pesticide use in my immediate environment.

All the household cleaners and personal care products I used were labeled clean, natural, organic, and green.

I mean, how could any of that be bad?

My mind kept coming back to the words environmental factors. What did that really even mean?

It must be really rare, right?

How could I have a precancerous condition caused by environmental factors when I was SO careful about my diet and the products I used?

I was on a mission to find out! Spoiler alert: What I found out will probably shock you–just like it shocked me.

Greenwashing is Real

A friend suggested I start by looking at what I was using daily in my house.  I told her I was sure that the products I was using were safe.

C’mon, they had all those great labels on them:  Green!  Clean!  Safe!  Natural!  Organic!  Wholesome!  

Nothing to worry about there, I said.  But she urged me to dig deeper. So I did.

That’s when I found out that I had been fooled into feeling safe because I believed all those buzzwords.

Meanwhile, I was actually polluting myself, my family, and my home. 

It turns out, those fancy terms aren’t actually regulated. And they don’t necessarily mean that the products are any safer to use! 

It’s called greenwashing, and it’s a real thing.  When brands do the same thing with beauty products, it’s often called cleanwashing.

Many of the ingredients in these products are known to be harmful.

Some of these ingredients are known endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, allergens, asthma triggers, eye, lung, and skin irritants. Some are even known carcinogens.

Talk about being overwhelmed! I was shocked to realize that what I was allowing into my house was part of what was making me sick.

It became clear that I had to find a way to remove the harmful, chemical-filled products.

I knew that in order to do that, I had to find safer toxin-free solutions to use in my home.

So I continued investigating. A lot.

Reading everything I could find on the subject. I learned things that initially scared me but ultimately empowered me.

Small Steps Can Make a Big Difference

I’m not sharing this blog post series to scare you. Or to make you feel bad if you realize that your home environment is making you sick.

I was in the same situation. There is NO judgment here.

Yes, I’ve come a long way in detoxing in my home. But please hear me when I tell you that my home isn’t perfect. There is no way to do this perfectly.

And let’s be realistic here. There really is no way to completely remove every toxin from your home.

You just need to take the first steps and then keep moving forward.

Knowledge can be powerful because when you know better you can choose to do better.

In my opinion, the best way to look at this is through the lens of small steps toward improvement each day.

Not by freaking out and attempting to eliminate everything all at once. Stressing out over it isn’t going to be helpful. (I know this first-hand.)

But taking small steps in the right direction each day can make a significant difference.

The First Step Is Awareness: Is Your House Making You Sick?

The first step is becoming aware of the harmful chemicals in your home. Once you’re aware, you can take steps to reduce and remove them.

Please don’t put your head in the sand and ignore the issue.

If you don’t begin removing these toxins from your home, they’ll continue to build up with the potential to wreak havoc on your health.

I’m sharing this information because I know I’m NOT the only one who was in the dark about this. It took me a lot of digging to uncover the truth.

I feel compelled to share what I’ve learned in the hopes that my knowledge and experience can help YOU.

I invite and encourage YOU to join me in detoxing your home.

7 Ways Environmental Toxins in Your House Are Making You Sick

OK, let’s get on with my top reasons to start removing harmful chemicals from your home!

Environmental Toxins Are Known Carcinogens

The first thing I learned was that the American Cancer Society says that only about 5% to 10% of all cancer cases are from inherited gene defects.

That means that around 90% of cases are caused by other factors, including environmental factors!

Many of these are things that we can control…

tobacco use, second-hand smoke, excess alcohol, lack of exercise, excess weight, exposure to toxic chemicals in our homes, and indoor air quality, to name a few.

Yeah…so clearly I was wrong in thinking that cancer caused by environmental factors was rare.

Compromised Indoor Air Quality

As I mentioned earlier, the air quality inside our homes can be 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air. That’s a shocking statistic, isn’t it?

It was surprising to me, too.

Obviously, polluted indoor air is one way your house might be making you sick.

Polluted indoor air can be due to many factors including the off-gassing of furniture and carpeting and inadequate ventilation.

It’s also due to all the chemicals that are in traditional cleaning and personal care products, air fresheners, and candles.

Even those “green” cleaners (like I was using) can add to the toxic load and air pollution inside our homes.

Indoor toxins don’t just come from the air. Your tap water can also contain hidden contaminants that impact your health. I found a water filter that does an amazing job for my shower. You can read my full review of the Weddell Duo here.

Especially Harmful to Kids and Fur-babies

While harmful chemicals certainly have an impact on everyone in the household, our kids and pets are particularly susceptible to exposure.

This is because they’re exposed to a higher concentration of chemicals than adults.

Think about it. Kids and pets crawl, play, and lie down on the floors, where contaminants tend to be most concentrated.

They tend to put things into their mouths and engage in hand-to-mouth (or paw-to-mouth) behavior.

And let’s not forget that many pets (yep, and kids!) eat right off the floor.

An additional concern is that young children’s bodies are still developing. Their immune system isn’t yet as strong as an adult’s immune system.

So they’re at an even greater risk of developing harmful effects from the chemicals around them.

Also, keep in mind that young children breathe more rapidly than adults. That means they are breathing in more of whatever pollutants are in the air.

Increased Risk of Lung Disease

Harmful chemicals can have many negative effects on the respiratory system. The most common respiratory issues caused by high levels of chemical exposure include asthma and lung disease.

Studies have shown a link between exposure to chemicals from common cleaning products and damage to the lungs.

Including higher rates of asthma and respiratory illnesses, and chronic respiratory problems.

Another recent study has also shown a link between an increased risk of childhood asthma or wheezing and the use of common household cleaning products.

Many Are Endocrine Disruptors

Many of these harmful chemicals can disrupt your endocrine system, too. The endocrine system includes a lot of things!

The adrenals, thyroid, parathyroid, pituitary gland, pineal gland, pancreas, and testes or ovaries. Even the placenta, during pregnancy.

The endocrine system makes and releases hormones into your blood. They then travel to tissues and organs all over the body.

These hormones control several important functions in the body, including growth and development, metabolism, and reproduction.

According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG):

There is no end to the tricks that endocrine disruptors can play on our bodies: increasing production of certain hormones; decreasing production of others; imitating hormones; turning one hormone into another; interfering with hormone signaling; telling cells to die prematurely; competing with essential nutrients; binding to essential hormones; accumulating in organs that produce hormones.

Stay tuned for my post: 7 Ways to Avoid Endocrine Disruptors in Everyday Products.

Poses a Danger to Cardiovascular Health

Exposure to some of these common chemicals can negatively impact the cardiovascular system. The cardiovascular system is, obviously, crucial to your health.

It moves oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and waste to and from the cells in the body, provides nourishment.

It helps to fight disease, and helps to stabilize your temperature, among other things.

Exposure to environmental toxins can stress the heart and can cause unhealthy cholesterol levels.  

Additional studies have shown that exposure to these “toxins may cause structural damage to the cardiovascular system and/or functional disturbances such as decreased cardiac output, electrical conduction system abnormalities, and disruption of systemic arterial pressure autoregulation.”

Can Cause Autoimmune Diseases

The immune system is a complex network that includes cells, tissues, and organs.

The components of the immune system work together to help your body fight off invaders such as viruses, infections, diseases, and anything else it considers foreign or harmful.

In very basic terms, the immune system’s job is to mount an attack, called an immune response, whenever it recognizes any of these invaders.

This is how the immune system is supposed to work.

In people with autoimmune diseases, the immune system mounts that same type of attack when there is no actual threat.

So instead of fighting off an invader, it actually begins attacking the healthy cells in the body.

There is increasing evidence to suggest that environmental toxins can increase the likelihood of ending up with an autoimmune illness.

According to Dr. Joseph Pizzorno,

“The research is very clear—huge, huge, strong correlations between toxin load and most of your autoimmune diseases.”

And it’s important to realize that once you have one autoimmune disease, you are at a much higher risk of developing other autoimmune diseases.

In fact, around 25% of people who have developed an autoimmune disease will have a tendency to develop additional autoimmune diseases.

This has been my personal experience as someone who suffered from three autoimmune diseases at once.

There is Hope, Even if Your House IS Making You Sick Right Now

That question stopped me in my tracks when I first asked it. Because the answer didn’t line up with the story I’d been telling myself about how “healthy” my life was.

I truly thought I was doing everything right. And yet there I was, sitting in an oncologist’s office, being told environmental factors were the likely cause.

That realization was unsettling. But it was also the moment everything started to shift.

What I want you to know is this: You don’t have to figure all of this out at once. I didn’t. I started by looking at one product, then one room, then one habit.

Over time, those small changes added up to a home that felt safer and a body that finally had less to fight against.

If this post made you pause and look around your home a little differently, that’s a good place to be.

New To Non-Toxic Living and Reading Ingredient Labels?

My free Red Flag Ingredient Cheat Sheet breaks down the most common ones in a beginner-friendly way. Grab it below.

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I’d love to know. Had you ever considered that your home environment could be affecting your health? And is this something you’re ready to start paying attention to?