Tips on How to Stay Healthy at Home

With how much time everyone is spending at home during the global pandemic, it’s important to make sure that our homes are as health-conscious as possible right now. That means making sure that everything in our homes is optimized to keep up healthy, fit, and sustainable lives. Here are a few ways to make sure that your home is being as health-conscious as possible and other tips on how to stay healthy at home.

Make Necessary Home Repairs

The first step in making sure that your family is thinking about how to stay healthy at home is to make sure that your home is safe to live in. This means that you should prioritize any necessary repairs before you move onto less important repairs or upgrades to your home. It doesn’t matter how often you exercise if your air filtration system is not working and you’re breathing in air that has potentially harmful particulates in it. It’s important to get HVAC repair if you notice issues with your air quality because there may be issues with the heating or cooling system you have installed.

Another example of a necessary repair would be if you live on a body of water and you have a seawall failing, it’s important to get that repaired because if you end up with flooding from the water, you can develop problems with mold and water damage, neither of which are very healthy for you.

If you are doing any home repairs that require you to live away from your home, make sure that you are choosing the healthiest and safest option. If the current global coronavirus pandemic is still happening, try to stay with friends or family as opposed to a hotel to minimize your exposure to other people. If the pandemic is no longer happening, try to choose an accommodation that will lend to a healthy lifestyle, such as a hotel with a kitchenette and a gym so you can learn how to stay healthy at home (though you are away from home) and cook meals and continue to regularly exercise even if you are away from home.

Check on Your Water

One important part of knowing how to stay healthy at home is staying hydrated. Because of this, making sure that your water is clean and drinkable is very important. Test your water to ensure that everything is within safe drinking levels, and if any of the results you get back seem unsettling, look into water filtration systems for your home. There are different types of filtration systems, so make sure that you do your research.

If you live in an area where it’s possible, you may want to look into well drilling. Water from a well has not been treated with any of the chemicals that normal drinking water has been treated with, and because of this it not only tastes better but might be better for you. Make sure that you test the water before consuming any of it to ensure that your well water is safe to drink.

Stock Your Kitchen With Healthy Essentials

Healthy eating is a very important part of how to stay healthy at home. Avoiding foods that are high in saturated fats, processed sugars, and empty calories can be an important step to being healthier overall. And the easiest way to make sure that you don’t eat unhealthy foods is to not have them in your home. If you stock your pantry with potato chips and candy bars, the odds are that even if you make a conscious choice not to eat them, you’ll slip up. Instead, stock your pantry and fridge with foods that are healthy and delicious. Here are a few tips:

• Find easy, healthy meals you love, and keep those ingredients around all the time. For example, if you love salmon, buying a pack of frozen salmon can make it easy to make the decision to defrost the fish for dinner and cook it in your favorite way. This way, you can avoid ordering pizza because you don’t have anything to make for dinner.
• Always have veggies. Make sure that you include veggies on your weekly shopping list. If your favorite vegetable to have as a side is broccoli, then make sure that you buy at least one head of broccoli every week so that when you aren’t sure what to eat, you can quickly chop it up and bake or steam it.
• Buy healthy snacks to keep around. Snacks like dried fruit and nuts are healthy and will stay good in your pantry for a long time. Although eating enough at mealtimes to stay full is the ideal way to fuel your body, realistically snack cravings happen, and not being prepared for them may have you reaching for unhealthy foods for convenience. Find a healthy snack that you love and keep it on hand for those circumstances.

Build a Home Gym

A home gym is a great way to know how to stay healthy at home. A home gym eliminates your contact with others, which means that you have a lesser chance of catching any diseases from others. If you have a basement or a garage, those are great places to assemble your home gym. Look into a garage door install if the garage door that you currently have isn’t ideal for your workout space.

While you’re avoiding adding to the $117 billion in annual health care costs related to a lack of physical activity, there are a few pieces of equipment you will need. To have a home gym, you don’t need tons of expensive weights or machines. Start out with one to two sets of dumbbells, and decide the actual weight of the dumbbell by what your current strength level is. Resistance bands are also a great way to bring your at-home workouts to the next level. They can be used for a multitude of exercising, from exercises that target your glutes to your triceps because they just add more resistance to normal bodyweight exercises. They help to work out the smaller muscles that may not usually be targeted, so they can really make an exercise feel a lot harder, even though they’re a very small piece of equipment. Another piece of equipment you’ll need is a yoga mat or another form of ground padding, especially if you’re on the concrete floor of a garage or unfinished basement.

Less necessary pieces include a bench for weight lifting and a smith machine if you’re very serious about your fitness. If you’re the kind of person who uses very high weight dumbbells or barbells. If you have the money to invest in your home gym, these pieces can be beneficial, but they’re not as necessary as they might seem. You can easily substitute a chair or a stool for a majority of exercises that you would usually use a bench for.

If you’re interested in mainly cardio exercises, you may consider buying cardio equipment as well. There are many treadmills, exercise bikes, ellipticals, and rowing machines out there to choose from. Make sure that you do your research into the brand that you’re interested in, and check things like the added features, the reviews on and off the official website, and the warranty. There are many sources online that give lists or show trials of different pieces of equipment, so make sure that you use all of the resources that are at your disposal.

Make a Storage Area For Your Recreation Equipment

Since you’re turning an area previously used for storage into a home gym, you’ll need to find new space to store your recreational equipment, like your dirt bike equipment. You don’t want to keep your equipment in an area where it can easily fall and break or hurt someone. This may mean storing it in a shed or other outdoor area.

If you recently went to your local boat dealers‘ establishment and bought a boat, you’ll want to make sure you give adequate room for the boat to be stored. If you don’t have the storage space at your home, consider renting a space and storing it there during the offseason. Contact your boat dealer to see if they know of any good storage options near you for the offseason.

Repair Your Pool

If you have a pool at your home, it can be a great tool for staying active and answers the question of how to stay healthy at home in the warmer months. In order to keep it open for as long as possible so you can get more swim workouts in, install pool heaters. Not only will it help at the start and end of the outdoor swimming season, but it will also help on chilly summer mornings or nights. If you work a normal 9-5 job, you will likely be working during the hottest hours of the day. Having a pool heater installed means that if you want to take a swim at five a.m. or ten p.m., you will have heated water that will not freeze you and potentially get you sick as you enter the pool.

Pools are a great form of exercise, so when the season is right, make sure to look for swim workouts online. You can also pick up some athletic equipment related to swimming, such as hand paddles, which provide resistance for your arms during a workout, fins, which add resistance to your legs, and a kickboard, which can be used for sets that focus on only your legs.

Make Sure You’re Not Spreading Germs

The spread of germs is something that every single people is responsible for right now. You should make sure that you’re wearing a mask when you’re in public, and avoid unnecessary and preventable illness. If you have school-aged children or you still work in an office, a protective desk barrier can help make sure that you don’t spread any illness or get illness spread to you. A protective desk barrier is a plastic shield that can help add a layer of protection between you or your family and others. During cold and flu season or a pandemic, this type of barrier is particularly important if you have to be in an area crowded with people.

If you are renting something for temporary use, like a car, for example, you should make sure that you thoroughly clean it when you first get it. Although your vehicle rental company may clean the car before you get it, there is still a chance that there could be germs or bacteria in the car. Make sure that you wipe down the seats with Clorox wipes or another type of anti-bacterial cleaning wipe, and do the same with the steering wheel, dashboard, the gear shift, and any other areas that you will come in contact with.

If you’re renting something else, like a piece of yard equipment, you should still make sure to wipe things down and try to make the pickup of equipment as contactless as possible. Making sure that you’re being safe outside of your home is the best way to ensure that you’re learning how to stay healthy at home and as safe as possible. If you are only smart about your health at home, the odds are that you will end up getting sick or injured outside of your home.

Make a Consistent Health Routine

The most important part of being health conscious is to be consistent with your health. If you’re being extremely healthy only in short bursts, it isn’t going to be good for your health long term. Although you may want to suddenly be the most healthy version of yourself, it’s more important to build a consistent routine. The 80/20 rule is something that a lot of people follow, which is when you are healthy for 80% of the time, but you let yourself have those little cheat meals or an extra rest day when you should probably work out. The most important thing to know about how to stay healthy at home is to know that you have to make an effort in order for it to be achievable.

No matter how healthy you are (or aren’t) right now, making an effort to be healthier is already a step in the right direction. Make sure that your home is being as health-conscious as possible by keeping in mind these tips for how to stay healthy at home.