If we’ve learned anything in the last few years, it’s that our health and well-being is essential to living our best life. Some have taken this to heart and started eating healthy and exercising; others have taken the first step in bettering their mental health by seeking professional help. Maybe you’ve done these things as well, and now you’re looking for other ways to improve your health and your life.
Now more than ever before, our homes have become a safe haven. Home remodel projects, both DIY and hired out to contractors, have more than doubled over the last two years. Not only are Americans more interested in creating a space they find aesthetically pleasing, but they also see the value in optimizing the space they have. On your journey to gaining a healthier life, you might find that your home is part of the problem, but the good news is that it’s also part of the solution.
How a Remodel Affects Your Nutrition
In a recent study by Houzz Inc, homeowners reported how their lifestyles changed after remodeling their kitchen. Of the survey takers, 41 percent reported cooking at home more after their kitchen remodel, 34 percent said they ate less take-out, and 26 percent admitted that they ate more fruits and vegetables than they did before. Now that they had a kitchen they loved to be in, they spent more time in it and didn’t feel the need to go out to eat. The best part of remodeling your kitchen is designing the space for how you plan to use it. For an avid baker, you can add dedicated space for a KitchenAide mixer, which means not having to wrestle the thing from the back cabinet every time you want to make cupcakes. Or, if you dream of crafting big multi-course meals for friends and family, you can invest in a large stove and oven to accommodate all your culinary ambitions.
Additionally, a kitchen remodel allows you to make cooking more accessible by investing in newer and more advanced cooking tools such as nicer ovens, microwaves, stoves, and refrigerators that will keep produce fresher for longer. When the tools you have to cook with making life easier, you’re far more likely to use them.
How a Remodel Affects Functional Medicine
In addition to improving your nutrition and encouraging better eating habits, a remodel project is a fantastic opportunity to assess how your space is affecting the rest of your health. Holistic medicine means taking everything around you into consideration when diagnosing a health problem. While conventional medicine looks at the symptoms and tries to fix them with a pill, holistic medicine asks what you eat, where you live, what tools you use for cooking your food, and much more.
For example, certain surfaces in our homes hold onto germs and other contaminants. These could be causing headaches, allergies, and even depression without us realizing it. Taking on a remodel allows you to replace these potentially harmful materials and replace them with more natural and germ-resistant materials such as natural stone or self-cleaning products. This also means that if there are any mold-infested materials in the home, you can remove those during the remodeling process. This makes the air in your home cleaner and ensures your home is safe and healthy. You can opt for self-cleaning toilets and bidets in a bathroom, which help keep the user clean and reduce the number of chemicals used to clean the toilet. Steam showers and body sprays improve relaxation within a bathroom and reduce the amount of stress you experience. Though this might sound like a luxury item, it’s vital to your overall health to reduce your stress and find peace within your day.
Holistic Medicine and the Lighting in Your Home
Holistic medicine doesn’t just look at how your physical body is; it also considers your spirit and your mind. Seeking mental healthiness is just as important (if not more) than striving for physical health. Mental health awareness has skyrocketed over the last decade and has grown even more within the previous two years. People now realize just how important it is to find a health professional when our mind feels sick.
Not surprisingly, our homes and environments have a lot to do with the state of our mental health. During a remodel, you can assess how the space is affecting you. Maybe take note of the rooms or areas you avoid and which spaces you’re more drawn to. One of the essential aspects is lighting. Adding more light to a space can improve your mood; windows are often replaced with bigger windows and allow more light to filter in. This helps with your mental health and your circadian rhythm, which will help you sleep better at night. And we all know how important sleep is to our overall health.
And let’s not dismiss the importance of aesthetics. While it might seem like a luxury to spend money on how your home looks, it’s crucial to find peace and joy in the design of your space. When you love the space you’re in; your mood is naturally better.
So let’s improve your mind, body, and spirit with a home remodel designed for you to live your best life!
