How To Have A Clean & Healthy Home With Feng Shui

Feng Shui is a means by which people can feel more peaceful, healthy, and content in their personal space. If you would like to bring Feng Shui into your home for a cleaner, healthier and happier place to live, here are some tips on how to get started.

Feng shui wind chime (Photo credit: UnnarYmir)

1. Clean Up & Simplify - Part of Feng Shui is being surrounded by things you love, but only the things you love most. Everything else needs to go. Donate whatever you can instead of throwing it away. A good rule of thumb for getting rid of things is to ask yourself if you have done anything with a particular object in a year. If you haven't touched it in a year, you probably won't miss it when you give it away. Simplicity brings peace and lessens stress, which can be toxic to your health.

2. Let In the Light - Feng Shui is about energy, and opening things up to a good flow of energy. Light is an important component of this. Emphasize natural lighting wherever you can, and use energy-efficient bulbs that have a daylight type of spectrum. In the evening, soft lighting is recommended. Light candles and use low-wattage bulbs in lamps.

3. Bring In Fresh Air - In addition to natural light, natural, fresh air is also helpful is bringing good energy flow and healthy air into your home. Whenever weather permits, let outside air in. Consider a quiet air purifier and toxin-absorbing houseplants to make your indoor air even cleaner.

You can also purify the air by using natural essential oils. In Feng Shui, essential oil of rose, lavender or jasmine is recommended for the bedroom; peppermint or lemon for rooms where you want to be awake and energized. Don't use oils or air fresheners with synthetic fragrances, as these can be bad for your health.

4. Include Water - Having a water feature in the home is an important aspect of Feng Shui. Water in the home's entryway is especially beneficial. A wall or tabletop fountain can fill this need. The water should be running; just a bowl of water won't do.

Feng Shui Designs (Photo credit: IDEAleemade)

5. Arrange Attractive Objects - Of course you still have objects in your home. Arrange these in a decorative, organized manner so that it is pleasing to the eye. On your desk, place a small plant or desktop fountain. The color red is recommended for the desktop work space, as it is associated with wealth. In your home, make sure the entryway is clear of clutter and especially shoes. Consider placing small objects in decorative boxes that can be neatly stacked.

6. Consider the Wall Colors - Soft pink is considered ideal for the bedroom. Soft shades of purple are also good for promoting relaxation. Use red in rooms where a lot of activity occurs and you want an energized atmosphere. (Red is not recommended for a wall color, however, or use only as an accent color.) Yellow is good for intellectual stimulation and promoting happiness.

By following these tips, you'll find your home is a healthy and peaceful place where you love to be!

Remember to also make sure to remove toxic elements from your home first! If you're sick, you won't be able to appreciate the peace and beauty you've created.

Click here for a FREE checklist to help you cleanse and detoxify your home...

Video - Natural Mosquito Repellent Options

Here's a great short video covering a wide variety of natural methods for repelling and controlling mosquitoes in  your garden, and on your family!  From sprays that you apply to your skin, to natural products you can use in your garden, or even plants you can grow that help repel mosquitoes from the area. You don't need to spray yourself or your environment with harmful chemicals to get rid of mosquitoes - there are lots of natural options out there - and this video shows you quite a few good ones to try. (Links to a few of these can be found below the video.)

John Dromgoole mosquitoes: Central Texas Gardener
Repel mosquitoes in the garden or on you with John Dromgooles tips for natural control. Along with organic products, he shows how to make your own topical mosquito repellent. Then, ornament the garden or patio with mosquito-repellent plants like scen...


Natural Mosquito Repellents: 
   

Finding Greener Cleaners

It wasn't so long ago that you didn't have a choice. If you wanted a clean house, you had to use a commercial cleaner that emitted horrible-smelling fumes and contained questionable chemicals. These bottles of wonder clean may have kept you from using a lot of good old-fashioned elbow grease and did a good job of cleaning, but at what price? These products that we've inhaled, absorbed through our skin, ingested through food prepared on these surfaces, and sent to our waterways all have poison control information on their labels.

Now we have greener choices in our cleaning products and our cleaning tools. Just check out your local supermarket and you'll see plenty of new products on the market that are better for you and better for the environment. (Many are even similarly priced to traditional chemical-based cleaning products, and work just as well.)

When trying to decide what new cleaning product to purchase you need to look first at the ingredients. Green products are proud to list all their ingredients and some go so far as to explain what the ingredients are and what they do. Plant-based is usually better for you than petroleum-based. If you're not sure what an ingredient is, look it up online and get the facts.

Image by EasyEcoBlog via FlickrLook for independent seals of approval, not at the products' self-proclamations of "all natural" or "fully biodegradable". Independent 3rd party seals such as the one by the EPA show that they've passed certain criteria regarding the environment and your health. (For some more tips, and recommendations for truly natural products, as well as a FREE greener home checklist for reducing other toxins in the home, visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/toxicload.html.)

As far as your cleaning tools go, you can go greener here too. Instead of using throw away paper towels to clean, get a package of cloth diapers. They do a good job of absorbing and will last a long, long time. Give old t-shirts a second life by using them for garage and outside jobs. Another option is to use microfiber multi-purpose kitchen cloths. Not only do they absorb a ton of liquids when cleaning up spills, but they can be used to dust furniture when dry. If you must use paper towels, choose a brand that uses recycled paper and is chlorine-free.

Green cleaners may or may not be more expensive than traditional commercial cleaners, but I believe they're a better choice all around. Don't decide on a cleaner based on price; take a look at the ingredients and then try it out. It may take a little testing to find the product that works best for you, but you'll find one and your environment will thank you.

Related articles on Green Cleaning Products

• Seek the fine print on household products touting 'green' credentials (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• How Environmentally Friendly Cleaning Works (brighthub.com)
• Green cleaning: There's the scrub (independent.co.uk)