Healthy Home Take Control

We are delighted to welcome listeners back to the Healthy Home Take Control Podcast with your hosts, Marla Cloos and Jillian Prichard Cooke!

We are thrilled to embark on another exploration of health and vitality today! We have Michelle Harris, known for her Alive and Well TV show, joining us. If you are not yet acquainted with Michelle, her impact, or her TV show, she is a beacon of insight and inspiration within the health and wellness space!

Michelle possesses the unique ability to translate good health into practical steps. During her college years, she embraced a vegetarian lifestyle and eventually transitioned to veganism. After that, she began delving into environmental concerns and personal well-being and started to understand the intricate connections between those factors.

Join us today to learn about the profound work Michelle has initiated through Alive and Well TV as we explore her journey of bridging the gap between personal health and environmental awareness and taking actionable steps toward living a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.

Show highlights:

• What motivated Michelle to devote her entire life to health and wellness?

• The importance of feeling good in our homes.

• What are the benefits of using PeachSkin sheets?

• Some common options not necessarily thought of for being more sustainable and contributing to health and wellness

• Michelle shares her thoughts on aromatherapy.

• What is a good solution to stay away from the synthetics?

• Michelle talks about sustainability in the home.

• The connection between personal health, the health of a community, and the health of the world.

• How can you contribute to making the world a better place?

• Using meditation, yoga, aromatherapy, and meditation to de-stress.

• Why Michelle encourages people to adopt, spay, and neuter pets.

Show Sponsor

This episode is sponsored by Hayward Score.

Links and resources:

Healthy Living System™

Alive and Well TV

Ed Begley Jr and Rachelle's Green Home

Begley Green Home Part 2

Begley Green Home Part 3

Begley Green Home Part 4

Wave House and Vision House on Alive and Well TV

Magazine interview

Animal Angels on Pet Life Radio

Interview with Michelle on Animal Angels

Article Michelle Harris

Article M Harris West Coast

Many people do not realize the importance of minimizing the presence of chemicals in all areas of their home. 

Today’s guest, Alysia Reiner, is an actress, activist, producer, and eco-mom. Alysia is passionate about creating a clean environment not only for the planet, but inside our homes. 

In this episode, she shares ways she has created an eco-friendly environment and reduced the toxins in her living space. She discusses why reducing toxins in the home really matters, easy ways you can start making changes, and her effort to support positive change instead of negative change. From water purifying to air filtration, this episode has it all! 

Show Highlights: 

• Alysia shares what made this year the “meditation retreat no one signed up for” 
• How being a mom has driven Alysia to be more environmentally conscious 
• Ways the fashion industry impacts climate change 
• Navigating purifying home water supplies 
• Ways Alysia has improved her home air filtration 
• Items Alysia brought into her home to minimize chemical levels
• Making environmentally-friendly cleaners at home 
• How Alysia had a mold issue even though they built an entirely clean home 
• Projects and programs that Alysia is working on and passionate about 

Links: 

We'd like to thank our sponsor Mothers and Others for Clean Air: https://www.mothersandothersforcleanair.org

https://www.alysiareiner.com

https://turninggreen.org

Alysia Reiner's Closet on Wardrobe - https://www.wearwardrobe.co/users/2405

https://www.airprotein.com

Today’s guests, Savannah and John R. Seydel, are newlyweds with a passion for sustainable living. In this interview, Savannah and John R. share ways that they are prioritizing sustainability in their home, life, and at work. They discuss how they have been able to give back to the community by making ethical choices for their wedding, home, and careers. They, also, include great tips for taking action at home, with as little effort as staying in bed. 

Tune in to this episode to learn more about the amazing things Savannah and John R. are doing, as well as their mission to empower others and the inclusive opportunities available to you. 

Show Highlights: 

• Savannah and John R. share the most sustainable part of their wedding 
• John R. shares how his background and heritage relate to his interest in sustainability 
• How we can make changes at home to transform our mind, body, soul, and family 
• The importance of asking questions to make sustainable choices at home 
• Savannah shares what she does for sustainability for Better Earth 
• Exploring ways the food industry can be part of the climate solution 
• John R. shares how he is working to make Atlanta more affordable, resilient, and equitable 
• The innovative ways Resilience of Atlanta is working to make Atlanta more sustainable 
• Cities that are working to become more sustainable 
• Ways Better Earth is making progress in Orlando 
• How to take action to be more conscious about everyday consumption 
• Savannah and John R.’s aspirations to make sustainability accessible to all

Links: 

84 Lumber 

Captain Planet Foundation 

Resilience in Atlanta 

Better Earth

John R.'s Instagram

John R.'s Twitter 

Whoever said diamonds are a girl’s best friend never had a dog. Today’s guest, Carol Novello, has worked in the animal welfare sector for 10 years and has started a multitude of programs to help get animals fostered, cared for, and into a loving home. Carol shares what inspired her to start working with animals, as well as the many benefits a furry friend can have on your home, health, and mental wellness. 

Join Marla and Jillian in this encouraging episode honoring our furry friends to learn more about Mutual Rescue™ and how adopting a homeless animal can save you, too. 

Show Highlights: 

• Marla, Jillian, and Carol discuss the animals they’ve rescued 
• Carol shares how she got into the animal welfare sector 
• Programs Carol started to help people understand why helping animals helps people 
• What inspired Carol to start working with animals 
• The mental health benefits of having a pet 
• How the pandemic impacted animal adoption 
• The importance of connecting with the natural world
• Ways animals can increase productivity and activity 
• The research behind how animals relieve stress 
• Why Carol made the Doggy Day Out Tool Kit to help communities easily implement a fostering program 
• The ways animals can help make us more vulnerable with others 
• Changes Carol had to make in her home to cohabitate with pets 
• New projects happening within Mutual Rescue™ 

Links: 

Visit Recovery Center of America Website

Healthy Living System™ https://wellnesswithinyourwalls.com/10-step-approach/

Mutual Rescue™ https://mutualrescue.org/

Mutual Rescue™ Films https://mutualrescue.org/films/

Mutual Rescue™ Book https://mutualrescue.org/book/

Doggy Day Out https://mutualrescue.org/doggydayout/

Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mutual-rescue-carol-novello/1128997296

When problems arise in the home, many of us tend to sweep it under the rug. What many of us don’t realize, is the real impact having a clean home has on our health. Today’s guest, Bill Hayward is a building scientist and healthy living specialist. 

In this interview, Bill shares his story of living in a “sick house” and how it inspired him to help people better regulate their homes. Tune into this episode for tips on how to minimize cooking fumes, reduce exposure, and enhance the air flow in your home. 

Show Highlights: 

• What inspired Bill to become a building scientist 
• Why Bill and his family had to move out of their dream home 
• Bill shares his story building his own clean home 
• How Bill has reduced risk at home with HEPA filters during COVID 19
• How Bill’s background has provided him with the knowledge to build clean homes
• Most common issues we see with air in homes and how to fix it 
• Simple ways to combat issues that arise in homes 
• What is a crawl space and what problems can arise 
• Issues that arise in kitchens from unnecessary fumes 
• The benefits of having a closet exhaust 
• How to remove COVID from the circulating air 
• Why every small change matters when cleaning out homes 
• Getting rid of chemicals in your home 
• Candle etiquette with Jillian 
• Bill’s favorite movies and books about living in a healthier environment 

Links: 

Bill Hayward

Hayward Score

Get Your Hayward Score

5 Principles of a Healthy Home 

Hayward Score Team

Articles

We’d like to thank our sponsor, Aprilaire. You can visit their website here.

Compassion is one of the most fundamental parts of being human, but not all of us practice it. While it’s a natural behavior, not everyone utilizes it in their day to day life. Today’s guest, Carol Beck is the Associate Director of The Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics. 

The Compassion Center focusing on teaching students and other individuals how to practice compassion and kindness in every area of life. It teaches how to cultivate compassion, systems thinking, as well as attention training, trauma informed curriculum and so much more. Tune into this episode to learn more about The Compassion Centers mission to globalize a culture of compassion and the benefits the practice of compassion can have in your life. 

Show Highlights: 

• What is the compassion center and what they do 
• How Compassion is structured and programs they offer 
• Practical teachings integrating into courses 
• Why you have to have strength and put yourself first to practice compassion 
• What makes empathy a building block for compassion 
• Recognizing our common humanity and inner-dependence 
• What is empathy fatigue 
• The importance of scaling our expectations to reality and recognizing limitations 
• The Fight, Flight, Freeze mode
• Helping people recognize their own need for compassion
• How faith traditions come into play with compassion 
• The 21 Day Compassion Challenge 
• The benefits you see in your daily life from practicing compassion 

Links: 

Visit Wellness Within Your Walls -https://wellnesswithinyourwalls.com/10-step-approach/

Compassion Shift - https://compassionshift.emory.edu

Compassion Based Ethics at Emory University - http://www.dalailama.emory.edu/

Sponsors:

We'd like to thank today's sponsor, The Bill Lowe Gallery, for their support of this show. Click here to visit their website. 

Welcome to the inaugural episode of our brand new podcast, Healthy Home Take Control! Your hosts are Jillian Prichard Cooke and Marla Esser Cloos and, and over the next ten episodes, we will be helping you explore how to live healthier in your home, and how taking control can make that happen. 

In each episode, we will cover one of the ten steps of the Healthy Living System, and we will bring on a different guest each time. 

Why this work is so important to Jillian

Fourteen years ago, Jillian suffered a health hiccup when she got diagnosed with cancer. That resulted in her having chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and she does not want anyone else to have to go through that. So having the opportunity to share with you, the listener, what she has learned over the past fourteen years about taking control of herself and her environment brings her joy!

How Marla got into healthy living and healthier homes

Marla initially got into the concept of healthy living and healthier homes as a result of the way her daughter reacted to certain chemicals that were in the laundry soaps and detergents when her family was on vacation more than a decade ago. And the health issues that her husband experienced more recently cemented the concept of healthy living for her because that brought her attention to all the other aspects of health and wellness. 

Environmental cancer

Jillian discovered that cancer she had was not genetic. It was brought on by environmental factors. So she backtracked through her entire life, to find out what she had been exposed to that could have brought cancer on.

Environmental factors

At first, Jillian looked into the possibility of her cancer having occurred as a result of black mold, asbestos, or lead in the environment when she was much younger. She has subsequently come to believe, however, that cancer started as a result of the toxins she was exposed to at a later age in the oil paints and solvents she used while studying Fine Arts. 

The Healthy Living System

The Healthy Living System was created by WWYW to give the consumer a template that is easy to maneuver through. It is a nice add-on to some of the certification programs that are there to assist builders, architects, designers, and manufacturers in coming together with a holistic approach to produce a healthier home.  

Why the Healthy Living System was created

The Healthy Living System was created as an opportunity for the home occupant to do their part every day, once they have taken possession of their new home. You can also apply the ten steps of the system to an existing home. 

The ten steps of the Healthy Living System

1. Clean air – Making the right everyday choices will contribute to you having cleaner air in your home.
2. Clean water – You need to know what is in the drinking water in your home, and also in the bottled water that you buy.
3. Natural light – Let the sunshine in. It is full of Vitamin D, and it also contributes to your mental health.
4. Chemical control – We will take a deep dive into chemical-control in future episodes of this podcast.
5. Physical wellness  - Exercise, do outdoor activities and feed into the physical side of what your body needs.
6. Mental wellness – Make sure that your environment is secure.
7. Spiritual wellness – Unplug all your devices from time to give yourself a break from the EMF (Electromagnetic Frequency) that they give off.
8. Conscious consumption – Start making conscious choices about the products you choose to buy. Swap out one or two of the products you use in your home for better, safer, and healthier options each time you go to the store. And remember to reuse, reduce, and recycle, and also refuse to use single-use plastic items.  
9. Food science – This is about nutrition and about how you provision, store, and prepare your food.
10.  Behavioral strategies – How you spend your money, what you put in your body, how you conduct yourself within your home environment, and your habits are all behavioral strategies. 

If you apply these ten steps in your home, you are sure to have a healthier outcome, and you are likely to be a lot more careful in the choices you make.

Making a difference

Marla explains that there is a lot that you can do in your home and in your life to make a difference, and they don’t have to be big things.

Toxic compounds off-gassing

There are certain products that we bring into our homes that contain toxic compounds and give off toxic gasses called VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds). And there are 88 000 chemicals used that have had no meaningful testing done on them. 

The thirty-six chemicals that show up regularly

WWYW has identified thirty-six chemicals that show up regularly in home-furnishings and home-building and products and finishes that could cause problems with your health. We want you, the listener, to know what those chemicals are. So we will be listing them and telling you more about them in future episodes of this podcast series.  

Modern homes

New homes get built to energy-efficient standards, so they are tighter. That is a good thing if the right systems are in place. If they are not, however, it is hard for the toxins to escape, so they leech into the textiles and draperies in the home, and also into our bodies, which could lead to an unhealthy outcome.

Getting rid of toxicity in our homes

To get rid of toxicity in our homes, and to contribute to the air being cleaner, we need to use our common sense when it comes to off-gassing, and we need to take control of understanding what goes into all the products we use in our homes. 

A bit about us

We met through Professional Women in Building and the Sustainability and Green Building movement at the National Association of Home Builders. It took us a while to finally really connect and lightning struck when we did! Our missions intersected and, in our quest to do more, the Healthy Home Take Control podcast was born. 

Jillian Pritchard Cooke, WWYW – Jillian was driven by her own journey with cancer to found Wellness Within Your Walls® (WWYW), an award-winning informational resource group, which created a ground-breaking program designed to reduce toxins in living environments. An environmental-cancer diagnosis led Jillian to use her years of experience as the head of an interior design firm, DES-SYN, and think outside the energy-efficiency box to consider how the materials we use to build, specify and furnish homes might be making us sick. 

The resulting WWYW standard reframes the construction conversation and outlines proper construction techniques and healthier design and building practices, as well as behavioral strategies to ensure sustained wellness. Along with her WWYW team, Jillian developed WWYW's Healthy Living System™ (HLS), which sets forth 10 holistic steps for achieving health and wellness in homes and communities. Jillian and WWYW have been the recipient of numerous awards to recognize their groundbreaking work.  

[email protected] (work) 404-365-9094 (cell) 404-326-234

Marla Esser Cloos, NAHB Master Certified Green Professional, LEED AP and WWYW - Marla is the principal of Green Home Coach where she uses her "superpowers" to help home professionals, and inhabitants to discover and create better homes for healthier, more comfortable lives. Making simple swaps to green and sustainable choices helps create better homes – a bit at a time in existing homes or all at once for new and remodeled homes. 

She also is the immediate past chair of Professional Women in Building of Central OK and Build My Future OKC 2019, an interactive, hands-on construction career day, and Build My Future Online for high school students. 

[email protected]  (work) 405-237-8188 (cell) 314-740-7251