How concerned are you about your health? Have you ever tried to lose weight, eat healthy, and be active in order to prevent or eliminate any health risks? If so, you’ve left out one critical factor, AIR. Yes, you read it right; it’s the air that you breathe. All these factors contribute to your health and wellbeing. In order to be healthy, you need take control to eliminate or minimize the “bad” and bring in the “good”. This is still possible with your indoor air. So what’s in the air you’re breathing and how can you improve the indoor air quality (IAQ) around you?

What is in the air you’re breathing?
We are constantly exposed to the air that surrounds us regardless if we’re sleeping, working, playing, etc. It’s there 24/7 whether we like it or not. Worst yet, we unconsciously breathe it and bring it into our system with every breath we take. Indoor air pollutants are common but controllable. Sources of indoor air pollutants include, paints, lacquers, paint strippers, aerosol sprays, air fresheners, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, copiers, printers, correction fluids, carbonless copy paper, clothes, adhesives, permanent markers, and the list goes on. In other words, they are everywhere! All these Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) release gases into the air and contribute to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and Building Related Illness (BRI) and are the primary cause of IAQ problems. Photo-ionization detectors (PID) are used “to get a simple measure of the joint exposures to several VOCs in indoor air” (Berglund, et al., 1997).

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