Over 75,000 new chemicals have been introduced into the environment since WWII. These chemicals are everywhere. In the products we buy to clean our homes. In the detergents to clean our clothes — think the ‘Mountain Fresh’ scent is imported air from the Rockies? Pesticides, additives, fertilisers, and herbicides in our food. Air pollution. Water pollution. The new car smell.

Avoidance — the act of preventing toxic substances from entering our bodies and attacking our cells — is critical to the anti-aging process.

Here are two awesome and dirt-cheap ways to practice avoidance:

Open Your Windows

Believe it or not, the air quality in our homes is often worse than downtown LA on a bad smog day. Common households products like cleaners, air fresheners (sic), paint [on the walls and in tins], new carpets, lawn & garden chemicals, detergents — all contain toxic ingredients that circulate via the heating and cooling system in your home.

True you can avoid purchasing most, even all of these products. But a great solution along with this is to open your windows. Bring in the fresh air. Best of all, it’s free!

Wear Gloves

Anything chemical exposed to the skin will likely end up in your bloodstream within 15 minutes. Think of nicotine patches, trans-dermal birth control.

If you are working with any product with a chemical base, wear gloves. Working in the garden fertilising your plants or fuelling your lawnmower? Wear gloves. Renovating your home — painting, caulking, grouting, plumbing? Wear gloves.

Today we live in a toxic world. Anything you can do to assist your immune system in doing its job is a great anti-aging strategy. Especially when they are as easy to do as this.