Better Air Equals A Better Brain
We all know that air pollution is a bad thing for your lungs and respiratory system, but did you know that air pollution can damage your brain?
One study done showed that long-term exposure to air pollution caused changes in the brain that resembled Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists measure something called PM 2.5, which is a measurement of the tiny “particulate matter” (soot, dust, and grime) small enough to enter into your bloodstream and your lungs. The higher the PM 2.5, the poorer the quality of the air.
It turns out that the more exposure you have to PM 2.5, the worse your brain will function. Air pollution increases brain atrophy and results in cognitive decline and symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s.
When the air quality is bad, your brain gets smoggy, too.
In fact, 63% of older men who had been exposed to air pollution scored lower on cognitive tests than those who didn’t have the same exposure to bad air.
Reading that study got me thinking.
If dirty air can affect your brain when you’re outside, what happens when you’re inside with dirty air?
One Lesson Learned From COVID
There is nothing good about a global pandemic, but we have learned what we can do differently from the onslaught of this invisible virus. One valuable lesson is how to improve the quality of the air around us and increase our chances of staying healthy.
Working in enclosed spaces with other people has presented new challenges in this COVID era. When you have to breathe in the same air as other people, there’s a risk that we had not often thought about before 2019.
Early in the pandemic, an office in South Korea showed how contagious the disease could be. One person in an office of 216 people infected 94 other coworkers who worked at desks arranged on one side of the office.
Air quality has always mattered. Long before the pandemic, a Harvard study of 3000 workers demonstrated that sick leave increased by 53% when employees worked in poorly ventilated areas.
Air quality is now such an important issue that employees are asking their employers questions like, “What are you doing to improve the ventilation in our building?” “Can we open the windows?” “Do you have air filters or ultra-violet systems?” “What is our MERV rating?”
Air Quality Issues Are Not Just for Adults:
Air Quality and its effects on brain health is not just an issue for adults. It affects children, too. The American Psychological Association noted,
Over the past decade, researchers have found that high levels of air pollution may damage children's cognitive abilities, increase adults' risk of cognitive decline, and possibly even contribute to depression.
Further studies on kids who had been exposed to poor air quality found they had lower attention spans and more depression, lower achievement on state testing, and lower scores on tests of “memory, cognition, and intelligence.”
Here’s the Good News:
The effects of exposure to air pollution and poor air quality can be reversed!
“When air pollution goes down,” Dr. Andrea A. Baccarelli, a leader in environmental science at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health notes, “the brain roboots and goes back to normal.”
Changing your air conditioning filters will help improve air quality. So will cleaning your ductwork and vents, opening windows, and making sure your doors and windows are airtight, especially in cities with air pollution or in regions where wildfires are common.
Here’s the Even Better News:
You can easily and affordably improve the air quality in your home. Even more importantly, you can dramatically decrease your health concerns.
There’s now a scientifically proven method to eliminate germs in the air you breathe. It’s called a REME Halo, a simple device inserted into your air conditioning unit that will continuously cleanse the air with a light misting of hydrogen peroxide, reducing COVID germs by 99.9%.
“How Your AC Can Now Kill COVID. True, Proven Facts”
If thinking clearly is important to you…
If you want to avoid cognitive decline…
If you want to protect your children’s brains…
If you want your brain to be better, breathe better air.
Call ServiceOne Air Conditioning & Plumbing. We care about your comfort, the quality of your air, and your brain and body health!