When you think about your HVAC system, your thoughts might go to how it is currently producing hot or cold air. However, did you know that your HVAC system can play a big role in your overall mental health? We’re going to dive into the psychology of home comfort and how this simple system can affect your overall well-being.
Indoor Air Quality
Your HVAC system plays a significant role in the overall quality of the air inside your home. When air quality levels get poor, it’s a sign that there are excess pollutants and allergens in the air. Both contribute to issues like fatigue, cognitive fog, and other neurological problems. Excess allergens can also lead to a plethora of allergy and asthma-related symptoms.
When your HVAC system can produce healthy indoor air quality, it can enhance many parts of your life. It can boost your mood, enhance your focus, and even allow for better sleep at night. It will go a long way in reducing allergy and asthma flare-ups while at home.
Temperature Control
By far, the most obvious way that your HVAC system can affect your overall mental well-being is through temperature control. When the temperature is too hot, it leaves us feeling irritable. However, when the temperature is too cold, it can decrease our ability to focus on tasks.
In fact, ambient temperature plays a huge role in our overall mood and cognitive functions. Having an HVAC system that can provide you with a comfortable indoor temperature is a necessity to maximize cognitive functions and experience better moods.
Humidity Levels
While the temperature of your air can play a big role in how you feel, so can the amount of humidity in the air. People often experience feelings of lethargy when exposed to high levels of humidity. One reason for this is that our lungs have to exert more effort to intake sufficient oxygen when the air is humid. When you’re lethargic, it’s challenging to motivate yourself to get through the day and diminish your overall mental capacity.
Just as high indoor humidity can destroy your mental health, so can low indoor humidity. Low humidity levels lead to a variety of physical irritants like dry skin, sinus problems, and dry eyes. When you’re not feeling well because of these symptoms day after day, it can decrease your mental health.
A Note on Sleep Quality and Stress
With your HVAC system affecting your indoor air quality, temperature, and humidity levels, it’s able to affect your overall sleep quality and your stress levels. When temperature and humidity levels are uncomfortable, you’re going to experience a poor quality of sleep at night. By neglecting to prioritize your mental well-being, you will miss out on the potential for profound effects on your overall mental health and the opportunity to experience daily mental rejuvenation.
It has been determined through various studies that higher levels of stress are associated with uncomfortable temperatures and humidity levels. Poor temperature, humidity, and air quality can hinder productivity and cause stress. When you find yourself constantly stressed out, it can take a big toll on your overall mental well-being and lead to a debilitating spiral of stress.
The Solutions To Enhancing Your Mental Health
When it becomes apparent just how big of an impact your HVAC system has on your mental health, it becomes second nature to want to enhance its positive effect. When we focus on indoor air quality, humidity levels, and temperatures, there are various tools you can use to add to each one of these features. This way, you can create a more favorable environment to let your positive mental well-being flourish.
Upgrade Air Filters
One of the easiest ways to help improve the quality of air inside your home is to upgrade the air filter on your HVAC system. All HVAC filters will have an MERV rating between 1 and 20. For residential use, these filters come with ratings between 1 and 16. To ensure optimal indoor air quality, your best bet is to invest in a filter with a MERV rating between 12 and 16.
Any filter higher than a rating of 16 will remarkably decrease the performance of your HVAC system, as your system won’t be strong enough to adequately pull air through it.
Invest in a Whole-Home Air Purifier
If you would like to take it a step further to enhance the quality of air inside your home, you can invest in a whole-home air purifier. This system will get installed inside your ducting to work in unison with your existing HVAC air filter. It can be composed of a couple of different components depending on the specific model purifier that you purchase.
Many will come with an activated charcoal filter that will help to remove unwanted odors from your home. Others will come with UV lights that work to kill pathogens, like bacteria and viruses. Some will even come with ion technology where the UV light distorts the DNA of the harmful pathogens so they can’t reproduce.
Get a Whole-Home Dehumidifier
While your air conditioning system can remove humidity from the air as it operates, it will struggle to deal with high humidity levels. This is where investing in a whole home dehumidifier can be beneficial. This type of system will get installed in your ducting.
Whenever your thermostat senses that the relative humidity level inside your home is above what you have set, it will have your whole-home dehumidifier kick off. This dehumidifier will work alongside your air conditioning unit to remove that excess humidity down to your desired setting. Most homes should have a relative humidity between 30 and 50%.
Consider Zone Temperature Control Systems
With temperature playing such a big role in your overall mental health, it can be very helpful to invest in zone temperature control systems for your home. This will help to eliminate hot and cold spots throughout the year. In traditional ducted HVAC systems, you can have your HVAC technician create different zones for different areas of your home.
For example, if you live in a two-story home, they can have one zone for your first floor and a second zone for your second floor. This way, you can set the temperature on one floor separately from the other.
With ductless mini-split systems, you get the advantage of built-in zoning. Each mini-split unit will have its own temperature settings independent of the rest. By investing in either a ducted, zoned HVAC system or a ductless mini-split system, you’ll have greater control over your indoor air temperature.
Expert Indoor Air Quality Service
Huft Home Services offers expert indoor air quality services to the entire Sacramento, CA region. We can also assist with all your electrical, home electrification, insulation, home performance inspection, plumbing, heating, cooling, and ductless mini-split needs. Contact us today to schedule your next HVAC service appointment.
