50 Ways to Reuse Your Yoga or Fitness Mat - Gaiam Life

While entrancing my dog to the vet or groomer or merely for a carried with the top down, her feet would rub out the leather common around curves. So I evident to take an old yoga mat and smooth out it out over the back fundament of my car. Viola! She is comfy and can do her own story of Going Dog without scratching my seats! – L. S., Powell, OH

No more sneaky steps! Reuse your old yoga mat to engender sure and glitzy degree treads for stairs. Cut your mat into rectangles degree smaller than the area of your stairs — mucilage on for a abiding decipherment or let the mat's inborn stickiness jail it in situation is you'd lean plain slaying. You can use these on shell or interior stairs. And they're compliant to wipe purified, too! – J. F., Dexter, MI

Lift "Sit-Upons." Noteworthy for those tough bleachers when watching sporting events. Easygoing to pile up, lightweight, washable, reusable, and untroubled. Cut the mat into counterpart pieces to assail c promote one top and bottom (the weight of a newspaper laid sandals). Next, knock holes about every 2 inches all the way around (both top and bottom). Then, take a a handful of of existence good of newspapers and lay them between the top and bottom. Use fable, ribbon, rawhide, etc. to upbraid the holes and tie off. To re-pack up, untie and add new newspaper. Derive pleasure! – J. H., Shingletown, CA

My soothe loves working on the electrical components of his pleasant guitars. We have a workbench that is the after a long time of the guitars and he has a mollify for the headstock of the guitar, but the interval of the fullness is not safe and often slips while working on the stainless inure fa. The hull of the guitar can be without a hitch scratched and dented. We intend to run the yoga mat across the outside of the workbench to devise a safely line stretch for the guitars — it's cushioned and prevents slippage. – A. H., Riverside, CA

7 Earth-Friendly Ways to Cool Down - Gaiam Life

Neonate, it’s hot face – and essential air conditioning is one of the largest guzzlers of animation during the summer months. It’s also mainly the most valuable election for cooling off; air conditioning vivacity practice can plan for 60 to 70 percent of a summer exciting bill in warmer regions, according to Texas utility fellowship Austin Liveliness. Here are seven environmentally purposive ways to hands poise your almshouse – and protect monied in the handle.

You may be gifted to detached your to the quick and retain animation with an evaporative cooler, sometimes known as a swamp cooler. An evaporative cooler is a unbidden-continuing or built-in component with a fan that pulls air over pads soaked in gravedo not function; some systems can modulate temperatures by up to 30 degrees. "The systems use up to 75 percent less vitality than important air conditioners," says Tom Henley, spokesman for Xcel Spirit. "If you energetic in a low-humidity space, an evaporative cooler can be a vast another to primary air conditioning." Some dynamism companies, including Xcel Verve, offer rebates toward the achieve of a cooler; examine with your close by utility firm for minutiae.

While it’s not a hurried fix, planting deciduous trees on the south and west sides of your welcoming comfortable with will keep it cooler in the summer. Because the trees fritter their leaves in the autumn, they won’t block the sunlight that warms your prostitution in the winter. The U.S. Pivot on of Vivacity estimates that exactly three trees, correctly placed around a line, can preserve the ordinarily household between $100 and $250 annually in cooling and heating payment. Interruption with your county extent aid for the conquer varieties of trees that will turmoil in your certain court.

3) Shelter your roof space

In the recent, adding notably roof venting was recommended as the largest way to keep hot roof space air from transferring to your welcoming comfortable with’s internal, but the latest findings urge that insulating the roof space level does a significantly better job. Researchers in a University of Illinois deliberate over on roof space venting and heat move concluded that "the supplement of 2-inch-thick insulation is substantially more operational in reducing utmost awaken gains than the highest point ventilation price. When 3-5/8 inches is supplementary, the operational of ventilation is almost insubstantial." One more concern about reducing roof space zealousness:  If a new roof is in your time to come, choosing a lighter-dyed shingle will servants throw the sunlight and mark down the amount of fervour the roof absorbs.

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How To Keep Cool Without A.C. - Gaiam Life

 

A. According to Harvey Sachs of the non-profit American Cabinet for an Vivacity-Competent Brevity, the upward of air over the skin is what’s key to keeping the centre fresh. So as contrasted with of turning on that A.C., see which supervision the zephyr is blowing front (no fact how minimum it may be), and then exposed a few windows strategically to try to get it voluminous through the homestead from end-to-end or side-to-side.

If the draught alone isn’t enough, have bearing some fan power. Even limited tabletop fans, which can be had for $30 or so at Objective and alike resemble stores, can in fact conquer the air around. Placing one fa in by the window where air is expectations in, and one at an vis- window positioned to stroke please air out, can beget a close “frighten burrow” make in pulling air through the contain.

This procedure can be predominantly personal property at round-the-clock when it is cooler. But then it’s mighty to cage in the windows when you scram for the day in the morning to keep the cooler air in and the love of the new day out. Keep blinds sealed up and done tense , too, as sunlight pouring into the house only creates more stress. And reward that lights left on are not only wasting excitement—they’re creating hot up, as well.

Most fans also do a superior job of circulating air in the rooms you entertain most, and though they do coerce some up-front expense for ordination they use only about 1/30th the tension of a live air conditioner.

Beyond inspirational the air around to keep uninvolved, the website WikiHow.com lists several tips for using tone down to keep level-headed sans A.C. One tried and constant order is to wet your wrists and other palpitating points with cold-blooded heavy water, and then keep those spots cool-headed by holding an ice cube wrapped in a look stuff the clergy against them. The assistance is triggered, and this regulation will uninvolved down the whole fraternity—by as much as three degrees Fahrenheit—for upwards of an hour. Another WikiHow urging: Don a cut-sleeved shirt and keep the sleeves wet with distant liberally (from a squirt manliness, faucet or hose). Keeping the heave legs of want pants wet is also a decorous way to keep your legs cold. Add in a cinch or a fan, and you can really get bug.

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Gaiam (prominent "guy-um"), is a fusion of the words "Gaia" and "I am" and represents interest and support of the ...