April 22 is Earth Day 2015! Here are the Healthy Hairdresser 10 best ideas for coordinating your personal health with the health of the planet. 

1. Take the Earth Day Ecological Footprint Quiz.This interactive quiz is really fun and will highlight the areas of your life that are/aren’t aligned with planet care.

2. Walk and bike for transportation. It’s spring and getting nicer outside all the time. Do you live within a few miles of the salon? When you leave your car at home in favor of walking or biking, you get your workout and commute done at the same time—kill two birds with one stone, as they say! And you also spend that day not adding greenhouse gases to the air we breathe. 

3. Drink more water—in refillable containers. As you make drinking water a habit, it actually becomes more convenient to refill your favorite water bottle. Maybe it’s time for the salon to order some water bottles with the salon logo so you can promote your business with every sip! As a plus, contribute to a global water organization so that people everywhere in the world will have access to drinking water.

4. Try a farmer’s market. Locally grown food is freshest, so it’s good for you and it requires less transportation to get it to you.

5. Use natural substances for cleaning. For your professional work with chemicals at the salon, you wear gloves. Why expose your hands and lungs to chemicals for cleaning? You can clean just as effectively with castille soap or everyday nontoxic products like baking soda, vinegar, olive oil (no kidding!), lemon juice and the same essentials oily used in aromatherapy.

6. Volunteer to pick up trash. Whether it’s along a highway or on a beach, picking up trash requires all that walking and bending—perfect for exercise while beautifying our world.

7. Garden; plant a tree. Gardening burns calories as you grow your own flowers! If you have a yard, planting a tree provides shade and emotional connection for you while adding oxygen to the environment and removing carbon dioxide.

8. Limit your red meat. You’ll reduce your risk of colon cancer and find it easier to drop weight while doing your part to cut greenhouse gases produced by livestock.

9. Recycle! You know why this is good for the environment—your trash won’t end up in a landfill—but it’s good for you, too, as an emotional warm-and-fuzzy to know that you’re being a good global citizen.

10. Sleep a full eight hours. Sleep is critical to good health, energy and even a youthful appearance. Why is it good for the environment? If you turn everything off before you go to bed, that’s eight hours you’re not using electricity for lights, computers and cell phones (no need to be charging a phone all night!), and it’s even better if you turn down the heat or air-conditioning.