7 Benefits of an Air Purifier for Your Health and Home

You’ve poured time and effort into creating a healthy home environment. Sanitized surfaces, spotless carpets, gleaming floors—everything seems clean. But what about the things you cannot see, like the air you breathe?

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the air inside your home might be two to five times dirtier than the air outdoors. That’s because our homes often let in a cocktail of airborne toxins or harbor them from internal sources like cleaning products, pets, and even our beloved scented candles. And considering we spend most of our time indoors, we’re constantly inhaling these pollutants, which raises our risk for a slew of health problems, the American Lung Association warns.

If the thought of that leaves you gasping, don’t panic. Investing in an air purifier for your home can combat pesky airborne impurities so you and your loved ones can breathe easier. Stick around as we clear the air about what air purifiers are, how they work, and their potential benefits.

What is an Air Purifier, and What Does It Do?

True to its name, an air purifier, sometimes called an air cleaner, is an appliance designed to cleanse the air inside your home, removing impurities, including dust, pollen, pet dander, dust mites, and smoke. When equipped with a secondary activated carbon filter, it can also tackle odors, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other microscopic pollutants.

Air purifiers come in various shapes, sizes, and types, offering different features and benefits. Portable units are available for small to extra-large rooms, ideal for targeting individual living spaces. Larger, more robust systems can be integrated into your home’s HVAC system, bringing fresher air into your entire house. Some air purifiers are designed for specific purposes, such as eliminating odors and smoke or combating particular allergens.

How an Air Purifier Works

At its core, an air purifier works on a simple principle: draw in air, filter it to remove impurities, and reintroduce the “purified” air back into the space. You can think of it like a screen door that lets in fresh air and keeps the bugs out. But instead of a single layer of mesh, an air purifier uses multiple layers of increasingly fine filters or “screens” to target various contaminants.

As these particles, fumes, and other toxins float around in the air, the device uses an internal fan to pull the air into the system and force it through one or more filters, plucking the vast majority of those pollutants from the air itself. The freshened air is released back into the room, containing much fewer pollutants. This process continues throughout the day to ensure the cleanest air is circulated. Some systems even feature built-in sensors that automatically detect and remove contaminants in your indoor air environment.

The type and level of contaminants filtered from the air depend on the filters integrated into the air purifier. Many models use a High-Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filter, the same type used on airplanes. These filters screen out at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold, bacteria, and any airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns (µm), according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The most advanced air purifiers can also capture and neutralize vapors and sanitize the air by destroying viruses using technologies like ultraviolet (UV) light, activated charcoal, and ionization.

Benefits of Air Purifiers for Your Health and Home

It’s no coincidence that we’re seeing more and more air purifiers inside schools, offices, hospitals, homes, and elsewhere. Clean air is a vital part of everyday life. With that in mind, let’s explore seven remarkable benefits of air purifiers for your health and home.

1. Combats Allergens and Asthma Triggers

If you or a family member has allergies or asthma, your home should be a haven of fresh air. But sometimes, being indoors can feel like living in a minefield of allergy triggers, including dust, pollen, ozone, mold spores, and pet dander. Exposure to these airborne irritants can cause or exacerbate allergy symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, itchy and watery eyes, and a runny nose. It can also worsen asthma symptoms. Moreover, childhood exposure to particulate matter and gases may raise their risk of developing asthma later in life.

This is where air purifiers shine. They are uniquely designed to capture virtually all airborne allergens, significantly reducing your exposure and creating an overall cleaner, healthier, allergy-friendly indoor sanctuary. Several studies have found that purifiers with HEPA filters greatly benefit patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), atopic dermatitis, and asthmatic children.

2. Fights Odors and Freshens Indoor Air

What’s that awful smell? This is the last question you want on your guests’ minds when they enter your home. Unpleasant odors can be embarrassing and make your living spaces uninviting. Sure, some stenches are easy to remove (like taking out a smelly trash can), but others can be more persistent. Smoke, fresh paint, dirty carpets, cooking fumes, or wet pets can permeate your home with stubborn and unpleasant odors, assaulting all noses in range.

Interestingly, odors are actually teeny-tiny molecules floating around in the air. Many are also VOCs that evaporate quickly at room temperature and exist as gases in indoor air. With an air purifier on deck (precisely one that uses an activated carbon filter), you can remove these odor-causing fumes from the air in your home.

Activated carbon filters work through adsorption, where the filter’s surface attracts the gas molecules. When these molecules come in contact with the activated carbon filter, they bond onto it and lodge into its pores. With these gases removed, the air released from the purifier is fresher, cleaner, and safer.

3. Reduces Risk of Airborne Diseases and Infections at Home

If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic taught us, it’s the importance of clean air. Airborne diseases and infections are transmitted through the air—not just outdoor air but also the air in your home. When an infected family member coughs, laughs, sneezes, or even breathes, viruses and other pathogens enter the air as respiratory droplets or aerosols (tiny airborne particles on which viruses can hitch a ride). These particles may remain suspended for minutes to hours. With everyone breathing the same indoor air, the entire household is bound to come in contact with the pathogens at some point, possibly leading to sickness.

Another source of microbe-filled aerosols? The toilet. Research scientist Stephanie Boone, Ph.D., explains it in an article published by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM): “When you’re in the bathroom and you flush the toilet, you have a plume of aerosolization. We’ve measured [the plume] go as [high] as 3 ft. from the toilet surface and as far as 2.5 ft. outside the toilet surface. If you have, say [SARS-CoV-2] or influenza, or norovirus, those viruses [are included] in that plume.”

One tremendous benefit of air purifiers is that they can zap many potentially harmful pathogens from indoor air, reducing your risk of infection. Of course, you shouldn’t neglect basic hygiene and safety practices like washing your hands often, sanitizing surfaces, and using disposables.

4. Optimizes Your Sleep Environment

Have you ever tried sleeping in a musty room? Getting that all-important shuteye likely felt next to impossible. That’s because indoor air quality plays a ginormous role in sleep time and quality. One study shows that people living in heavily polluted areas are 60% more likely to suffer from poor sleep than those in areas with cleaner air. On top of that, a study of college students found that increased fresh air in the bedroom improved sleep quality, next-day performance, and concentration.

Long story short: All that excessive sneezing and stuffiness from inhaling various airborne pollutants can interrupt your sleep or prevent you from drifting off in the first place. Investing in an air purifier is one way to regain that lost slumber. By bringing fresher air into your bedroom and reducing exposure to nighttime air pollutants, an air purifier can help you fall asleep quicker and get more quality sleep. However, it’s still important to wash bedding regularly, vacuum your mattress, and adjust to the right temperature and humidity for even cleaner airflow.

5. Boosts Cognitive Performance at Home

If your home is also your workplace, it must be as comfy, healthy, and productive as possible. Optimizing air quality is a crucial aspect of achieving that. Breathing polluted air for extended periods can substantially increase the risk of allergies, fatigue, and respiratory issues, impacting your overall well-being on the clock. More than that, your cognitive performance may take a massive hit, research finds.

During the study, researchers tracked the real-time indoor air quality and cognitive function of around 200 remote office workers over one year during COVID-19. They found that in addition to indoor thermal conditions, CO2 concentrations while working from home may influence cognitive function. Notably, CO2 has often been used in studies to gauge the overall dilution of indoor pollutants like VOCs and fine particulate matter.

The solution is as simple as installing an air purifier in your home office. With fresher, cleaner air to breathe, you’ll remain more focused, energized, and creative, potentially translating to better work performance.

6. Improves Heart Health

The air quality in your home can also significantly impact your cardiovascular health. When you breathe, you’re taking in more than oxygen. Fine particles from dust and fumes can reach deep into your lungs, affecting other biological systems and vital bodily organs like the heart. The American Heart Association (AHA) says exposure to air pollutants raises the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, and heart failure, which are all bad for your heart. Studies also show that short-term exposure can elevate blood pressure and inflammation.

Limiting exposure to airborne toxins, especially particles, can help guard your heart from the devastating effects of poor air quality. Research suggests that using an air purifier to reduce particle pollution in your home may benefit your heart and lung health, especially in areas with high outdoor air pollution levels. Moreover, a 2018 study published even found heart health benefits from air purification among residents of a senior facility in just three days of use.

7. Less Spreading and Buildup of Dust

Dust is one uninvited guest we can’t seem to stop from getting into our homes. Despite how often and diligently we dust, it continues to build up, slowly covering everything in sight—appliances, furniture, countertops, you name it. But most people don’t realize that dust isn’t just dirt. It also contains dead skin cells, pollen, pet dander, hair fragments, dust mites, bacteria, mold spores, and even heavy metals like lead.

An air purifier offers an effective solution to slow the spread and buildup of these annoying elements in your home. By capturing dust and other particulate matter from the indoor air before they can settle, air purifiers help keep your home looking and smelling fresher for longer.

Final Thoughts

Given the numerous benefits of clean air for your health and home, equipping your living space with an air purifier is a no-brainer. By reducing airborne toxins, these devices can help create a healthier, cleaner, and safer environment, keeping you and your loved ones safe from unseen threats possibly lurking in the air. That also means fewer allergy and asthma flare-ups, better sleep, and improved heart and respiratory health. If you have pets, air purifiers can also eliminate pet dander and odors from your indoor air, reducing the chance of an allergic response.

For the best results, combine your air purifier with good habits, such as regular cleaning and vacuuming, increasing ventilation, and using eco-friendly household products.