After a long day, it’s time to head home, kick back and recover. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Your home is your castle, after all, a place to be safe.

But how safe is it? According to researchers, your home may be filled with a slew of things — objects, chemicals, radiations — that may be making you sick.

It could take years for some of these hidden killers to take effect, but that doesn’t make them any less real. (It may take 20 years to get cancer from smoking, but cigarettes are still the culprits, and once you know that you can quit.)

Check out these risks and what you can do about them.

Radon
This seems like a hazard from the past, but the EPA says 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year come from exposure to radon, a radioactive gas you can’t see or smell. Radon is produced from the natural decay of uranium found in nearly all soil. It creeps into your home through cracks in the foundation. It’s estimated that nearly one in 15 U.S. homes has high levels. The Fix: Test your home for radon with a kit that costs $15 to $25. If your home tests high, you can seal foundation cracks and install fans under your house to blow out the radon-laden air. Check out the National Radon Safety Board.

Radon is produced from the natural decay of uranium found in nearly all soil. It creeps into your home through cracks in the foundation.

Digital Clocks
It’s not so much the radiation that digital clocks throw off as it is the color. According to a report by Harvard Medical School, “Light at night is bad for your health, and exposure to blue light emitted by electronics and energy-efficient light bulbs may be especially so.” This is because the body associates blue light with daylight, so exposure to blue wave lengths tends to inhibit the production of melatonin. That disturbs sleep patterns in a bad way, which may contribute to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity. The Fix: Use red lights for all nightlights, including the numbers that glow from your digital clocks.

Screens After Hours
For millennia the sun established the rhythm of our sleep cycles. When the sun was up, so were we. When the sun went down we slept. In the modern world, our night is filled with electric light, with consequent interruptions to our sleep cycles. The worst culprit, it turns out, are “light-emitting electronic devices” such as iPads, e-readers, cellphones, laptops, and such, that we take to bed. Their blue light spectrum makes it harder to fall asleep, reduces melatonin and reduces next morning alertness — besides contributing to lifestyle illness like cancer and heart disease. The Fix: Try to keep your devices out of bed (read books on paper instead), and don’t use devices with screens for at least an hour before lights out.

Related: Best Sleep Tips for Families

Bed Bugs
These are small, flat reddish-brown bugs (1/16th to 1/4 inches long) that live on the blood of people and animals. They are found worldwide, but in recent years have spread across the U.S. Cleanliness is not preventive. They have been found in five-star hotels. During the day, bed bugs hide in the seams of mattresses, bed frames, even behind wallpaper. At night they feed. The good news is they don’t carry disease — but their bites can cause itching and lack of sleep, and scratching can lead to a skin infection. Some people are also allergic. The Fix: Inspect your mattress regularly and use insecticide if you spot these critters.

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Indoor Air Quality
The quality of the air you breathe is essential to good health. Bad air can lead to infections, lung cancer, or chronic lung diseases such as asthma. The biggest sources of indoor pollution are things that release gas or particles into the air. Some of the worst offenders are indoor smoke (fireplace or tobacco), mold, building materials (think bad Chinese drywall), air fresheners, and cleaning products. The Fix: A well-ventilated home dilutes and prevents the buildup of particles in the air. You should inspect for asbestos and mold, and keep home heating and cooling systems clean. Finally, you can purchase an indoor air purifier for $60 to $300.

Tap Water
One of the big shocks in the president’s Cancer Panel of 2010 was the assertion that public drinking water may be a big cause of environmental cancer. The culprits are called DBPs, or disinfection byproducts — chemicals that result from the use of chlorine as a disinfectant. The worst of these are call trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. The Advice: Ask your public utility about the concentrations of TTHMs and HAAs in your water (should be less than 100 ppb), and get a good water filter. For more information, call the EPAs Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.

Radiant Heating
Yes, that fireplace keeps you toasty in winter. But fireplaces, just like ovens, hairdryers, light bulbs, and anything else that throws off heat, emanates infrared energy. The main downside of all that wonderful heat is that IF rays “cause signs of aging like fine lines, wrinkles and discoloration by generating free radicals,” said Dr. Leslie Baumann, a dermatologist and author of “Skin Type Solution.” These free radicals compromise the cells’ mitochondria, accelerating aging, Baumann said. The Fix: Keep your face out of the fire. Like all radiation, infrared tends to lose its potency with distance.

Toxic Cleaners
It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out that inhaling or ingesting household cleaners — oven cleaners, disinfectants, tarnish removers, drain cleaners and the like — can’t be good for you. Certain cleaners like Spic and Span, Mop & Glo, and Easy Off are actually banned overseas. Inhaling furniture polish and air fresheners can be fatal. What’s a mother to do? The Fix: Keep toxic cleaners (Drano, for example) away from children and pets. Next, look for the EPA’s new Safer Choice label on products that started to appear on products iearlier this summer. Initial targets: kitchen, bath and carpet cleaners.

Television
Researchers estimate that after age 25, every hour you watch television shortens your life by almost 22 minutes. The problem is the same for sitting too long at a desk. Inactivity increases your risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and more. Movement by your skeletal muscles plays an important part in regulating metabolism and the levels of fats and sugars in your blood. You also tend to eat junkier food when watching TV. The Advice: Try to limit TV to less than three hours a day, the tipping point for increased risk of premature death. Also, try to stand up or move around for a minute or two every 20 minutes, or five minutes every hour.

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