Thanks to all of our readers who have joined us, those who have commented, and those who have contacted us with concerns over the last few months.

Today, we have reached the one-hundredth post for the site, which seems like a lot to us writers now, but that in a year will likely look like nothing compared to what we will have by that time.  In the grand scheme, it is not a lot, but at this point, it represents an important milestone for this just-getting-started website.

So, to mark the 100th post, we are compiling a short list of some of our most popular, most read, and interesting articles from the first 99.  These are our must-reads from the last few months:

News and Commentary:

Mary Gade Ousted (four articles):

EPA Ousts Mary Gade, Continuing Coverage and Commentary, More Mary Gade Coverage (Or is it Less?), Commentary: Why Gade’s Resignation Matters

The Greendex: How do You stack up?

$4.00 per Gallon Gas: The Environment, Economy, and You

Greener Under Twenty:

Greener Under Twenty: Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (and, How to Recycle CFLs to Avoid Dumping Mercury)

Greener Under Twenty: Use Rechargeable Batteries

Product Reviews:

Product Review: Sigg Metal Water Bottle and Sigg Water Bottle Update

Product Review: Method Surface Cleaner

Product Review: Method Foaming Hand Wash Soap

Product Review: Seventh Generation Natural Laundry Detergent Powder

What are your favorite articles, looking back?  What would you like to see more of on EHI?  Where can we improve? Let us know, below!

Note: This post is originally from our partner website, Healthascope. It can also be read in its entirety here.

How do we protect ourselves from air? We’re breathing it in constantly! Beside that, what’s the problem? If I’m not on a street corner or next to a smoker, the only thing I smell is the aroma of dinner on the stove.

But if there’s toxic air on the street corner (you know, gasoline and diesel exhaust) and there are factories and smokestacks belching their toxic brew into the air, you can bet that at the very least, low concentrations are making it into your home. Depending upon where you live, you potentially have high concentrations getting into your living space.

Why does it matter? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):

Recurring themes found in many articles here on EnviroHumanImpact include improving one’s envirohuman impact and seeing improvements in one’s health, having fun, and saving money. Obviously, those are great benefits for a little bit of effort. Often, the time and effort spent on being greener is not added to your life, but rather moved from one aspect to another. As you green your life, as I have found, you’ll find yourself in social settings due to being green and it just becomes part of you lifestyle.

We have not discussed very much the psychological effects of living a greener life. I am no psychologist (psychology was my supporting coursework for my degree in political science–as if you care) and I won’t search for the technical term for this phenomenon — I have long forgotten many of the names psychologists attach to these different feelings. In fact, there may not be a name yet for this phenomenon.

We can actually make our own term here and call it “envirophoria,” a state of well-being or happiness due to one’s improvement of the environment directly or improving one’s envirohuman impact as a means of reducing negative impact on the environment at large.

Looking to make your indoor environment cleaner? Sure, you can use greener household detergents and cosmetics. You can use greener paints with lower or no volatile organic compound (VOC) output. But there will always be toxins in your air from the outdoors, everyday products, your carpet, paint, cosmetics, leather treatments, etc.

To help your home to have cleaner, less toxic air: buy some houseplants. In addition to beautifying your home, houseplants reduce levels of toxic elements in your air, because like humans, they respire air and in turn remove some toxins.

The attitude: Reducing your envirohuman impact can keep you in better physical condition.

So, you’re asking, greener can keep me in shape? Sure! Yesterday we left off talking about how taking the stairs at work can give you more exercise while making elevators work a little less. But there are all sorts of activities you could participate in that both improve your envirohuman impact and build more exercise into your day.

What if you are reusing the water you rinsed your lettuce with on your garden? Big deal? Well, carrying that bucket of water outside counts for burning some calories. The fact that you’re gardening counts as burning calories. Yes, these are great in that they improve your EHI, but they also are great in that they give you the exercise that never seems like a priority.

Two floors down or one floor up, use the elevators. That’s the rule. It used to go for reducing congestion at elevators. But now it also would mean reducing your negative envirohuman impact, because when an elevator has to move you from floor to floor, a motor is moving both your weight and that of the elevator car, cables, and other mechanisms.

I made this decision originally because I was making ten to twenty trips per day between the two different floors my company occupies in a high-rise. At the beginning of the year, I decided that in order to shed a few extra pounds, I would take the stairs a majority of the time.