You’ve undoubtedly heard the term “detox” in the past few years, but likely attached to 5-day cleanses, 3-day juice fasts, and other extreme forms of fad dieting that are said to kick your body’s natural detox abilities into overdrive.
Despite these quick fix detoxes being extreme, and ultimately not the best way to encourage detoxing, the reason for their popularity is simple: there are toxins all around us, and people are starting to notice.
Toxins are now a part of the regular health and wellness discourse because, over the past 20-30 years, our exposure to unhealthy substances has increased exponentially, with toxins lurking in our air and water, in what we rub on our skin, what we consume, and what we absorb from our surroundings.
Because of the pervasiveness of toxins in our environment and our lives, it’s not surprising that people are wanting to flush their bodies free of them with a quick fix. But, like most things concerning the healthy state of the body, there’s a better way.
Now that we’ve addressed the many types of toxins to which you may be exposing yourself in our previous posts (see glyphosate, heavy metals, and wireless tech) it’s time for us to shift our focus to the way our bodies work to correct for them.
Technically “detoxing” means to abstain from or rid the body of the unhealthy and toxic substances infiltrating our systems. And the good news is, our bodies naturally detox every minute of every day.
And the best thing we can do to help our bodies detox is through making consistent choices that support our body’s natural ability to correct itself.
The body is a detoxification professional.
Our body consists of primary organs that naturally assist in detoxing.
The Liver: The liver identifies the toxins in our body and repackages them into a form that can be readily eliminated. This elimination is most common through the digestive system, which is why it’s important to support healthy bowel movements every day.
Kidneys: The kidneys are an intricate filtering system, removing toxins and extra water from the blood and converting them into the urine, thus carrying the toxins away.
Lungs: With every breath, our lungs take in life-giving oxygen and eliminate c02 in their own air-filtering system. There’s a reason we feel so good when “fresh air” is introduced to our bodies.
Lymph system: The lymphatic systems works in tandem with our cardiovascular system, regulating our blood and lymphatic fluid levels and flushing toxins from the body.
Skin: As the largest detoxing organ, the skin regularly detoxes through sweating and secretion. So, when we have skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis, they are the product of our primary organs of discharge (above) not functioning optimally. The skin then takes the brunt of that redirected detoxification.
You can help your body boost its natural detoxification abilities.
By focusing on day to day choices, we can help our bodies continually detox, supporting the systems that are necessary for regular elimination. And although we can “jump start” our body through quick-fixes like cleanses and herb baths, the real way to invest in healthy detoxing is through adopting a lifestyle that avoids regularly introducing more toxins into the body and that supports our body’s natural systems.
Through adopting a whole foods diet from trusted food sources and managing our stress, we can help our bodies do what they do best. By getting good sleep, exercising, taking regular bathroom breaks, and practicing deep breathing every day, we are playing our role in detoxification.
And through dry brushing the skin, putting natural products on our faces, sweating regularly, and drinking enough water, we are incorporating the little habits that make a huge difference on our overall health and wellness.
Because there are rarely quick fixes when it comes to our bodies, but doing what we can to promote our health through the choices we make is always worth the time.