How to Detoxify without Retoxifying Your Body

How to Detoxify without Retoxifying Your Body

Everywhere you turn, you hear about detoxifying your body. But what are you not being told?

What do you need to know to detoxify safely without re-toxifying your body?

You can think about it like you would a traffic jam. There are potentially hundreds of cars trying to make their way down the highway but there are only three lanes and when you have so many more vehicles than there is room for on the road, you end up in chaos.

So what happens is that when you are adding in intense detoxification methods, it can sometimes wreak more havoc on your body than if you had just left things alone. So the answer to not re-toxifying your body starts with a very gentle process of a gentle detox.

The main forms of detoxification for your body are through your intestines, kidneys, lungs and skin.

Intestines:

Your intestines rid you of food toxins that you are finished pulling out the nutrients from. This is also a place that bodily toxins are dumped for removal. But often, your digestion can be sluggish from eating too much meat, grains and dairy products. (You should be pooping at least twice per day… if you’re not, you can be sure that you have serious toxic build up in your digestive tract). So the first thing we need to do to start a gentle detoxification is to start moving out those old toxins that are stuck there before we start delivering a whole bunch more toxins for it to process and be overloaded.

Start by increasing your water intake – and add lemon to it to add a bit of a added clean-up assistance. (I love to peel a whole lemon and throw it in my high speed blender with a litre of fresh water, and then strain it to remove the tiny pit pieces that break apart). This will help to start gently encourage movement of toxins out of your intestines.

Then start adding in more fibre to keep your intestines moving. The fibre acts like a broom and sweeps up the toxins and helps to move them out. The best forms of fibre are fruit and vegetables! Eat more than you ever have before!

Kidneys

Your kidneys filter your blood continually, all day long, and never rest. They pull toxins from your blood supply and deliver them to your bladder to be removed from your body in your urine. So yes, you guessed it! More water! 3-4 litres per day and more if you are super active.

Lungs

Your lungs are always delivering fresh oxygen to your body, but they also help to expel toxins on the exhalation. So take a few moments several times through the day to do some deep breathing exercises. AND move that body!! Breathe hard, make it work and make it sweat! We were built to move.

Skin

We chatted about moving that body! Your sweat will help to move toxins out of your body, so try to get some joyful movement into your schedule every day.

Additionally, dry skin brushing is an excellent way to encourage the release of toxins from your skin by using a natural hair bristled brush and very gently brushing your skin from the bottom of your body toward your heart. And from your hands and arms to your heart as well. Use gentle strokes or circles. The keyword is GENTLE – your lymph drainage system is extremely fragile and can only respond and pump the lymph when its movement is gently encouraged.

5 Tips You Must Know to Destroy Stress Today!

What are you doing to manage your stress? It seems like every day we are inundated by more and more triggers, and the world just seems to be speeding up.

If you can’t keep up, what if you just stopped? What if you just turned off the pace of the rest of the world and went inside for a bit?

The thing is, most of the daily stresses in our lives will not matter in five years. Maybe not even in 5 days! But they are serious triggers in a moment-by-moment day.

Obviously, there are the major stresses, such as the passing of a loved one, major life decisions, new career opportunities, relationships ending and children arriving into your life, but for the daily stresses, how can we manage that better?

Most of us are on the clock.

The majority of stress is because we have way too many things to complete in a day, than the clock gives us time to do!

It’s always speeding up and the to-do list tends to continue to grow.

Between responsibilities at home, at work, at your children’s school, caring for aging parents, creating healthy meals, working on your relationships and squeezing in a little social time, it is really hard to balance everything that life demands of us.

Here are some tips that will sound crazy, and your stressed-out brain will say “ABSOLUTELY NOT! I HAVE NO MORE TIME IN THE DAY FOR ANYTHING!”

But I promise you, that after just a couple weeks, (and in some cases just a couple of days) your life will feel more put together than you could ever imagine in this moment.

1. Quit Sugar, Quit Caffeine, Quit Smoking, Quit Drinking (Yes, you read that right!)

All of these substances wreak havoc on your adrenals and your stress response system. Your body does not need any other external stresses to deal with, and sugar, caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are all very serious triggers for your body. It sends your body out of equilibrium by introducing external substances that are meant to excite or depress you. Your body must fight to expel these substances and adds an extra burden to your health.

Stop the sugary foods – pasta, breads, rice, muffins, cereal, and focus on consuming a colourful plant based diet. Limit your caffeine intake to one coffee per day, no more soda and no more energy drinks! Even switching to herbal tea would make a huge impact! Get off the cigarettes and curb your evening wine or drinks. It all interferes with your entire system.

2. Begin a Daily Stress Reduction Practice

Even for 5 minutes a day, sit in a relaxed position and let you mind focus on gratitude. Focus on your breath, the easiest thing you can be grateful for. Follow your breath and feel its powerful rhythm. Enjoy the moment between inhalation and exhalation – the pause – as there is power in the stillness. This little bit of time will help to centre you for your day.

3. Move that Body!

Seriously, for even 15 minutes a day. Turn the music up and dance! Or speed walk around the neighbourhood with your family. Be silly, take turns seeing who can walk the fastest! Get your heart rate up and have fun! Try a class at the gym, do a yoga video on YouTube, or try a high intensity interval training session. Just move it more often and your body will reward you by feeling energized and more alive.

4. Master Your Mind

Decide what demands your attention and what can wait. Prioritize your to-do list and understand that you can only do what you can do. Try to stop focusing on staying ahead of the clock. What are you rushing against anyway? We all end up in the same place, so why rush through life so quickly?

5. Get Adjusted!

Your spine needs to be in alignment to let you function at 100%! Get adjusted regularly and know that the interferences that find their way into your spine via stress, injuries, repetition and toxins are being removed by your Doctor of Chiropractic.