Cleansing refers to the process of eliminating toxins from your body. Your body accumulates two major types of toxins over time. These are either environmental toxins (chemicals and pollutants in air, water, and food) or metabolic toxins. Metabolic toxins are made inside the body as the cells perform their daily processes. As a result, it is normal for you cells to contain some toxins at all times. Toxins only present a challenge to your health when they accumulate to a point where they interfere with cellular function. An excess of these toxins can lead to things like coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes mellitus, respiratory illness, kidney disease, liver dysfunction, autoimmune illness, hormonal imbalances, skin conditions, and most types of cancer.
The good news is that the body is designed to cleanse constantly. Most of the toxins are broken down in the liver, and then eliminated from your body via your kidneys, colon, skin, lungs, and mucus linings in your nose and ears. But if there are too many toxins or too much other kind of stress on the body, the body will store some of the toxins in the fat tissues.
In my opinion, if you have a health challenge, or are exposed to a lot of toxins and processed foods, or have been under a lot of emotional stress – a cleanse could be very helpful. There are hundreds of types of packaged cleanses and cleanse protocols out there. Short of doing a cleanse, you can do things daily that support the body’s natural ability to cleanse daily. These things include:
- Reduce stress through a combination of mindfulness, breathing, meditation, and yoga
- Eat fresh foods (organic as much as possible) with healthy fats (no industrial canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, etc.). Drink organic herbal teas.
- Stabilize your blood sugar by eating a low carbohydrate, low sugar diet
- Drink plenty of water and get good sleep. Your brain, for example, detoxes at night.
- Get out in nature for some gentle exercise and a healthy amount of sun.
- Use as much purified drinking and bathing water as possible