The Best Way to Detox & Why?

Toxins are ubiquitous.  We can't escape them...

• A BILLION kilograms of chemicals are released into the environment every year!
• There are over 80,000 chemicals currently used in the US that haven’t been regarded as safe. They are used in our personal hygiene and beauty products.

... and that's just a sample.

We are exposed to toxins daily - our air, food and water - nearly 2 million years (Chris Organ - Harvard University) of relative purity has not prepared us for the post-industrial toxic burden.  300 years of 'progress' vs 2,000,000 years of evolution.

So how do we KNOW if we are detoxing and these toxins aren't accumulating in our body, messing with our cells, our bio-synthesis, our neuro-pathways, our minds and our children's health?  Especially important in these unusual times. 

Some clues.  

Do you have stubborn weight or belly fat you can’t lose no matter what you do? Feel bloated?  Experience mysterious lethargy, moodiness, unstable blood sugars?  Have excess gas?  Irregular bowel movements?  Or kids who are anxious, moody or exhibit unruly behaviour?  Or perhaps you feel like something just isn’t right? ...

Most of us don’t realise that some of these ailments can be the result of a body weighed down with toxins.

Why?  The body cleverly stores toxins in our fat cells or organs as a protective mechanism when in overload.

Most of our organs e.g. lungs, skin, liver and kidneys are known for some form of detoxifying mechanism.  If we're exposed to a lot of toxins our organs can become clogged or sluggish, and we can’t properly filter these inflammatory and disruptive toxins efficiently - hence their 'fallback' storage in our fat cells.

What happens?    Toxins can then re-enter our blood stream rather than being naturally excreted from our body.   When in the blood stream the body does the next best thing and stores the toxins in our fat tissue until the body CAN efficiently excrete the toxins.

We may be healthy and eating well but if our liver and organs aren’t working at full capacity, our ‘systems’ - immune, nervous, endocrine (hormone), respiratory, lymphatic, reproductive, circulatory, digestive, etc - can be impacted … which helps explain WHY;

1. we can’t reach our ideal weight, and infact mysteriously keep putting weight on!
2. our energy remains unexplainably low
3. our digestion is weak and we experience bloating, constipation, reflux or irritable bowel symptoms
4. our immunity is compromised.  We seem to be constantly sick or get every bug ‘going around’.
5. we feel uncharacteristically irritable or anxious or
6. our stress response is hard to manage and more akin to a short fuse.

Could it all be so intricately linked to this one menace … toxins?   Yes!   Especially if you’ve tried everything else to ease your ailment, it could be time to consider detoxification.

Our children

My biggest concern is for our children who are likely to have inherited or been exposed to the recent onslaught of industrialised toxins.

Here's how.   Some toxins stored in our fat tissue are then cleansed from our bodies in breast milk while nursing our babies.  Toxins are also transferred in the womb, through the placenta.   As our children tend not to carry a lot of fat, these toxins can then quietly sit in their organs e.g. the liver and the brain, the fattiest organ of all.   Heavy metals like mercury, aluminium, cadmium, arsenic and lead.  These are toxins that I have (had) and both our children and at disruptive levels.

Our experience is another reason I feel it’s so important to share and be aware of this information.   Not alarmed.  The more we know the better we can do.

So if the body cleverly stores these toxins - why worry?   Because life is full of change and at times stress and these triggers can compromise our immunity and with our protective mechanisms down, we fall sick.  Perhaps I'm over simplifying, but if there are toxins we can control, let's do that - for ourselves and especially for our children.  

Prevention is better than the cure. 

Some common everyday toxins we’re exposed to include;

1. heavy metals
2. radiation
3. chemicals and other environmental pollutants. There are so many to include here. Most common exposures are in the household including cleaning, personal hygiene and beauty products
4. inflammatory foods
5. microbial infections
6. stress and toxic thoughts

Heavy metals

Let’s focus on heavy metals as these are most easily identified in the body with hair tissue analysis and are very common. It’s a big topic, which I introduce here.

‘But I don’t have heavy metals’ I hear you say.   You may not know you do, but it is highly likely that in-fact you do – inherited from our environment, our parents and even their parents.

Some sources include;

1. Mercury amalgams. Most of us, our parents and their parents had dental amalgams - fillings containing mercury
2. Vaccinations
3. Corn Syrup. Found in many packaged and processed foods.
4. Plastic toys
5. Cookware
6. Big, deep water fish e.g. tuna and marlin
7. Aluminium products
8. Cleaning and beauty products
9. Insecticides and herbicides and many more.

We can see how easily most of us in the Western World are harbouring a scourge of toxicity that the body masterfully deals with … until it can’t.   Until those ‘quiet’ clues it’s been giving us i.e. the weight gain, lethargy, digestive complaints, skin irritations or breakouts, anxiety, depression and so on and that we’ve ignored for so long or we’ve been far too busy to listen to – finally make us STOP and listen.   ‘Thank you Mother Nature’.

Those quiet clues that become louder and louder until ‘all of a sudden’ we HAVE to stop and listen because we physically can’t go on and we’ve become sick.

It doesn’t need to be this way. The best way to detox is to take time each day to check in with our bodies wisdom. How do we FEEL? What do we need? More rest, better food, less food, more joy, more regular movement, more fresh air, sunshine or even just time to breathe deeply and be grateful.  

These simple choices support our detoxification channels naturally and in todays world need to be an integral part of our lives.

Prevention is better than the cure.

It’s almost impossible to escape toxins. We can however be aware of what we’re exposing ourselves to and make toxic free choices plus ensure our bodies detoxification pathways are firing and gracefully support our body function - naturally.

17  ways to detoxify naturally;

1. Reduce inflammatory foods (gluten, dairy, refined sugar, processed foods)
2. Increase whole, organic foods
3. Add lemon, fermented foods, dark leafy greens, beetroot, chlorella, garlic, sprouts, coriander – especially
4. Try liver and other organ loving foods and herbs e.g. milk thistle, dandelion root, burdock root, slippery elm, licorice root.
5. Add good fats
6. Drink filtered water
7. Sleep
8. Upgrade cleaning, personal hygiene and beauty products to natural products
9. Remove electronic equipment from the home - especially the bedroom
10. Review radiation exposure in the home
11. Move regularly
12. Turn the wifi off before bed
13. Use essential oils
14. Get more sunshine
15. Cleanse or detox carefully (see below)
16. Eliminate toxic thoughts!
17. Listen to our bodies and what they need

If any of these are new to you, you don’t need to jump in and upgrade all these choices at once!   Choose 1 or 2 that resonate, upgrade your choice, and start to integrate it until it’s just a way of life, then turn your attention to your next best choice.

And if your symptoms are chronic or you sense toxicity is an issue for you or your family seek medical advice and work with your Doctor or Health Practitioner on a detoxification program.

Or join me on my online 'gentle cleanse', my next LIVE round kicks off on the 19th of October, check out the details here or email me at kate@katebarnes.com.au.  I'd love you to join us.