Feeling out of sync or sluggish? Unable to lose weight? Struggling with aches and pains, digestive problems, and skin issues? You might require a body detox.
Practiced for centuries by different cultures, including Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, detoxification involves cleansing, resting, and nourishing the body thoroughly and from the inside out.
Detoxification involves eliminating toxins and rejuvenating the body from the inside. It helps protect your body from diseases and restores your body’s ability to enjoy and maintain optimum health.
When you detoxify your body, it cleanses the blood. It removes impurities that contaminate your blood. The process usually eliminates toxins through the intestines, kidneys, lymphatic system, lungs, and skin.
However, when any of these systems is compromised, you may be unable to remove impurities from your body. This negatively affects your well-being.
So, how do you start a body detox? Below are some essential things that you need to know. And if you want to end your opioid addiction for good, you must subject yourself to proven effective medication-assisted treatment for opioid use.
1. Keep your liver healthy
When you hear the word detox, you may instantly associate it with the liver. This is because the liver plays a crucial role in detoxification. It removes wastes and toxins from the body, regulates hormones, and aids in metabolizing fats/proteins and digestion.
One of the biggest reasons for impaired liver is alcohol addiction. If you have an unhealthy drinking habit, you may need professional help for detox. Look for an alcohol addiction treatment facility like Delphi Group to enroll in a program that can help you overcome addiction, manage withdrawal symptoms, and become sober again. You may also need to supplement your diet with healthy foods and fluids to replenish nutrients.
2. Get proper sleep
Sleep allows your brain to refresh and reorganize itself. It helps to eliminate toxic waste byproducts, which typically accumulate in your body the entire day. When your body is sleep deprived, it builds up toxins that affect many aspects of your health. Moreover, poor sleep is linked with long-term/short-term health issues like anxiety, stress, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, etc.
Therefore, it is important to clock in at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night to ensure good health. And if you face difficulties in falling asleep, avoid blue light before sleeping and try sticking to a sleep schedule to help improve your sleep.
3. Exfoliating and sweating
Your lymphatic system contributes to catching environmental toxins and waste from cells and pathogenic organisms. However, the system depends on blood flow to improve circulation. Thus, regularly exfoliating your body helps stimulate the lymphatic system’s function.
One way to exfoliate is to gently scrub the skin in a circular upward motion using a firm bristled brush for around 10 minutes before showering. It helps eliminate dead skin cells that prevent the skin from effectively removing toxins.
Similarly, sweating is the body’s natural mechanism to eliminate toxins. Your skin is responsible for eliminating around 30% of the body’s waste. So sweat with regular exercise, yoga, jump-roping, or Qigong (special martial arts-based exercises for cleansing and detoxifying) to excrete toxins from the skin’s surface.
However, don’t forget to shower to remove sweat from your body and avoid reabsorbing the excreted toxins back into the skin.
4. Fast and eat clean
To give rest to your organs and filter out the liver from harmful toxins, indulge in regular fasting. Fasting is one of the popular ways to jumpstart the body’s natural detoxification process; thus, start practicing intermittent fasting.
With that, keeping track of your food intake is also important. Be sure to eat clean and natural products such as fruits, seeds, nuts, or fresh vegetables.
Moreover, avoid artificially-flavored juices. These juices contain a lot of artificial or added sugars in addition to preservatives, coloring agents, and flavor enhancers. All these substances are very harmful to your organs and overall health. Instead, switch to fresh juices. Fresh juices contain all the essential fibers that aid digestion and detoxify your body.
5. Stay hydrated
You must stay hydrated at all times. Hydrating your body with water aids in transporting toxins and waste from the body, as in carbon dioxide and urea, through urination, sweating, or breathing.
So, start your day with one glass of warm water and freshly squeezed lemon juice. It is a natural detoxifying drink that easily flushes out all the toxins from your body. Remember, your body cells need sufficient water to repair themselves continuously.
Men’s daily recommended water intake is around 125 ounces or 3.7 liters. For women, it is 91 ounces or 2.7 liters. However, you may adjust the intake according to your diet, physical activity level, and climate.
Conclusion
Detoxification is a natural process usually hampered because of an unhealthy lifestyle. However, you can get back in shape and help your body work smoothly by making small changes to your diet. You can rejuvenate your body by following a proper sleep schedule, fasting, drinking fresh juices, and staying hydrated. And lastly, you should cleanse your body properly. Consult a doctor before doing a full-body detox.