Do you need to detox?
Do you ever feel like your body is screaming at you for a fresh start? All the symptoms continue to worsen, all of a sudden feel your age and you have 99 problems but feeling healthy ain’t one?
The good news is, you’re not the first person to feel this way and certainly won’t be the last! What you are though, is ready for a detox and to cleanse your body for a clean slate of health and wellness.
When it comes to detoxing, there are several ways to go about it. Detoxing your mind, your lifestyle and your food intake are some of the most common ways people create a positive change for themselves.
Detox your mind
There are many ways you can detox your mind both spiritually and mentally. A great place to start is with the stimulus that you feed it, from social media, to tv shows, movies, podcasts, books and conversations. Look at the daily influences that are occupying your mind and decide whether they are a positive or negative addition to your mindset. If you find things to be positive, surround yourself with more of it, however if you find something that creates a negative impact for you it’s time to cull it! Creating daily practices is another way to cleanse and strengthen your mental state. By adding into your daily routine things such as journalling, mediation, reading or listening to podcasts you can give your mind that extra nurturing and energy it needs.
Detox your lifestyle
Detoxing your lifestyle can be done by assessing all the aspects surrounding you from environmental to habitual to relationships. Environmentally you might consider what your home and work environment is like, does it serve you or are there aspects that could improve? Are you exposed to any toxins that you could reduce or avoid? Looking at your habits, are they healthy or unhealthy? Could you replace the less beneficial ones with ones that enhance your life? Are you addressing key health and wellbeing factors such as sleep and exercise? Looking into your relationships can be very confronting but makes a huge impact on your life. Are the people surrounding you good influences, do they raise you up and bring out the best in you? If you can’t answer yes to all these questions about the people in your life, it may be worth confronting it and seeing if you can work through it with them or if you can’t then it might be time to part ways.
Detox your diet
The food you put into your body can heal or hinder it, ensuring you nourish your body with the nutrients it needs to thrive is imperative to health and wellbeing. The easiest way to gain awareness on this is by writing a food diary for a week and then going through it to see what your body is having too much or not enough of. Processed, deep fried, high fat and high sugar foods are the first thing to consider cutting down, while vegetables, fruits, protein sources, grains, nuts and seeds are the first thing to increase.
The main nutrients to make sure you have enough of are:
- A colourful array of nutrient dense vegetables and fruit in particular:
- Asparagus, this vegetable contains glutathione, an antioxidant that promotes detoxification (Kim, et al., 2009).
- Broccoli boosts the liver’s ability to clear bad chemicals from our bodies (University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, 2016).
- Avocados are loaded with antioxidants that help your body remove harmful toxins (Bhuyan, et al., 2019).
- Artichokes provide a wide variety of nutrients to support your blood and liver function (Heidarian & Rafieian-Kopaei ,2013).
- Collard greens are rich in sulfur-containing compounds to support detoxification processes in your body (Ruggeri, 2022).
- Beets contain betaine and pectin, which helps the liver rid itself of toxins, as well as clear toxins that have been removed from the liver (Clifford, et al., 2015).
- Good fats high in Omega 3 and 6, such as avocado, nuts, fish
- Protein sources of eggs, meat, fish, tofu, legumes, vegetables
- Complex carbohydrates such as wholegrains, brown rice, sweet potato, quinoa, buckwheat
Some things to cut out and avoid are:
- Alcohol
- Deep fried foods
- Highly processed foods
- Foods full of artificial colours, flavours and preservatives
- Foods high in saturated fats
- Foods high in refined sugars
Some quick and easy daily detox habits you can implement are:
- Drinking Ginseng daily, this is a great boost of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory (Choi, 2008).
- Having a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in warm water with lemon juice every morning before breakfast is a great way to support your liver for detoxification and improve GUT health and digestion of nutrients (Nazıroğlu, et al., 2014).
- Green tea has been shown to boost production of detoxification enzymes within the body (American Association for Cancer Research, 2007).
Remember
Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, creating and implementing healthier habits to detox your body and mind doesn’t happen straight away. It takes time and consistency before you feel the full benefits of your positive changes. Every little effort towards your health counts, but once you notice the impact these efforts have on your mental, spiritual and physical wellbeing you will be so glad you chose to put yourself first. Pick one small suggestion from this article and begin your journey to a healthier you today!
References
American Association for Cancer Research. (2007, August 12). Green Tea Boosts Production Of Detox Enzymes, Rendering Cancerous Chemicals Harmless. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 2, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070810194923.htm
Bhuyan, D. J., Alsherbiny, M. A., Perera, S., Low, M., Basu, A., Devi, O. A., Barooah, M. S., Li, C. G., & Papoutsis, K. (2019). The Odyssey of Bioactive Compounds in Avocado (Persea americana) and Their Health Benefits. Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland), 8(10), 426. https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox8100426
Choi K. T. (2008). Botanical characteristics, pharmacological effects and medicinal components of Korean Panax ginseng C A Meyer. Acta pharmacologica Sinica, 29(9), 1109–1118. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-7254.2008.00869.x
Clifford, T., Howatson, G., West, D. J., & Stevenson, E. J. (2015). The potential benefits of red beetroot supplementation in health and disease. Nutrients, 7(4), 2801–2822. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu7042801
Heidarian, E., Rafieian-Kopaei, M. (2013). Protective effect of artichoke (Cynara scolymus) leaf extract against lead toxicity in rat, Pharmaceutical Biology, Volume 51, 2013, Issue 9, Pages 1104-1109.
Kim, B. Y., Cui, Z. G., Lee, S. R., Kim, S. J., Kang, H. K., Lee, Y. K., & Park, D. B. (2009). Effects of Asparagus officinalis extracts on liver cell toxicity and ethanol metabolism. Journal of food science, 74(7), H204–H208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-3841.2009.01263.x
Nazıroğlu, M., Güler, M., Özgül, C., Saydam, G., Küçükayaz, M., & Sözbir, E. (2014). Apple cider vinegar modulates serum lipid profile, erythrocyte, kidney, and liver membrane oxidative stress in ovariectomized mice fed high cholesterol. The Journal of membrane biology, 247(8), 667–673. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00232-014-9685-5
Ruggeri, C. (2022). Collard Greens Nutrition Helps Fight Cancer, Provide Detox Support and More. DR Axe. Accessed on 05/08/2022, <https://draxe.com/nutrition/collard-greens/>
University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. (2016, March 3). Broccoli may offer protection against liver cancer, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 3, 2022 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160303133607.htm