It’s never too late to shed off unhealthy habits and look after your organism. Knowing how to cleanse your body is the first step toward a balanced life. Body cleansing, also commonly referred to as detoxing, is a practice found in plenty of civilizations, including the famed Chinese medical culture. Isn’t it dangerous, though? Admittedly, hearing that you have to drain toxins out of your body and starting anew does sound like an excessive process. The truth is below, however, and we will help you start the best (and safest) body cleansing treatment possible.
What Exactly Is Detoxification?
Detoxification (or body cleansing) means the removal of toxins and harmful substances from your blood. More specifically, it cleans out your kidneys, skin, intestines, and lungs, through which we both eliminate toxins and absorb more. If these systems start failing us, we will simply turn into toxin collectors and amass a bunch of damaging substances.
Until several years ago, we used to believe that toxins entered our organisms because of bad habits such as smoking, drugs, or alcohol. The fact that these are essentially the biggest “toxin factories” still stands but the worrying truth is that we’re surrounded by toxins everywhere we go. Pollution makes it so that we breathe them in, modern foods make it so that we consume them, and the general distancing from nature is really taking its toll on us.
So, if you seek out the knowledge of how to cleanse your body, you will need to consider much more than a simple dietary change. Detoxification is a proper change of lifestyle.
The Benefits Of Cleansing Your Body
It’s in the very name of the process: you help clean your body. But what kind of benefits and improvements does this bring you?
In short term, you will be able to improve the functionality of your immune system, which is going to make you less predisposed to basic diseases. In long term, prevention will work even better. But the most obvious positive aftermath is that you’ll be overall healthier. Your body will function better, your skin will be more radiant, your hair will be shinier, and all of this is going to give you a guaranteed happiness boost. We all know that a healthy mind and a healthy body come hand in hand. Well, knowing how to cleanse your body can give you both.
Aside from the aforementioned benefits, we can also count:
- You will feel more energized and more prepared to get through a whole day;
- Even though it’s not the main purpose of detoxification, you will gain an excellent ally when trying to shed off some extra pounds;
- If you struggle with bad breath, you can toss into the bin all those medical supplements. It’s likely that all you need is to cleanse your colon and, as such, you will be able to carry a conversation without worrying.
- Your mind will feel lighter and, if you’ve experienced this phenomenon before, you will escape the “foggy” feeling in your head.
#1 Try Fasting
When you think of fasting, you probably think of different things. People of various religions are probably familiar with the requirements of this particular fasting. And, truth be told, this is pretty much what it is. Fasting is all about abstinence and withholding from the consumption of certain foods or drinks. Decide on one or more types of food that you feel most damaging to your health and then cut it off from your menu completely for a limited time.
Fasting should ideally last an entire day, preferably every month. If you can’t do it, you don’t need to live in constant restrictions every single day. But you should give your body a break once in a while, which is precisely why fasting is such quick and effective way.
How to cleanse your body with no effort: One day every month, cut off your ties with eggs, meat, solid foods, sweets, or any other type of food that takes its toll on you.
#2 Drink Water
You hear it everywhere: stay hydrated, drink at least two liters of water, and your life will change drastically. It’s not a bluff. Water is also known as the “essence of life” for a good reason. Even if you manage to get the recommended intake of at least two liters of water every day, boosting the quantity will only boost the beneficial effects as well. Our kidneys are the main method of toxin elimination and they function to the best of their ability when we hydrate our bodies properly.
Some people might be reluctant to up their daily dose of water out of fear of the dreaded “water overdose.” But, when you really think about it, it sounds nearly impossible to drink more water than your body can handle. Still, if you want to take any precautions, measure your water doses and stick to them. Buy a half-liter bottle or container and empty it five times a day: breakfast, early noon snack, lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner.
#3 End Bad Habits
If you smoke, drink, regularly indulge, consume copious amounts of caffeine, or even do something as seemingly insignificant as skipping meals, your change starts here. As mentioned before, alcohol and smoking in particular are extremely damaging. Usually, the worse a habit it is, the more difficult it is to shrug it off so it’s completely understandable that it won’t something you can easily get rid of. But, as we said, detoxification can often be a proper 360-degree lifestyle change.
Aside from the obvious bad habits, we also have those that may actually seem harmless, but they are really destructive in the long run. For example, frequently skipping meals and overindulging when it’s time for dinner can completely turn your metabolism upside-down. The key to a healthy lifestyle is to maintain a certain harmony between everything you do and eat. Understanding how to put everything in a balance is the first step to knowing how to cleanse your body.
#4 Stock On Superfoods
When you cleanse your body, you do more than direct the toxins out of your body or prevent them. Once you ensure that you’ll be able to flush out all of the negative substances, the next logical step is finding something to replace them with. Think of it like cleaning a wound and then applying an ointment to hasten the healing process. Superfoods are a category of foods that are packed with one or more nutrients that are crucial to our health.
For instance, try to make sure that you’ll always have foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids included in your meals. Luckily, these foods are both healthy and delicious, so you’ll have an easy time incorporating them in mouth-watering recipes. Examples: some fishes (like salmon and tuna), avocado, walnuts and almonds, olive oil. Your body also needs antioxidants, so get plenty of fruits and vegetables. For body cleansing, nutritionists recommend raspberries, blueberries, greens (like spinach and kale), tomatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, or oranges.
#5 Give Up The Coffee
Coffee addicts may have a tough time shrugging off this habit, but if you could live without your morning cup of coffee, then make this bold lifestyle change. Caffeine in itself isn’t necessarily bad or harmful, but rather it’s the fact that it’s not a nutritious substance. Not being a nutrient, it will leave your organism confused. When not knowing how to deal with a certain substance, your body simply decides to store it up as a toxin instead.
How about you swap it for green tea instead? It also contains caffeine, though in smaller amounts. It’s just enough to also keep you going through the morning while also offering a number of health benefits. Containing antioxidants, green tea is helpful for precisely what you’re trying to accomplish: learning how to cleanse your body.
#6 Sleep Better
Sleep deprivation is, unfortunately, turning into a common phenomenon in the times we live in. Because we tend to overcrowd ourselves with tasks, chores, and worries, we end up turning our sleeping schedules completely upside-down. The results of this habit are boosts in cortisol levels (the hormone responsible for stress), energy drops, weight gain, or even imbalances in your immune system.
Try to convince yourself to go to bed at a proper hour every night, preferably sometime between 11 PM and midnight at the latest. Another thing that we need to be mindful of if we are to get the best of results is circadian sleep cycles. Every night’s sleep consists of several cycles and whenever we wake up before a respective cycle ends we end up feeling tired and groggy. You can easily keep track of your best sleeping and waking up hour by using online sleep calculators.
#7 Sweat It Out
Nowadays, it seems that whenever you are faced with a problem, exercise is the solution. We know it’s good for weight loss and for improving our overall well-being, but physical activity is also a means of removing toxins from your body. Skin is one of the elimination methods and, as a result, sweating is one good way to go about it.
What’s more, exercise is all about helping with the improvement of your mental health above anything else. Through physical activity, our brains release serotonin, the hormone that’s responsible for our overall happiness. To get the best of effects, however, workout sessions need to be paired up with a balanced diet. Moreover, you also need to dedicate yourself to this method, so exercising regularly is a must if you wish to get good results.
#8 Eat More Fiber
Sometimes the solution can be as simple as including more of a certain type of food in your diet. In this case, consider more fiber. When there are too many toxins in your body, a lot of your organs and systems have to suffer, your digestive system included. Adding more fiber on your plate is going to help with a variety of digestive issues, particularly bloating. Bloating is a negative aftermath of the property of our digestive tracks to store up certain substances long after we had eaten them. If said substances are toxic, then… well, there’s a big problem.
To be specific, fiber can help greatly by boosting the processes of your digestive system. Your tract will be able to eliminate toxins faster rather than just pile them up until they start taking their toll on the health of your stomach. You can get a helpful dose of fiber through a great number of ways: naturally, through fresh fruits and vegetables, beans, or whole grains, or through supplements.
#9 Don’t Let Stress Control You
How about you control stress instead? When you feel stressed, you actually release a myriad of negative substances, some of which can even be toxic. Unfortunately, it’s not rare to hear about people who developed physical illnesses because of stress. Especially in the modern era, it’s become more important than ever to properly manage stressful situations. In other words, if you want to know how to cleanse your body, you have to cleanse your mind too.
There are many things you can attempt to keep your stressful situations under control. Sadly, you can’t avoid stress altogether, but you can find certain things to hold on to, like anchors. By anchoring yourself to something like meditation, a fun activity, or just a realist attitude, you can perform wonders. Learn how to cleanse your body through your mind.
#10 Smoothie It Up
The last entry is not the least. You can learn how to cleanse your body by learning how to prepare a few simple smoothie recipes. It’s important that you get a recommended intake of fruit and vegetable nutrients on a daily basis. So, rather than struggling to think up of a meal idea that balances as many as possible, try blending all the ingredients together in one delish smoothie.
For starters, take apples and berries and then toss them in together with some spinach, kale, carrots, chia seeds, and almond mind. All of the nutrients you will find in this smoothie are powerhouses and they will contribute to the construction of a properly healthy lifestyle.
Final Words
Do you think these steps helped you understand how to cleanse your body in a perfectly natural and safe way? A body filled with toxins is a problem that can affect your well-being pretty harshly. The good part is that you can solve it naturally, so why not make use of this opportunity? One last thing that it’s vital for you to remember: it’s never too late to say “enough” and start protecting your body.
