The Six Steps to Detoxification

By: Marla Tenney Wednesday January 1, 2020 comments

Looking forward to feeling better and getting healthier in 2020? You aren’t the only one. Time Magazine lists both ‘lose weight and get fit’ and ‘eat healthier and diet’ in the Top 10 commonly broken New Year’s Resolutions. It seems that this is the time of year when people really start thinking about how to improve their physical health.

While it’s common to think about diet and exercise first, there is more to a healthy body than just the external processes and habits we use to achieve optimal health. Our body’s internal ecology also plays a large role in our wellness. Our immune and digestive systems have a huge role to play in countering unfriendly micro-organisms and ensuring that our body is running smoothly and efficiently.

Diet and exercise are still important but they are just two of many factors when it comes to getting healthy. Our sugar intake, the chemicals we consume in our food, our stress levels, and the medications we take, all impact how our body functions and reacts to threats. Any combination of these can weaken our immune system and compromise our health in a variety of ways.

In order to restore balance to the body and give it what it needs to perform its job effectively, we must detox and restore our body’s natural ecology. The process of detoxification takes six steps to complete:

Step #1: Remove Any Obstacles to Health

Unfortunately, there are no signs that light up when our body isn’t getting what it needs to perform optimally. Sometimes we’ll feel under the weather or have a headache, but these could mean any number of things and it’s never clear what’s keeping our systems from working properly. In order for a detox to work, we must first identify any obstacles our bodies are currently laboring under which may be holding us back. In addition to blood work and medical tests, you can use alternative methods (like we use at Shakti Whole Health) to identify nutritional deficiencies, food or environmental sensitivities, pathogens, toxins, or systemic stress.  

Step #2: Circulation Improvement

Your circulation system does more than simply cycle blood throughout your body. It also delivers nutrients and filters out waste. If our circulatory system is weakened, then waste is lingering and harming our bodies. There are actions we can take to improve our body’s circulation right away; simply walking 30 minutes a day, engaging in hydrotherapy, or using the Bemer PEMF device can have an immediate impact on your circulation.

Step #3: Eliminating Toxins

Getting that circulation pumping enhances our body’s ability to eliminate toxins. Effective elimination of chemicals and waste is key to restoring our body’s balance. There are simple actions we can take to assist our bodies in this process such as drinking 1/2 your body weight of water (in ounces, up to 100 ounces) a day, taking immune-boosting supplements like whole-food sourced Vitamin C, exercising to the point of sweating (or using an infrared sauna), and ensuring we are having regular bowel movements.

Step #4: Gastro-Intestinal System Repair

Our GI systems are in charge of the micro-flora which live in our intestines. Ensuring we consume nutrients which support this system will result in improved digestive health. The right approach could heal internal issues, eliminate irritants which slow digestion, and reduce the time to move waste out of the body. High quality probiotics and prebiotics are excellent ways to help heal the GI system.

Step #5: Liver Stimulation

The liver’s primary function is detoxification.  If we aren’t taking care of our livers, they can’t take care of our bodies. There are supplements and herbs, like folate (the body's usable form of folic acid), magnesium, milk thistle, and dandelion, which stimulate phase 1 and phase 2 liver detoxification. Adding certain foods, including fresh fruit, garlic and cabbage, will help the liver as well.

Step #6: Tackling Stress

Understanding how to manage stress is important for all areas of our physical health, including detoxification. Mental and emotional stress interferes with our body’s ability to function optimally – this includes digestion. Taking note of stress triggers and identifying effective coping skills to reduce stress are essential to staying healthy. Check out the new service, Mind Body Coaching, being offered at Shakti Whole Health on our solutions page as an excellent way to manage stress.

As you can see, our bodies need more than just dieting and exercising to achieve excellent health and wellness. If you are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired and can't figure out why you can't figure it out, give me a call. Let’s work together to come up with a plan to get you feeling fantastic this year!