Gas fumes, paint, second-hand smoke, plastics, pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, food additives, hair dyes, household cleansers, lawn chemicals—these are just some of the toxins our bodies are exposed to on a daily basis. In fact, our bodies process 14 pounds a year of food preservatives and additives, pesticides, and herbicides alone. Added to that, stress, fear, and anxiety produce more toxins.
Our bodies have the ability to detoxify themselves, through our liver, bowels, kidneys, lymphatic system, and skin, but they can’t always keep up. When that happens, our bodies store these toxins, mostly in joints and fat cells. The release of these toxins from fat cells is one of the reasons why dieters often feel jittery and get headaches.
Common signs that your body is harboring too many toxins include: feeling “out of balance,” skin, intestine, and sinus problems, headaches, poor digestion, constipation, insomnia, depression, adult acne, allergies, weight gain, and bloating.
Detoxification can be as simple as decreasing your intake of sugar, nicotine, alcohol, and caffeine, or as in-depth as going on a prescribed diet and supplement program. (Detoxification should not be undertaken if you are pregnant, nursing, elderly, weak, underweight, diabetic, or have ulcers.)
An easy way to remove bodily toxins is to check your health food store for a detoxification formula. A good one will cleanse your system, especially the gastrointestinal tract, bring your body into balance, provide adequate energy to counteract the fatigue that comes with detoxification, and have anti-oxidants, to fight free radical formation. You should also include a cleansing diet for seven to twenty-one days. This is a diet composed solely of juices, fruits, vegetables, cooked whole grains, and filtered water.
Improve Liver Function…Naturally
Weighing in at around three pounds, the liver is a unique organ with many functions crucial to sustaining life. From circulation to digestion, the liver continuously processes the blood used by the rest of the body.
Our largest organ, the liver works to keep us healthy. It converts food into substances needed for life and growth, storing glycogen (a blood-sugar regulator), amino acids, protein, and fat. It also makes the enzymes and bile that help to digest food.
In addition, the liver neutralizes harmful toxins and wastes, so it is at great risk of contamination from environmental toxins and those contained in over-processed foods
While the liver is capable of regenerating itself, its capacity to repair itself can be seriously impaired by repeated or extensive damage.
What Does This Vital Organ Do?
- Assimilating and storing fat-soluble vitamins
- Creating bile
- Filtering blood
- Metabolizing fats, proteins, and carbohydrates
- Metabolizing hormones, internally-produced wastes, and foreign chemicals
- Producing urea (a primary waste product, flushed from the body in urine)
- Purifying and clearing waste products, toxins, and drugs
- Regulating and secreting substances important to maintaining body functions and health
- Storing important nutrients (such as glycogen glucose), vitamins, and minerals
- Synthesizing blood proteins
A good detoxification program can produce amazing results. Many people look and feel younger, more vital, and healthier. There are fewer aches and pains, and they tend to sleep better. Who needs to detoxify and when is completely based in part on every body’s lifestyle and needs.
How massage works to detoxify your body:
Its a gentle technique that works through the body’s lymphatic system to activate the body fluid circulation and stimulate the functioning of the immune and parasympathetic nervous systems. The result of these actions can include reductions in edemas, detoxification of the body, regeneration of tissue as well as many other benefits.
Apart from mental and physical relief, it improves blood circulation by stimulating the lymphatic response; it is also well known that massage helps the body in pushing out accumulated toxins.
Manual Lymphatic Drainage for Detoxification
This specialized massage technique is light, rhythmic strokes that are used to improve the flow of lymph (colorless fluid that helps fight infection and disease) throughout the body. One of the most popular forms of lymphatic massage, Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD), focuses on draining excess lymph that reduces inflammation.
The lymphatic system plays a crucial role in your body’s ability to heal from injury and ward off disease. It is essential to the body’s drainage system for cleansing and filtering out toxins and bacteria. Aches, pains, soreness and flu like symptoms could all be caused by congested lymph pathways. Chronic lymph blockages.
Its a gentle technique that works through the body’s lymphatic system to activate the body fluid circulation and stimulate the functioning of the immune and parasympathetic nervous systems. The result of these actions can include reductions in edemas, detoxification of the body, regeneration of tissue as well as many other benefits.
References: unlocking the healing code
James, Lisa. “Cleanse That Body.” Energy Times, Jan 2005.
Light, Phyllis D. “Clean and Lean.” Energy Times, June 2004.
Partain, Ronald E. “Detox Your Patients; Enhance Your Practice.” Chiropractic Economics, March 13, 2007.
Weiner, Susan. “Detox Your Life.” Energy Times, Jan 2007