Cleansing is what you can do to help your body detoxify more thoroughly.

Covered in an earlier post, detoxification is the body’s natural process of eliminating and neutralizing toxic materials from cells, organs and the bloodstream. The body processes toxins through the kidneys, liver, urine, feces, breath and sweat.

Cleaning your Body from the Inside Out

It’s an odd concept, isn’t it? Well, not really, if you think about how much of our insides we clean on a daily basis:

• Mouths (talk to any dentist and they’ll tell you it should be at least 3 times)
• noses (kids love to pick ‘em but socialization has put Kleenex in our hands)
• eyes (nasty, crusty sleep in the morning, gunk throughout the day)
• belly button (fuzz, dirt, grime…all accumulate if not washed regularly)
• vagina (there’s a daily natural cleansing process, but some doctors also recommend regular douches and/or baths)

And these are only the parts we have access to! Our excretory system cleans our bodies every second of every day. Then, you might ask, why do we need to do more than what nature is currently doing? Basically, we need to cleanse because our bodies weren’t designed to handle the amount of toxins in the world today.

A Common Analogy: House Cleaning

Detoxification is like house cleaning. Most people budget a strict amount of time to a weekly cleaning schedule. They will only bother with the highly trafficked areas because they have better things to do.

But come Spring, you pull out the couch and T.V. stand and notice that the dirt has accumulated (where no one has even been!), creating a rather large dust bunny village. Cleansing is like spring cleaning.

Everyone has their own tolerance level to toxins but in any case, the body can only process so many toxins at a time. When a backup occurs and the toxins keep coming in, the body protects itself by storing the toxins in fat cells.

When the fat real estate is all used up, then we’re left with a bunch of poisonous material banging around our insides like teenagers at a rave. The partiers destroy everything in sight and cause major havoc internally. Negative symptoms are expressed and if the root problem isn’t addressed in time, what was once minor irritations turn into chronic and degenerative diseases.

The Benefits of Cleansing

So if life isn’t as easy as you remember it to be, then you’re probably experiencing a toxic overload. Here are just some of the benefits to cleansing:

• Improves overall health and vitality
• Increases energy levels
• Improves digestion
• Helps control weight (even weight loss in some cases – definitely mine!)
• Decreases risk of disease and chronic health conditions
• General ability to live lighter in body, mind and spirit!
  

The next article in the detoxing series is “How do I Know I Need to Detox?”