Detox Done Right: Simple Habits for a Cleaner, Healthier You

Links: 

LMNT - How much water should you drink each day?

Qigong abdominal massage

Lymphatic dry brushing

Lymphatic massage

Soft dry brush

Redmond bentonite clay

Aztec bentonite clay

Dr. Amy Myers - The 3 Levels of Infrared Light

Transcript

Natalie: 0:40

Welcome to another episode of the Design Your Well Life podcast. We make an effort to think about our homes and designing where we live, but do we take the same effort to design how we live? Today we're going to talk about how to get toxins out of your body. Think of this as our internal spring cleaning, a time to refresh and remake your internal system. What kind of toxins might be in your body? We've touched on many of these during our previous episodes. They include things you eat and drink, like sugars and seed oils in our food, heavy metals and nanoplastics in our drinking water. They can also be chemicals on things that you eat, like glyphosate and pesticides, to things you absorb through your skin, like parabens, PFAFs, we'll discuss in future episodes things you inhale from the air, including toxic black mold. All of these things, as we've learned, can take a toll on your body and immune system, putting it under stress, making it hyperactive. We've also discussed that every system in our body is connected, with the biggest connection between our brain and gut called the vagus nerve. We don't want to constantly have our cells and immune systems on red alert, not only do we need to learn how to keep some of these things from getting in, but we need to work on cleaning up and eliminating the things that have already gotten in. Let's start by exploring how to get toxins out of our body. I want you to think of the ways that we naturally eliminate waste. They're pretty easy to guess and we use them every day. The main ways for elimination are from urine, stool, breath, and sweat. But each system in our body, also has its own way of cleaning itself up so waste and toxins can be flushed out. I'll start with the big picture and work down to a smaller cellular level. Within the body, there are multiple systems that clean up toxins. Your kidneys, liver, colon, lymphatic, spleen, thymus, lungs, and many more. Even our cells and mitochondria have their own way of cleaning things up. Let's start with a system that we use the most, and that is the elimination process through urine. Urine comes from kidneys. Part of the kidneys job is to balance your hydration levels and minerals and also filter out toxins and other things like medications, including antibiotics, antivirals, and Ibuprofen. Now, in order for our kidneys to continually process these out of our bodies, we need to drink enough water. When asked how much water to drink, you might quickly recite 8 ounces 8 times a day. However, that old metric is too much for some people and too little for others. You can work with your personal physician or nutritionist. for the amount of water that you should personally drink, but a general rule of thumb is drink when you're thirsty, and sometimes if you feel hungry, start with a glass of water. This might just be a signal for thirst instead of hunger. Our body actually has a way and place to tell us that we need water. I recently read an article from Robb Wolf at LMNT, and he states,"As with most things you consume, there's a sweet spot for H2O. Drink too little and you'll experience a low water state called hypohydration. But drink too much and you'll dilute blood sodium levels known as hyponatremia, which is even worse." He goes on to say,"depending on your activity level and where you live, makes the amount of water you drink a very individual thing." He points out that in colder environments, your body doesn't signal that you're thirsty as often, so you need to keep an eye on making sure you're drinking more. And then goes on to say, in hotter environments, by the time you are signaling that you're thirsty, you've probably sweat out and used more water than you're able to put back into your system continually. It's a really interesting article and very informative. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can take a look at the rest of that as well. Now, while it's important to drink a lot, this means that you're going to need to pee a lot,. And don't ignore this. I have a really dear friend. that shared a New Year's resolution with me, and I think it's brilliant. Pee when you have to, and don't apologize about it. Too many times we're in the middle of work, or we're on a Zoom call, or a meeting, or at the store, and we're just almost done shopping and ready to head home, and you have the urge to pee. Don't ignore it. It can have really negative effects on your whole system. And I've experienced this firsthand. About ten years ago, I would get busy working or be in the middle of back to back meetings. I'm sure a lot of people have experienced this. And feel like I just couldn't stop to use the bathroom. So for months, I would work the whole day and then realize as I was headed home that I hadn't stopped to use the bathroom even once that day. This caused major issues for me in the long run. One day I had extreme pain in my flank and started running a fever. It turns out all of that buildup had caused a massive kidney stone of 7 mm, which is about the size of a green pea. It had gotten stuck. And it was causing a blockage to my kidney and all the urine was backing up. The only way they could get it out was to have it surgically removed. So, you would think that I would have actually learned my lesson after that. But a few years later, after the same behavior, I had an 8mm stone that had to be surgically removed as well. Well, this finally got me paying attention to my body, and not only drinking more water, but using the bathroom more to eliminate the waste. I say, let's all make this resolution that my friend did, and when you have to use the bathroom, Go! On a side note, a little trick I use to get enough water in the day is to drink a glass right after I use the bathroom. This keeps me cycling the water through my body throughout the entire day. And as you know, I told you how I love to drink apple cider vinegar each day in a previous episode. An advantage of that is its alkalizing properties can actually help flush out toxins and excess minerals from your kidneys. Now, the next way to eliminate toxins from your body, you guessed it, it's through your stool. It's important to keep your bowels moving and removing things from your body. The colon acts as the primary pathway for eliminating all of these waste products and filtering out the toxins that your body just can't absorb. After the small intestine absorbs the nutrients, the remaining waste material moves into the colon, and that's where all the water is reabsorbed, and you're left with formed stool, that's eliminated from your body. Now your microbiome actually plays a big role in this as well. All of your beneficial bacteria, your good bacteria, it actually helps break down waste and contribute to the whole detoxifying process. So again, it's really important to have a healthy diet and really healthy gut microbiome to eliminate these toxins from your body and get the most out of the food that you're eating. Now research shows that the liver plays a key role in this too. By filtering your blood, it neutralizes and helps your body get rid of a lot of potentially harmful substances. There's a lot that the liver actually filters out. Things like alcohol, medications, this is where Tylenol comes in, your liver is the one that filters out Tylenol, and topical steroids, excess hormones that your body may produce, and broken down red blood cells. It's really important to keep these systems running smoothly. From my personal experience in traveling a lot one of the side effects of being in different time zones or having jet lag is keeping up a normal elimination routine. So one of the tricks that I use especially when traveling is abdominal massage. Now this technique is actually used in a lot of cultures and a part of Qigong to keep a really healthy colon. So as part of my wind down routine, when I travel, I'll lie on my back and with both hands make small clockwise circles lightly pressing on my belly. So if you lay on your back, start on the upper left side just below your ribs and rub small circles down towards your hip bone. Then move across to the right hip bone. And rub up towards your right ribcage, and then across again to your left side. I usually do this clockwise motion about ten times, and then I do it again in the morning when I wake up. It's really great for your colon and keeping all of your internal organs really pliable and mobile. If you're looking for some videos on techniques, there are a lot of them out there. And I'll include a link to a standing abdominal massage used in Qigong, which I really love. Now, let's start getting a little deeper into our internal system. The lymphatic system is an amazing part of our bodies. It has its own lymphatic vessels and those are filled with lymphatic fluid. This is different than blood vessels, but the same concept. So the lymphatic vessels go around your whole body and they collect things that are not needed and that need to be cleaned up out of the system. This can include bacteria, viruses, toxins, and excess fluid. As our blood vessels do their job of bringing oxygen and nutrients to the organs and cells they leak some of the plasma into our interstitial space. Now, interstitial space just means the space between things. The lymphatic system's job is to take that extra plasma that has leaked out as the blood vessels are depositing their nutrients and put it back into the bloodstream to keep it running smoothly and prevent the blood from getting too thick. But a big part of the lymphatic system is to clean things up. Now, if you think of the lymphatic system like a city with streets and roads, alleys, and garbage trucks that are going around collecting all the junk from the different organs, from the different cells, things that our body doesn't need anymore through our entire system, the lymphatic system is what takes that fluid and goes and picks all of those different things up and then brings it to the lymph nodes. Your body actually relies on this system to get the bacteria, viruses, toxins, and all the abnormal cells out. We all know that the heart is what keeps the blood pumping through the body, through your blood vessels, but what keeps the lymphatic fluid moving through your lymphatic vessels? It's movement. When we exercise, or even simply walk, all of these movements that cause your muscles to constrict also cause lymphatic fluid to flow like it's supposed to. This is another really great reason why exercise, or at least walking each day, is so important and to not be sedentary or sit at a desk all day. Besides exercise and walking, another great way to move your lymphatic fluid is by jumping on a mini trampoline. The jumping movement can really help with muscle contraction and get that lymphatic fluid moving throughout your body. Also, one of the ways that I like to get lymphatic fluid moving is called lymphatic dry brushing or a lymphatic massage. Now, the lymph system is directly under your skin, and it only takes light pressure with movements in the correct direction to move the lymphatic fluid towards your lymph nodes to clean things out. With dry brushing, you can do this once or twice a week, and it's best on dry skin prior to a shower. There's a great YouTube video That is by a certified lymphedema specialist that walks you through all the techniques. She also has a great video on light lymphatic massage for the upper body and face. You'll need a soft bristle brush, and I'll link to the one that I use, as well as a link to these videos so that you can see the best way to move lymphatic fluid through your system through dry brushing. Going back to our analogy of the city streets and collecting all of the junk that our cells and body doesn't use, as the lymphatic fluid collects all of these things around the body, it takes all of those things that need to be removed to our lymph nodes. Now, the lymph nodes are filled with many types of immune cells to help fight off and eliminate all these viruses and bacteria. There are over 800 different lymph nodes in your body, and they're located in places like your neck, your armpits, your groin, and your knees. And this is where my next trick comes in. I love to use bentonite clay to help remove toxins, especially on the lymph nodes under my armpits. Bentonite clay pulls out impurities from pores. It's a negatively charged substance, which means that it attracts positively charged particles like toxins, heavy metals, and bacteria. Bentonite clay essentially seeks toxins in the body it acts like a magnet or a sponge and absorbs all of these substances so they can be removed from the body. When you use bentonite clay, it's important to find clay from pure sources that have been tested for heavy metals and other chemicals. The two I recommend are Redmond and Aztec. They're great quality and I'll put links to both of them in the show notes. So, how do I use it? I take two teaspoons of clay. One teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and one teaspoon of water, and I make a consistency that's like a toothpaste. You want to make sure that it's thick enough and pliable enough that it's going to stick but that it's not so thick that it crumbles and it won't easily spread. I use a small ceramic bowl to mix this up, and I put it under my arms, and then let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes before washing it off. This trick also works really well if you're transitioning from a toxic deodorant to a more natural deodorant. It's a great way to clean the bacteria out from under your arms, and it helps your body adjust and regulate to the transition faster. While the lymphatic system relies on movement, another powerful detox pathway is right under our noses. It's our lungs. We're going to talk about how deep breathing also helps to detoxify our body. We take a breath in and carbon dioxide is a natural toxic waste that we then breathe out. Our bodies are designed to release toxins through breathing. The carbon dioxide gets transferred from the blood into our lungs, and we expel it out in our breath. However, if we're only using shallow breathing, the other systems in our body have to take over and work harder in order to expel this waste. And did you know deep breathing is actually another way to stimulate the lymphatic system that we just spoke about? Along with movement, our breath helps move the lymph fluid around our bodies. Breathing shallowly can lead to a really sluggish lymph system, which doesn't detoxify the body as well, but deep breathing can help get the lymph fluid really flowing properly so your body can work more efficiently. Many people breathe too shallowly, and this would be from the upper chest and not your diaphragm. When you breathe, it should be your belly that pushes out when you inhale, and then compresses in towards your spine when you exhale. To practice this, the simplest way is to start by lying on the ground. Put one hand on your belly, and put one hand on your chest. Now, take a deep breath through your nose for four to five seconds. Your belly hand should rise more than your chest hand. Now breathe out of your mouth through pursed lips, while gently pushing on your belly. Fully exhale for six to eight seconds. Try to exhale longer than you inhale. This is how deep breathing should be done. As you practice more, you'll be able to do this sitting and standing as well, but it's hard when you first start and you're trying to transition from shallow breaths to deeper abdominal breathing. Eventually, this will become a more natural method of breathing for you. My favorite time to do deep breathing is right before bed. It's a great calming ritual that can actually help with sleep as well. Now on to another favorite way that I have to detoxify, and that is sauna. Sauna is a great way to get toxins out of your system through sweat. There are two different types of sauna experiences. A traditional sauna uses hot rocks and water. And gets to the temperature between 150 to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. You've probably seen these. A lot of times they're called Swedish saunas. You'll go inside and you'll use a dipper or some sort of water to pour over the hot rocks. And that helps increase the temperature in the room. The intent of a traditional sauna is to sweat a lot and that increases your circulation. This can be a really big benefit for relaxation, for high heat sweating and people have reported pain reduction as well as increased cardiovascular health because you have increased circulation. Now, the other type of sauna is infrared sauna. This is the type of sauna that I personally prefer. The infrared sauna has different levels of infrared light that penetrates different depths in your body. These wavelengths, are called Near. Mid and Far. Traditional saunas, as we discussed, rely on humidity to help heat the room up around you. Now, on the other hand, infrared saunas heat your body directly. Dr. Amy Myers has a really great explanation of the benefits and I'm going to share some of these things that she mentions and then I'll link to the full article. She says,"starting with near infrared light, which only goes deep enough to penetrate the skin's outer epidermis layer, At this level, infrared energy can remove toxins, dead skin cells, oils, dirt, and bacteria from your skin". So, near infrared light can do your body good in several ways. For example, it can help your skin heal faster because it's stimulating collagen and elastin production, and it reduces the overall inflammation in your skin, and it helps deliver oxygen and nutrients to injured tissues. Jumping next into the mid infrared light, this is a longer wavelength, and it penetrates even deeper into your body's soft tissue, where a lot of the inflammation occurs. As a result, this type of light helps expand blood vessels and increases circulation in those tissues, which, in turn, then helps more oxygen reach the injured areas of the body. Mid infrared light is the best choice if you're trying to reduce inflammation and increase soft tissue blood circulation. Now, the longest wavelength in the infrared spectrum is called far infrared light, which reaches deep into the body where toxins are stored. Our body uses sweat to flush out the toxins that we ingest. And we ingest toxins every day through the food that we eat, the water we drink, the air that we breathe, and the products that we put on ourselves. Far infrared light stimulates our sweat glands by direct heat, which then results in a deep and detoxifying sweat. Infrared sauna therapy promotes this process by using what's known as a heavy metal detox protocol. This protocol mobilizes specific toxins that are three inches below the surface of your skin. So rather than simply heating the air to draw out toxins, the infrared saunas use this far infrared light to heat your body from the inside and expel the toxins from deep within your tissues and your skin." It's important when you're looking for an infrared sauna to find one that uses all three near, mid, and far infrared light. There are a lot of great home saunas that can be used, even down to a sauna blanket, and we'll explore several of these options in an upcoming Healthy Home Highlights. Now, some people feel like the infrared sauna doesn't get hot enough for them in order to get a really good sweat. But a trick that I use is I get in while it's heating up because it's intended that the infrared light heats up your body at the same time, instead of waiting for the sauna to get to full temperature and then get in, I like to get in around 90 degrees. It's warm, and then it takes my body and heats the inside of it up at the same rate that it's heating the outside air temperature up. It's best to expose as much skin as possible to allow the infrared light to penetrate. And as it penetrates your body, you get hot from the inside. This is a really great way that I get a deep sweat, and I feel like infrared is really nice, especially for those who struggle being in really hot temperatures or hot environments. So, quick recap, traditional saunas focus on heat and sweat, while infrared saunas target deeper layers of the body. When you start using sauna for detoxification, please make sure that you start slow, with really only five to ten minute sessions in the beginning. If you start long sessions too quickly, especially if you have autoimmune or if you have a really heavy toxic build up inside of your cells and inside of your body as those things get released, it can create what is called a Herxheimer reaction. Now, this is a temporary reaction that some people experience during detox where the symptoms get worse before they get better. The reason for this is the body finds ways to store toxins in the cells to keep it from being in your system. And a lot of those cells that the toxins get stored in are fat cells. So as you're detoxing and these cells are releasing things back into your system, it can create a new reaction or a flare up again. But it's really important to realize that there are so many amazing health benefits that make the detoxification process worth the effort. You just need to take it slow. During detoxification, undigested proteins, plaque in your blood vessels, bacteria in your blood, and neurotoxins that normally have a hard time escaping your system finally begin to vacate the body, which create this Herxheimer reaction. what kind of symptoms during a Herxheimer reaction can you expect to feel? For me personally, when I first started using sauna therapy, I had to be really careful and the first sessions I would only do on the weekends when I could take time to rest and recover. Even though I started only 10 minutes at a time, I would get autoimmune flare ups and my inflammation would go up as I was releasing all these toxins from my cells into my bloodstream. I remember getting some pretty severe reactions during this process, and I had to take my time with a lot of meditation and calm breathing and work through the biggest part of my detox phase. But the benefits were definitely well worth it and a lot of detoxers that have inflammation actually report really strong improvements with achy joints, puffy fingers and a lot of other conditions. But as chemical toxins flood out through their pathways, just keep in mind these short term flare ups definitely are not uncommon. Now speaking of cleaning up cells, I want to talk about how our body repairs cells and how we support that. Mitochondria are the power plants of our cells. They connect with every part of our system and keep each cell creating enough energy to do its job. Having healthier mitochondria is really the key to your health. And concerning the health of mitochondria, Dr. Gundry states in his book Gut Check,"its importance cannot be overstated. I would go so far as to say that at the end of the day, you're only as healthy as your mitochondria." Now, mitochondria try to keep up with the demands that our body needs, and sometimes our body needs more. This part of the process is called mitogenesis. And it's where more mitochondria is made for the cell. There are several ways to do this, but two of the main ways to make more mitochondria are fasting and exercise. In order for your mitochondria to go through mitogenesis and produce more, you need a mitochondrial uncoupler. And this can be done with ketones. So ketones are a signaling molecule that tells your mitochondria to uncouple. In order for your body to produce enough of these ketones, it can't have another source of fuel. This means you need to fast for at least 12 hours. Now, separately, fasting also sends a signal to our cells that it's time to focus on cleaning and repairs through autophagy. Again, Dr. Gundry states,"in every part of your body, the healthier mitochondria are, The healthier your cells will be, and the healthier your cells are, the healthier your tissues and your organs will be." So when mitochondria become damaged beyond use, the cells usually die and pop in a process called Apoptosis, which leads to inflammation, but there's another way for cells to die, and this is called autophagy, which means self eating. This process of autophagy takes the worn out cellular pieces, including the mitochondrial components and actually recycles them into new cells with new mitochondria. Now, autophagy helps keep inflammation down because it prevents apoptosis from occurring. We don't want the exploding cells, we'd rather have our cells recognize that they're done, they've done their job, and take all those parts and components and recycle them into new fresh cells. So a simple way of putting it is fasting not only creates ketones to tell our body to make more new mitochondria, but it also sends a signal to our cells that it's time to focus on cleaning and repairs through autophagy. Now fasting has become controversial and some find long fasts to be really healing and others find, especially in women, that it's too hard on the body and creates too much stress. So please make sure that fasting is the right choice for you. And if you have any concerns, speak with your physician. However, I personally choose to fast once a month for 24 hours. This is not only a religious choice for me to take these 24 hours of no food or water and focus on prayer and serving other through donations, but also once a month, it's become a big benefit, an opportunity to create new, fresh mitochondria and do a cleanup on all the cells in my system. I hope this podcast has brought a little more clarity on how simple and inexpensive or free things like drinking water, Qigong abdominal massage, walking, deep breathing, sauna, and fasting can really give a boost to our body's detoxification and healing process. By incorporating these simple things into your lifestyle, it can really help clean up your systems. Join me next time as we get into the healing benefits of sleep.

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