Ways To Detox Your Body—In a Safe, Healthy Way

You may not be thrilled about your eating habits.  Or perhaps you feel you’re in need of a general reboot to a healthier path. However, given time, detoxes and cleanses aren’t necessary because your body detoxifies itself.

Still, you can help your body along with its own natural processes by adjusting your diet, eliminating alcohol, and getting enough water, rest and exercise. Your body has its own ways of removing toxins with or without your help—no special pills, juicers, or cayenne needed.

But, there are some ways you can help your body boost its natural detox system. 

Many popular detox plans can require some drastic lifestyle changes that aren’t exactly great for your body or overall health – they often involve restrictive eating patterns. The detoxes often focus on “short term detoxing” without reintroducing healthy foods or developing an eating pattern that helps you support overall health and well-being.

You can fare a lot better with your health by allowing your body to do the detoxing on its own. The body has various ways of detoxing itself. Including the liver, which works to break down various toxins and elements that you consume, allowing you to eliminate them; and the kidneys, which metabolize and excrete many things. Even your skin and lungs work to help your body get rid of toxins.

There are quite a few ways to aid your body in detoxifying itself without a depriving diet. Here are some ideas.

Eat Anti-Inflammatory Foods

Whole foods packed with nutrients are your best bet to keep your body clean internally. Fibre-rich foods like fruit, veggies, beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, lean protein, and probiotics can aid gut and liver function, so any waste gets out of your system as soon as possible.

Try to cut out fried, sugary processed foods and red meat to prevent chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity.

Take It Easy With Alcohol

Alcohol jumps to the front of the metabolic pathway so that your body can process it quickly and get it out of your body. By the time your body gets to the other things you’ve eaten, it’s already been working hard and isn’t functioning at its peak performance.

Your body processes alcohol mainly through your liver and a little through your breath. That’s why you can smell alcohol on a person’s breath—it’s the ethanol leaving their lungs.

Your body must work hard to process alcohol, which directly impacts the organs that naturally detoxify your body. 

Limit Sugar and Processed Foods

Processed foods, which are often loaded with sugar, also take some extra effort for your body to break down. They tend not to be very high in nutrients that you need as well, making it a double whammy. They can mess with your body’s ability to stabilize your blood sugar. That makes it hard for your body to metabolize things and detoxify.

Furthermore, sugar and processed foods can lead to weight gain over time, and that has been linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. That makes it hard for your body to metabolize things and detoxify.

Eat Foods Rich in Antioxidants

These natural substances may prevent or delay some types of cell damage, and can do your whole body and overall health a favour. 

One of the biggest things that antioxidants do is offset free radical damage, caused by highly unstable molecules that are naturally formed when your body does a range of things.⁶

Free radicals can also cause what’s known as “oxidative stress,” a process that can trigger cell damage. Oxidative stress is linked to a range of diseases, including:

• Cancer
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Diabetes
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Eye diseases

I recommend loading up on antioxidant foods, which includes a number of fruits and vegetables.

Consider Taking Prebiotics

Prebiotics are naturally occurring, non-digestible food components that help promote the growth of helpful bacteria in your gut.

Good gut health is crucial to overall health. To keep things moving—and detoxing—in your gut, keep eating lots of  fiber, drinking plenty of fluids, keeping yourself moving, and loading up on prebiotics.

You can get them naturally by having more foods like:

• bananas
• onions
• garlic
• leeks
• asparagus
• artichokes
• beans
• whole-grain foods.

Drink More of the Right Stuff

Sip on water. Hydrating will help your kidneys flush out toxins, add lemon to your water for a hit of electrolytes. Lemon signals the liver to produce more enzymes, which keep digestion moving smoothly.

If you want something different than water, switch things up with tea. A small number of studies have indicated green tea may have some beneficial effects on heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Get Moving

Sweat is a way to purify other bodily substances, such as blood, through the excretion of toxins and other impurities. Sweating actually helps you detox by boosting circulation throughout the body.

What’s more, exercise also has mental health benefits. Engaging in exercise is known to help you feel less anxious and depressed and keeps you healthier overall.

Care for Your Skin

Practice smart skincare by DRY BRUSHING with a soft brush before your bath or shower. The gentle exfoliation can help your skin look and feel better if you do it correctly.

Add Epsom salts to your bath as this can also help you cleanse inside and out since your skin will absorb its minerals like magnesium. There’s little evidence for or against that claim. However, a hot Epsom salt bath can make you feel better and more relaxed.

Get Good Sleep

We need adequate snooze time as it is key for keeping your health on track and sufficient rest will help reduce stress and inflammation so your body can function at its best. Here’s how much sleep you need by age:

• Ages 18-60: At least seven hours
• Ages 61-64: seven to nine hours
• Age 65 and older: seven to eight hours

You can create a sleep haven by keeping your bedroom cool, dark, quiet, and free of technology screens. Additionally, stick to a standard bedtime that allows you to get at least seven hours of sleep nightly.