The body has a necessity to eliminate toxins and harmful substances. It has 6 vital organs that support the body’s natural detoxification process. The lungs, skin, kidneys, liver, colon, and lymphatic system.

Supporting these organs to work more efficiently, is essential to ensure the body can detoxify and eliminate waste and unwanted substances. However, just like the filter in your vacuum cleaner – if it’s clogged up, it won’t work as well as it should do!

Whilst there any many detox diets about, most probably with a quick fix appeal, the body is perfectly equipped to naturally detox. And although a healthy diet is important, there are many other factors, such as exercise, stress and hydration that play a vital role too in supporting the body’s organs to eliminate waste.

Unlock Your Body's Potential

Here are 6 simple steps that you can take to ensure your body is functioning the best it can!

1. Consume clean foods

Avoid processed foods in your diet as these contain higher levels of salt, fat sugar, and other substances, such as artificial colouring or flavouring. Processed food is food that has been changed from its natural state. In addition to avoiding processed foods, you need to ensure you consume adequate vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants as these are all essential to help the body with the natural detoxification process. Clean eating nourishes the body with nutrient-dense foods. This can be achieved by eating foods that are as close as possible to their natural state. The fresher, the better, as food is of higher nutritional value when it is fresh.

2. Exercise

Exercise helps to kickstart the natural detoxification process by eliminating toxins through our lungs (breath) and our skin as we sweat! Exercise also improves our circulation and pumps white blood cells around our bodies to our organs, helping them to function effectively.

3. Bowels

Our bowels are critical to removing waste from the body which if functioning properly helps to protect our bodies from harmful toxins! To ensure the bowels function well and preferably daily, it is essential to eat a diet high in fibre and rich in prebiotics as this helps to keep the gut healthy and enables the natural detoxification process to function well.

4. Hydrate

Drinking water helps our bodies to remove waste products. It also helps to regulate body temperature, assist digestion and nutrient absorption, as well as lubricate our joints. The best way to tell if you are adequately hydrated is the colour of your urine – pale yellow or even colourless is best!

5. Breathe

Deep breathing helps us to inhale more oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide as we exhale. It also helps to optimise the lungs’ ability to circulate oxygen in order to remove unwanted contaminants. Deep breathing is also an effective way to reduce stress. Stress can increase your toxic load by increasing cravings for foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt.

6. Sleep

We all know that getting a good night’s sleep can make us feel better the next day! Well, research suggests that the brain may flush out toxins during a night’s sleep! The space between the brain cells may increase during sleep, allowing the brain to flush out toxins that build up during waking hours. So make sure you get the zzzz’s in!

If you would like to improve your overall wellbeing and support your own body’s natural defences and functionality, then why not enroll in our Habits for Health Programme. Learn how to upgrade your mindset, nutrition, movement and lifestyle habits in an easy to follow 12 session process that fits into even the busiest of lives. Our formula for success is simple - it's the small daily actions that lead to profound, long-lasting change.

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References and further reading

The truth about detox diets
Detox diets – do they work?
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/what-are-processed-foods/
https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/clean-eating-what-does-that-mean
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3942919/
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/brain-may-flush-out-toxins-during-sleep