We live in a world where most of us are continuously breathing air filled with pollution, drinking water with heavy metals and chemical residues, eating food with pesticides and chemical additives (and sometimes even bacteria), and living lives that cause stress on our bodies and our minds.
All of these elements can result in the absorption of certain toxic substances (commonly referred to as toxins) into our blood and organs. If they aren’t effectively and efficiently eliminated from our body, they can begin to damage our cells and cause illness.
One of the ways we may be able to improve our health, and thus our quality of life and longevity, is by eliminating these toxins from our bodies. There are things we can do to support our body in removing toxic elements from our system, and indeed to help prevent it from absorbing these toxic elements in the first place.
Before we look at what we can do to detox safely, let’s take a minute to understand how our bodies naturally remove toxins.
How Does Our Body Naturally Detox?
It is important to know that “detoxing” doesn’t depend entirely on our actions and health practices. We have organs in our body whose function it is to eliminate toxins and potentially damaging substances from our blood.
The first important detoxing organ is the liver. When healthy, it effectively detoxifies chemicals that are byproducts of natural processes, as well as those that are produced as a result of unhealthy conditions. The liver is not able to directly excrete toxins from our body, but it can modify their chemical form to make them safe and even reusable.
Also among the liver’s many roles is metabolism of medications, which can act to convert them into a form that allows them to work more effectively, and/or to eliminate them from our system over time.
The second important organs for detoxing are the kidneys. Our kidneys help to detoxify our bodies by filtering toxins out of the blood and excreting them through urine.
While they are not as important as the liver and the kidneys, three other organ systems also have a role in detoxification: the respiratory system, the skin, and the digestive system.
- The lungs expel gases that could cause damage, or are no longer useful, through the air we breathe out.
- The skin is a barrier to toxins entering the body.
- The digestive system eliminates dangerous toxins in our stools or by vomiting.
Health conditions, toxin overload, and other factors can impair the ability of these organs to effectively remove toxins from the body. This is why it is important to regularly perform a series of actions to support your body in the detoxification process.
Here are five ways you can effectively and safely support bodily detoxing.
5 Tips for Supporting Detoxing
1. Exercise
The organs that eliminate toxic gases from the body are the lungs. When you exercise, you take deeper breaths, have greater oxygen exchange, and breathe more frequently. This allows your body to effectively and efficiently eliminate any accumulated and unwanted gases.
2. Eat Organic
When you eat organic foods, you are no longer consuming pesticides or unnecessary additives. As you switch out conventionally-grown fruits, vegetables and meats for organic foods, you will support your body in preventing toxin deposits in the organs.
3. Destress
Chronic stress can result in an accumulation of unwanted and potentially toxic chemicals in the body. Finding a time to unwind and putting stress management techniques into practice is important for your mental and your physical health.
4. Avoid Processed Foods
Processed foods, especially sweetened and savory snack foods, may contain chemicals and preservatives that could be taking a toll on your liver and kidneys. Eliminate these from your diet as much as possible and eat whole foods instead.
5. Take a Walk in Nature
Removing yourself from an environment with polluted air and finding an environment where fresh air circulates can help stop your body from taking in polluted substances (as well as increase your oxygen levels).
There is a big market for detoxing products, and many of them only slightly, if at all, modify your body’s detoxification process. The safest and most effective thing to do is to keep in mind how our body naturally removes toxins, take actions to support the health of the organs responsible for detoxing, and keep toxins from entering your body in the first place.
