You want to detoxify your body but don't have time for a week-long cure? Here you get the most important tips to cleanse your body from the inside out.
Table of contents
1. What does "detoxify the body" mean?
The detoxification of the body is very much in vogue at the moment and has many names, including "detoxify", "detoxify" or "fast for healing". All these phenomena describe the same process, namely to free your body from all toxins and to cleanse it from within, so to speak.
Your body has some mechanisms to detoxify itself, but sometimes the negative influences from the environment get the better of you and you may feel tired, lacking in energy or get sick more often. The goal of detoxifying the body is to feel better, healthier and more powerful.
The pollutants can attack your physical and mental performance, settle in your cells and weaken your immune system. What can help against this is the detoxification of the body, which is useful about once a year.
But what exactly happens during detox? The central aim is to transport harmful substances out of your bloodstream, liver, intestines, skin, kidneys, lymphatic system and lungs. How does it work? Right at the top of the list is nutrition, but reducing stress and pollutants from the environment also plays an important role!
Many people combine the detoxification of their own body with a complex and expensive cure, where only drinking water and tea is allowed. But there are also numerous ways in which you can detoxify your body from home - without tormenting yourself and without a strict plan or recipe. Sometimes it is enough to support the body's own detox processes with small hacks.
2. 5 tips on how to detoxify your body from home
Detoxification can also work well from home, and you are in control of how successful it is. All you have to do is adjust some things in your diet or lifestyle. These changes can significantly reduce the levels of harmful substances in your body and thus improve your well-being and performance. The following 6 detox methods are best suited to detoxify the liver, kidneys, intestines and your brain:
3. Tip 1: Antioxidants
Your body already has a powerful weapon that can fight off invading pollutants. This weapon is called antioxidants. These antioxidants can be found in the form of vitamin C in many fruits, green tea, black pepper or omega-3 fatty acids, especially astaxanthin.
The antioxidants ensure that the cells in your body and brain are protected and not attacked by harmful substances. Antioxidants are therefore the most natural way to detoxify your body from home. As a study from China found out, antioxidants help eliminate reactive oxygen compounds in your body¹.
These oxygen compounds are called free radicals and react with the cells in your body, i.e. they attack your cells and make them age faster. This is not only critical for the health of your body, but also for your brain.
As a recent study by the University of Texas found out, the antioxidants protect the neurons in your brain². The study found that in regions where antioxidants are an integral part of the diet, neurodegenerative diseases were less common and, on the contrary, showed improved mental performance. So they are definitely the best choice to detoxify the body from the inside.
4. Tip 2: Reduce stress
Sounds simpler than I said, but stress is actually one of the most important things you can do when it comes to detoxifying your body. Stress becomes a problem especially when it is chronic because then your body is in a permanent state of emergency, which is known as "distress".
As a study by Stanford University has now found out, this distress is damaging to numerous important functions in your body³. It causes your immune system to stop working so well, weakens your cardiovascular system and stress is the absolute poison for your mental performance!
Researchers at Stanford University have now found out why this is so. Are you standing chronically under stress, will increase the hormone Cortisol. In certain areas of the brain, cortisol causes the nerve cells to age more rapidly and even prevents the formation of new nerve cells. So if you want to detoxify your body, reducing cortisol is definitely one of the most important factors to improve your overall health and especially mental performance!
5. Tip 3: Sweat out toxins
One of the most relaxing methods to detoxify the body is the sauna. Taking a sauna is not only helpful in reducing stress but also detoxifies the body in other ways. Firstly, the heat stimulates your metabolism and strengthens the immune system.
But the heat has a particularly detoxifying effect on your skin. When it is hot, your body starts to sweat to cool the body down. This causes a loss of fluid, but other substances are also removed through sweat, such as toxins.
Your body temperature rises during the sauna, which increases blood circulation to the cells. This increased blood circulation is also helpful in detoxifying the body because the toxins can be removed more quickly. The last positive side effect is that heat and sweat cause your upper skin layers to swell and dead skin cells are removed. The sauna is definitely an all-rounder and can detoxify your body from inside and outside.
6. Tip 4: Drink less alcohol and avoid nicotine
You have it in your hands and decide which pollutants you want to introduce into your body. Of course, for many people, alcohol and nicotine are the stimulants that can give you a feeling of relaxation. But for your body, they are exactly the opposite, namely harmful substances.
So if you want to detoxify your body, alcohol and nicotine are the two main pollutants you should avoid. The ingredients of the cigarette not only damage your lungs in the first instance but also have a subsequent effect on your heart, your immune system, and your skin.
Your body can't do anything about it. Your body can neither compensate nor break down the harmful substances of nicotine. Also, the alcohol has to be broken down in your liver by a great deal of effort. This process damages the cell structure of the liver and can slow down the breakdown of fatty acids.
7. Tip 5: The right diet
Another tip is aimed at the internal detoxification of the body. Because everything you eat affects the health of your body. Many people are not aware of how many toxins they add to their own body every day. There is a large number of foods that are beneficial to the health of your intestines and can even bind toxins.
Above all, these include fiber-rich foods such as wholemeal products, linseed, and fresh berries. These contain fiber that binds toxins in the intestines and promotes their excretion. But even small, inconspicuous foods contain a lot of power. First and foremost, garlic has a preventive effect, so to speak, when it comes to detoxifying the body.
Garlic has antibacterial and antibiotic properties that protect the body from disease, reduce inflammation and strengthen the immune system! It is also important to drink plenty of water - 2-3 liters per day is best. So even better than just avoiding harmful substances is to eat healthy food that even binds harmful substances and thus detoxifies your body even better.
The superstar among the foods that detoxify the body is chlorella algae or the powder made from it. By binding harmful substances to itself, chlorella algae channel them out of the body and have an extremely detoxifying effect. The powder can be easily integrated into the morning green smoothie! In addition, the Paleo diet is an excellent form of nutrition for a healthy body.
8. Conclusion
Detoxify the body, fasting, and detox all mean the process of ridding the body of harmful substances. Here we are talking about free radicals. These can be broken down again with the help of antioxidants, reduced stress, sweating, less consumption of alcohol and nicotine and a healthy, balanced and wholesome diet.
9. Sources
[1] http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1179/1476830511Y.0000000035?scroll=top&
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183139/
[3] http://www.jneurosci.org/content/10/9/2897.short