Removing the toxins
The body has six major pathways to eliminate toxins: Breathing, stools, urination, sweating, hair-fall and flaking off of dead skin. Every moment of every day, your body is uses these channels to mobilize, transform, and excrete toxins.
- Breathing : The lungs are a major channel of elimination of toxins about which most people are unaware. With each breath, they bring in oxygen and eliminate the carbon dioxide. The lungs are also a channel for eliminating other breakdown products of the body's metabolism like ketone's and organic acids. A bad breath is usually a sign of some toxicity in the body. Unfortunately, the air we breathe is often polluted. The sinuses help filter out carcinogens in gas fumes, allergens from pets and plants, and spores of mold. These are eliminated through a post nasal drip. Restricted or shallow breathing allows a build up of heavy gases like argon, radon and Krypton which accumulate in the lower portion of the lungs and do not allow the exchange of oxygen to take place. They also cause lung cancer.
- Pranayama or Yogic Breathing flushes out these inert gases and allows full oxygenation. Spasms in chest muscles, the diaphragm or displaced ribs interfere with breathing and and thus prevent proper elimination of toxins from the lungs. Illnesses like asthma,and infections in the lungs like pneumonia, bronchitis and tuberculosis also prevent elimination of toxins from the lungs and prevent proper oxygenation. Abdominal distention due to gas or constipation presses upwards on the diaphragm and reduces the air flow during breathing.
Breathing deeply and fully, helps flush out the toxins, promotes full oxygenation of the body and transforms your health for the better. - Stools: The stools are the left over products and indigestible portion of the food you eat. The liver also excretes out toxins and waste products through the bile. This bile is what gives the stools their characteristic color. You can improve your elimination of waste products through your bowels by increasing your fiber and water intake. Fiber in the form of salads, fruits and whole grains cleans out the colon by making our stool larger and easier to expel. It also absorbs the bile carrying it and the toxins it contains out of the body. Constipation often causes symptoms like uneasiness, bloating of the abdomen and headaches.
- Passing one or two well formed bowel movements every day is an effective way to get the waste products of digestion out of the body. About 20 percent of all people struggle with constipation and this problem can get worse with aging. Drinking more water and other liquids during the day can make your stools softer and easier to expel. When the water intake is low the body tries to conserve water by sucking the moisture out of the stools making them hard, dry and cause constipation. Passing this stool may be painful and cause fissures and piles.
- If you need some help with constipation, some remedies are: taking two tablespoons of ground flax seeds, isabgol or psyllium husk. Castor oil and magnesium sulphate are stronger measures which may be tried if the earlier mentioned measures do not work. Taking acidophilus or other pro-biotic bacteria can help improve elimination and relieve the constipation. In chronic constipation, acupuncture and biofeedback can both help in restoring the normal movements of the intestine and help the cure the problem.
- Urine: The kidneys are responsible for filtering out waste materials from the blood and flushing out the waste through the urine. Inadequate water intake can cause kidney stones, urine infections, water retention, dry and scaly skin, skin pigmentation, hair fall, dry eyes, hypertension, and eventually lead to kidney failure. Help your kidneys to do their job of throwing out the toxins, by drinking plenty of water. We are largely composed of water (about 66 percent by weight for men, about 60 percent for women).
- Drink plenty of clean water, at least 12-15 250 ml glasses of filtered water a day. One of the first signs of dehydration is the color of your urine. If your water intake is adequate your urine should be mostly clear or with only a slight tinge of yellow. (If you take vitamins, keep in mind that some nutrients, especially riboflavin, causes your urine to turn bright yellow.) But, if your urine is cloudy, dark yellow or has a strong odor, you are not drinking enough water. When a person is very toxic, a higher water intake speeds up the recovery process. For proper elimination of toxins your urine output should be at least 1500 ml per 24 hours.
The best option is to filter your own water and carry it with you in stainless steel bottles. If possible, install a reverse osmosis filter in your house, at least for your drinking water or use an activated carbon filter. - Skin Brushing.
The body accumulates a great variety of toxic waste materials causing a range of diseases like skin eruptions, allergies, dry skin, skin pigmentation, eczema, psoriasis, and scleroderma. Skin brushing with a loofah or a towel can exfoliate the dead skin taking the toxins away, and improving the circulation to the skin. This should be done regularly, brushing upwards towards the heart for about 10 minutes at a time. This helps removal of heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium , arsenic,) from the skin where the body has deposited them so that they do not harm the organs. - Perspiration: The skin is your single largest organ of elimination. Make sure you’re maximizing the detox-potential of your pores by working up a sweat at least three times a week. Of course, heart-thumping exercise that gets the body sweating for 20 minutes, three times a week is ideal, since it confers other health benefits. But, if that is not an option, consider using a steam or detox bath to trigger the body’s natural ability to detoxify itself through sweating.
- Hair Fall is a way in which the body eliminates toxins especially heavy metals.
- Heat has been used to cleanse the physical and emotional body for thousands of years. Having a hot bath helps us cleanse ourselves of many toxins helping us to feel refreshed after the bath. People in Scandinavian countries have used saunas for hundreds of years. Research indicates that sauna therapy and steam baths increases excretion of heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium , arsenic), drugs and fat-soluble chemicals like PCB's, PBB's, and HCB's. Taking saunas or steam baths also helps reduce stress and balance the autonomic nervous system. Steam baths calm the nervous system, relax the muscles, and increase circulation by dilating the arteries. Steam therapy can improve circulation, help with weight loss, balance blood sugar and improve detoxification.