Detoxification cleanses have been around for centuries, practiced for the same reason they are practiced today – to remove impurities from the body. To detoxify your body, you must focus on resting, cleaning, and nourishing your body from within. Such cleanses for removing toxins can help you to have more energy, boost your immune system, clear up certain digestive problems, decrease muscle and joint aches and pains, allow for more healthy looking skin and hair, among other benefits for a healthier body. If you have any of the following, you should strongly consider a detox cleanse:

• bloating
• sluggishness or unexplained fatigue
• unexplained muscle and joint aches
• irritated skin
• mental confusion
• menstrual problems
• having low-grade infections often
• puffiness or dark shadiness under eyes

Detox cleanses may help with your body’s aches and pains, digestive problems, skin problems, and may also help you lose weight as well. When you are detoxing, you are essentially cleaning the blood by removing impurities from the blood in the liver, which is where toxins are primarily processed for elimination. Other organs of the body involved in toxin elimination are the kidneys, intestines, lungs, lymph, and skin. When your system for elimination of toxins is compromised, impurities are no longer properly filtered, causing your body’s organs and tissues to be negatively affected.

Detox programs address the body’s toxins at the cellular level. Naturopathic physician Peter Bennett, co-author of 7-Day Detox Miracle, explains, “Detoxification works because it addresses the needs of individual cells, the smallest units of human life.” Purifying the body at this level will set your body’s organs up for much better function.

A detox program will naturally help cleanse the body in a few ways. First, by allowing organs to have a ‘break’, where they are not working extra-hard due to the toxin build-up in the cells. Another benefit is by stimulating the liver to pull more toxins from the body, while also promoting toxin elimination through the intestines, kidneys, and skin. Also, a detox program will allow for the re-fueling of healthy nutrients for the cells of the body after the ‘dumping’ of so much of your cells’ toxins.

There are many detox cleanses out there, but some of the most popular are the juice cleanse, sugar detox, and the hypoallergenic detox. They all have different benefits and fit the needs of each person differently. Many cleanse programs span for seven to ten days, due to the time needed in cleaning the blood. I personally recommend a seven-day juice fast, where you are to only drink water and fresh fruit and vegetable juices for an entire week. I have tried this before by taking in only purified water, organic kale, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries for seven days. I can say that my energy levels soared after the cleanse, as did my clarity of thinking.

So a detoxification program is important and should be considered by anyone, as we all have toxins floating around in our bodies and stuck inside our body tissues’ cells. But another thing we should recognize is the need to properly nourish our bodies in order to cleanse and sustain a low level of toxins in our bodies. The following are practices you should take to cleanse your body:

• Drink at least one gallon of water a day.
• Take in lots of vitamin C – up to 2000 mg, preferably spread out about the day. This helps the body produce glutathione, which is a liver compound that helps rid the body of toxins.
• Reduce negative stresses in your life as much as you can. For instance, worrying about things that are out of your control accomplishes nothing, other than negatively impacting your health.
• Go to the sauna regularly, as you can eliminate toxins through your sweat.
• Exercise in some way every day. One hour of some exhilarating activity, such as walking, jogging, swimming, weight training, yoga, palates, among so many others – regular exercise has a positive impact on the body in so many ways.