New Year, A New You:
3 Ways to Activate Your Own Detox Power for Free
Another Christmas and New Year holiday done for another twelve months. Gifts were exchanged, cards were sent and received and relatives were visited. An opportunity to consume delicious food and enjoy a tipple or two. With food and drink in such abundant supply during the holiday season, it is inevitable that many of us will have been guilty of a teensy-weeny bit of overindulgence.
The New Year is traditionally a time of resolutions to achieve certain life-enhancing goals. Improving their health in some manner often features highly on many people’s lists, perhaps because they are feeling the consequences of having had a few too many mince pies or glasses of wine!
So, why do we often find ourselves feeling sluggish and bloated at this time of year? When we eat, waste products are produced as the food is burnt for energy. The more food eaten, the more waste products are produced which, if not flushed away cause lethargy, as well as a host of other symptoms of varying severity and unpleasantness.
’Detox’ has become something of a byword for a fresh start, a chance to wipe the slate/body clean and begin the year as you wish to continue. Not surprisingly, many products are on offer which claim to assist people with this process.
However, before you spend what can be a considerable amount of money on something of often unproven efficacy, see what you can do simply and immediately to rejuvenate body and mind in a matter of hours and without spending a penny. Your body already possesses remarkable systems to achieve this; all you have to do to activate them is provide what it needs and let your body do the rest. The following 3-point plan will help you to do just that.
1) Sleep!
WHY: Late nights partying, especially if they involve alcohol are a fast track to sleep deprivation. Good quality sleep is a time of essential renewal and it only takes a couple of days of inadequate amounts of this to cause problems with our bodies‘ functioning. Over a longer period, the damage becomes more profound, even fatal.
TAKE ACTION: Provide your body with the ideal state for it to regenerate; re-establish a regular bed time routine that allows 7 - 8 hours’ sleep. Wind down gently beforehand with a warm bath or shower and prepare your body and mind for sleep by listening to calming music or a targeted hypnotherapy recording to aid relaxation. Avoid mental and physical stimulation in the form of caffeine or watching TV in the hour before bed time to give yourself the best chance of drifting off easily and quickly.
2) Rehydrate!
WHY: As you know, we are made up of mostly water and not only our health but our very survival depends on us having enough of it. Water is lost from our bodies all the time as part of normal respiration and if not replaced frequently dehydration will occur, and long before you actually start to feel thirsty too.
Many foods and beverages have a diuretic action on the body ie they cause dehydration. Known culprits include alcohol, caffeine, sugar, starch (eg potatoes and flour-based foods like bread) and salt. They also produce more waste products in the body. When ingested in large quantities such as during the festive season, they provide the double whammy of greater toxin build-up and reduced water which would normally flush these poisonous compounds out of the body.
TAKE ACTION: Replace the body’s second most necessary component; drink plenty of water. For optimum results drink a standard glass (approx. 250ml) during every hour that you are awake - avoid drinking large quantities in one go as it will not be as effective. Cut back on the hydration-robbing, toxin-loading foods for a week or two and you will see even faster improvement.
3) Breathe!
WHY: You will see that I referred to water as the body’s second most important component. It therefore makes sense that the 3-point plan also includes THE most crucial one: oxygen. Not one process takes place in the body that doesn’t require it and obviously the greater the quality & quantity we are taking in, the more efficiently those processes can function.
The circulatory system, responsible for transporting oxygen & nutrition to each part of the body, as well as carrying away the waste products that have built up in it, relies on the ‘pumping’ action caused by the muscles to keep it working at optimum levels. The more those muscles move, the more oxygen the lungs have to take in.
You know where I’m going with this, don't you? However, I promise that mention of the dreaded ‘E’ word is in its most general sense, that of simply moving the body rather than not moving it. I am not saying that a workout at the gym is not without huge benefits; of course it is and by all means feel free to work up to levels of exercise that provide more of a challenge. However, DO take it at a pace you find comfortable and easy to sustain on a daily basis. Considerable benefits can be obtained with much less effort, so why not do yourself a favour and start small?
TAKE ACTION: Get out in the open air! Even the most built-up of cities have parks or other green spaces but if there is nothing nearby a walk around the block, around your garden or even to the corner & back beats sitting on the sofa. Treat yourself to a brief change of scenery & some extra lungfuls of more oxygen-rich air each day, even if it’s only for ten minutes. I would not be surprised if after a few days of feeling the benefits you will want to stay out a little longer, even do a little more. If the sun is shining so much the better, but a walk in the rain can be just as exhilarating, even if you have to break out the wellies.
So, if you’re feeling in need of an internal ’spring-clean’ to kick off the New Year, leave the various herbal concoctions and ‘scientifically proven’ formulas on the chemist’s shelf until you have given that amazing machine of yours a fighting chance to show you what it’s capable of achieving without them. Chances are that you will end up saving your money.