Fall Cleaning for the Body
Spring and fall, or the shifts of seasons are great times of year to get in a body cleanse or detox. Like it or not, with eat passing season our bodies pick up more and more of a toxic burden. We are exposed to so many chemicals and pollutants in our everyday lives that it isn’t hard to fathom why we just don’t feel as lively or energetic in our adulthood as we did during childhood.
Even when we are trying to be healthy – there are so many hidden things in our foods (PCB’s are latent in non-organic butter, many canned foods and farmed salmon), cosmetics (aluminum in deodorants, SLS in soaps, PCB’s in makeup – check out: www.cosmeticdatabase.org), and even our drive to work can build up toxins in our systems.
To keep our systems clean and healthy, many naturopathic doctors recommend taking steps to detoxify the body. I typically recommended doing a detox/cleanse twice a year as maintenance, and offer several different cleanse approaches. Some easy and short others longer and more intense. Maybe for some, just going gluten-free for 10 days and for others, maybe we are chelating heavy metals.
I chelated my heavy metals this spring and now I currently am in the midst of a 10 day gentle cleanse. I will admit, though I recommend spring and fall, there really is no “good” time to do it. There are always events: dinners, weddings, vacations that you don’t want to happen during a cleanse, and inevitably, if you plan for it, something will definitely come up. It takes a fair amount of will power to commit to several days of bland dieting and detox proteins when friends and family are starting to enjoy the fall flavors. But, my naturopathic medicine mind knows that my body will thank me for it – 5 days in and already feeling clearer in the mind!
Dr. Laura Lambert