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YES!
Feet have over 3000 sweat glands, you can open them up and release toxins through the sole of your feet by using hot water and sea salt.Long days of Winter are coming soon, this foot soak is perfect when you get home and just want to lounge on your couch but you still want to do something beneficial for your detoxing. After you will feel revitalized! Drink tea or water to help flush out toxins.Here's how to do it:
Fill a tub with warm water, use any container that allows you to sit in a chair and comfortably place both feet inside, immersed in the water up to at least your ankles will work.Add a few tablespoons of sea salt, Epsom salts or both to the water and mix. Sea salt contains healthy minerals and helps draw toxins away from the skin and its soothing to sore feet and muscles.Epsom salts, also known as magnesium sulfate, are known for easing pain, reducing swelling and promoting relaxation and well being.Add six to ten drops of essential oils and swirl again, here's some suggestions on which oils to use:Eucalyptus: cooling, refreshing, purifying
Lavender: calming, relaxing, healing
Lemon: cooling, refreshing, purifying
Peppermint: cooling, refreshing, energizing
Sweet Orange: Uplifting, purifying, calming
Tea Tree: healing, stimulating, purifying (also great for fungal infections)Soak your feet for 10 minutes or more adding more warm water as needed, end your foot soak with an invigorating peppermint lotion. For an extra level of detox you can put a mud mask on your feet and wash off when its dried. We have a great one here Newport Skinny Tea detox face mask -
Toxins in your physical body and your emotional "body" are often linked. I hear often how when someone goes through the detox process, they start feeling a bunch of sad, angry or painful feelings as well. I have also experienced this myself, it is, I feel, imperative to the self-growth path.
Improved physical states are linked with better emotional health, it seems the opposite may be true as well.
Research at the University of Pittsburgh shows that when researchers studied 680 women with chest pain found those who held on to feelings of anger were four times more likely to have unhealthy cholesterol levels and higher body mass index than those who did not, both of these factors are linked to heart disease.
Cleansing your body may bring old emotional scars to the surface, which may be why you overate, self-medicated or indulged in junk food to begin with, to numb the pain.
Want to find out how to break the cycle and release these toxic emotions?
The biggest factor in breaking the toxic emotional cycle is awareness. Becoming aware of your emotions and being able to feel them without over reacting (sometimes much easier said than done!) is the key to moving through intense emotional times.
John Gray, expert in relationships, talks about feeling our emotional "soup pot" and being able to identify which feeling is bothering you and letting them be felt. Most of us are very afraid to feel our own emotions because we don't trust ourselves and our own reactions, we are afraid we will act on them, maybe irrationally. This comes from authority figures over controlling our feelings during most of our life and learning we shouldn't be trusted with our own emotions.
This is why most people choose to repress feelings, we disconnect and stuff them away. Dr.Gray actually says the truth is exactly the opposite, that feeling the feels causes us NOT to act or over react (as in these Doritos have met their match act) to our emotional states. Feeling our feelings causes them to just go away.
The most recommended tool I have found and also the most effective for releasing stuck emotions is meditation, for as little as 5 minutes per day or whenever needed it, can powerfully change any state. Just by closing your eyes and bringing awareness to the fact that you aren't your current feelings, allows you to feel them and let them pass. I find this particularly effective while showering or bathing. There are many different ways to meditate, google a couple and see what works for you. You may hate one method but love another. There is no right way.
Aromatherapy is also a powerful way to release and soothe stored emotions; releasing is made easier with eucalyptus oil, breathing through intense emotion is aided by the King of oils- Frankincense, Forgiveness is aided by Helichrysum, deepen your acceptance of circumstances with Roman Chamomile and increase self-love with Bergamot. Always remember to dilute topical oils with a carrier oil to avoid injury.
Herbal teas are similar in that they release the volatile oil in the leaves and soothe you internally, my recommendations go to chamomile, peppermint, lemon balm, green tea and passion flower.
Yoga and deep stretching can also help release toxic emotions and aid physical detox, as can infrared sauna and hydrotherapy, where hot and cold waters are intermittently applied to the body to draw out heat and toxins.
Sometimes periods of silence can help, other times sound bathing with music can also help. If you are going to start a detox program, be aware that deep emotions may surface and need to be dealt with. If you have experienced trauma you may need a professional to help guide you through, that's one of the bravest things you can do.
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What do food receipts, plastic wrap and food storage containers have in common?
They are sources of environmental estrogens, called xenoestrogens. These are found naturally in plants and also in many man made substances, they act like the female sex hormone estrogen when they are introduced to the body.
These compounds mimic natural estrogen and when levels are high enough have been linked to cancers fueled by estrogen, most specifically breast cancer. They are also linked to low sperm count and children's cancers.
This is definitely a reason to keep up the detox on a regular basis, because it is the build up over time that mainly causes issues. When our detoxification system gets over burdened is when toxins began getting stored away in fat cells.
When our toxic load becomes too large, our body reaches a tipping point where disease begins to develop. This hormone cascade also plays a part in us becoming overweight.
You can help your body detox naturally by frequent use of teas and herbs, sufficient water and water-rich foods, weekly detox baths and daily sweat sessions and dry brushing.Anything that gets your lymphatic system moving (it doesn't have its own pump) helps as well, it relies on movement to do its job.
Minimize your use of plastics, synthetic chemicals in body products, don't take receipts or use canned products. Don't ever microwave plastic or leave water bottles in hot cars.
Products like psyllium husk that are meant to trap intestinal toxins and carry them out of the body can help balance these hormone like toxins as well.
Green Tea, cucumin and milk thistle are powerful detox agents against xenoestrogens, High intake of cruciferous vegetables and whole flax seed have been linked to lower incidence of cancers from these substances. Pomegranate juice mixed with green tea seems to be a particularly powerful combination in this fight.
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First of all, congrats for showing up!I always want to recognize you!And let you know that you're doing a great job!This month I want to bring you ways to enhance your health through changes made in your beauty routine and enhance your beauty made through changes in what you eat, drink and how you exercise and relax.If any of this feels overwhelming, just do what you can. Detoxing and weight loss are both cumulative and geometric. (Yes I did have some extra caffeine this morning!)This means that that if you do 1 thing you're going to get a direct result, but if you do two things, you are going to get 3, 4 or possibly more results from the combined effect that the two things have together.Unfortunately, the same is true for toxic substances, for example when you take pain reliever after you have had too much alcohol, together they're much worse for your liver than they would be separately.Adding Epsom salts to your bath once a week is an easy thing to do, if you combined it with more efforts, you'll see results faster.These are the Epsom Salts I recommend: Epsoak Epsom SaltsHow are Epsom Salts different than sea salt?Epsom salts are named after a spring in Epsom in Surrey, England. Epsom salts are a naturally occurring mineral compound of magnesium and sulfate. Epsom Salts enhance the natural detoxification of our bodies through our skin, plus they add greatly needed magnesium.
How do they draw out toxins?
Magnesium and sulfate are both quickly absorbed through the skin and into our blood. The skin is a highly porous membrane that both takes in minerals and eliminates toxins every day. Using a powerful mineral base such as Epsom salts in a bathwater creates a process called reverse osmosis, which pulls excess salt and harmful toxins out of the body and allows the magnesium and sulfates in through the skin. Orange and Lemon peels are also highly detoxifying, essential oils contain concentrated oil from the citrus peel as well.As we know, toxins stored in the body fat are a major reason why weight loss can be halted or slow.
What else does it do?
Magnesium plays a role in over 325 enzymes, helps to improve muscle and nerve function, reduces inflammation and improves blood flow and oxygenation throughout the body. Sulfates are necessary building blocks for healthy joints, skin and nervous tissue. Epsom salts replenish the body's magnesium levels and sulfates. The combination helps to flush toxins from the body and helps build protein molecules in the brain tissues and joints.
The use of Epsom Salt has been shown to improve the symptoms of many health conditions including athlete's foot, gout, toenail fungus, sprains, bruises and muscle soreness. It is also good for anyone dealing with chronic disease or chronic pain to do regular Epsom baths to help detoxify and reduce inflammation while improving mineral and sulfur content in the body.Sulfur is known as the beauty mineral and will make your skin, hair and nails stronger and more beautiful. Magnesium will help you feel relaxed, help tense muscles relax and help you sleep better.
California Citrus Detox Bath Salts1/4 cup lemon peel, shaved with a micro planer1-2 cups orange peel, shaved with a micro planeressential oils2 pounds Epsom saltsMix all ingredients together, make sure you dilute your essential oils with a carrier oil, put 1 pound in your bath and relax 20-40 minutes. -
Lazy version of the Cold Water Thermogenesis Protocol
Do you know what those big words mean to your lazy desire to get healthier? Ultimately, they mean that if you expose yourself to cold water, like swimmers do, you burn fat at a highly accelerated rate. I first learned about it from Jack Kruse, MD and you will have to trust me that his blog is intensely thorough and you will have to feel very motivated to read it all! It has also become a popular topic with biohackers like Tim Feriss and in the paleo world.
If you want the lazy version it requires that you stick your face in a bowl of ice water for approximately 10 minutes every day. You need to start slowly (maybe with 1 minute) and work your way up to 10 minutes. Never keep your face in water when it hurts or feels uncomfortable, you adapt to the cold over time and that's what causes you to burn more fat. If you want to further this practice- and it does get way more intense, make sure you do a lot of reading and talk with your doctor before doing a full body cold bath.
Drinking ice water does help also, you do have to raise the temperature of the liquid to your body temp and that burns calories, approximately 70 per day.
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How does bathing help you detox?
Your skin is responsible for eliminating 25% of the toxins in your body. It also absorbs up to 60% whatever is applied to it, this is why it is so important to use natural, non-toxic skincare products. You absorb up to 7% of the oxygen you use through your skin!
The ingredients in detox baths both pull toxins from the skin and are also absorbed by the skin, providing minerals that support the body’s natural detox systems and overall health. That's why you must time your detox baths correctly, long enough to pull the toxins out, but not long enough to reabsorb them.
Extremely healing, relaxing bath recipe
- ½ cup bentonite clay This healing clay magnetically pulls toxins and heavy metals from the body.
- ½ cup Himilayan Sea Salt: Himalayan sea salt contains 84 essential minerals that are efficiently detox the entire body. A strong himalayan salt bath (1-2 full pounds of salt per bath… that’s a lot of salt) is claimed to be the equivalent of a 3-day fast in terms of detoxification. Start slowly. Drink ALOT of water.
- 1 cup Epsom Salts: Magnesium sulfate flushes toxins and also promotes relaxation, improves oxygen use, helps muscles and nerves function properly, and improves the absorption of nutrients.
- 1 teaspoon vitamin C crystals: Helps neutralize the chlorine and chloramine (chlorine and ammonia; used in water treatment and can be more dangerous than just chlorine).
- 1 cup baking soda: Baking soda helps neutralize the body’s pH. It also helps neutralize the chlorine in the water. Arm & Hammer is shown to be aluminum free in testing, you can find large bags at discount stores like Cost Co.
- 20 drops Lavender essential oil promotes relaxation and eases tension. Juniper Oil is also nice and can help diminish appearance of cellulite.
Shower and wash your entire body thoroughly beforehand. You can also dry brush your body before showering to stimulate my body’s detox processes and shed dead skin cells so the detox bath can more easily penetrate my skin, this stimulates your lymph system.
Fill your tub with hot water, but not so hot that it makes you uncomfortable. The heat of the water opens your pores and allows for maximum toxin output. It will also make you sweat, a natural detoxification process in itself.
Dump all of the ingredients into the tub as it is filling. The clay will likely clump — this is no problem. When you get into the tub, simply try to break the clumps up. You can wet the clay and rub it onto your skin if you have areas that you would like deeper penetration of the clay.
Stay in the tub up to 30 minutes, relaxing and deep breathing, enjoying the scent of the lavender. Drink water and/or tea before, during and after this process or you will feel dehydrated. If you feel bad at any point, slowly remove yourself from the water, sit or lie down and drink water When you are done, drain the tub and rinse off. Then apply a natural moisturizer like coconut oil.
You will lose some water with this process, but that's not the point of it, because as you are losing the water through sweat and the clay is pulling toxins out of you as well. You should also feel lighter and happier after, but remember that any detox stirs up toxins in your body and it also stirs up emotions. Realize that this is part of the detoxing process, it may be helpful to journal or listen to music, nap or talk to a friend. Also, try to eat a nourishing meal with fiber, like a salad and fruit after which will further help eliminate toxins from your body!
As always, you should never detox in any capacity while pregnant or breastfeeding, if you have any medical concerns, past medical history or problems or on medication you must check with your doctor before detoxing!