If you’re starting a detoxification protocol, there’s a lot you can do to improve the results. Many of these tips can also be used indefinitely to help your body detoxify all day, every day, without being on a detox protocol.

Lots of Water

If you’re not consuming enough water, you’re increasing the strain on your body and accelerating the aging process. Our bodies use water to remove toxins and other waste. You can even do better than just water with this recipe:

Cranberry Lemonade Recipe

For those who can tolerate stevia, this cranberry lemonade recipe can aid a detox by helping to flush toxins out of the kidneys, the liver, and the entire body while helping to balance the pH.

• Glass gallon jar
• Safe, clean, spring water or distilled water
• 1 cup of unsweetened, organic cranberry juice, not from concentrate
• 3 fresh, organic lemons
• A citrus juicer
• Liquid stevia
• Liquid cayenne

Fill the jar to about 85% capacity with spring water (or distilled water). Squeeze the lemons and pour the juice into the water. Add cranberry juice. Add stevia to taste and then add cayenne to taste. The amount of cayenne used is up to you, but the more, the better.

If you don’t have access to a good source for spring water, use other clean, drinking water that does not contain fluoride. If you don’t have access to organic lemons, use conventional. Fresh is best. If there are no fresh lemons, use organic bottled lemon juice. If you can’t get cranberry juice that is not from concentrate, get the reconstituted kind (just don’t get any kind of cranberry juice that has any other ingredients like sweeteners or other juices). If you can’t stand cayenne, don’t use it. No glass jar? Use plastic.

Since it’s cranberry season again, if you have a blender, try whole cranberries instead of juicing them. You can also throw in some of the organic lemon peels, as much as you can stand to taste. (Only organic. Don’t use peels from conventional lemons.) It’s pretty sour, but it has lots of benefits.

If you have powdered cayenne and/or powdered stevia, I recommend using a blender to mix some of the liquid with the powders so they don’t settle later.

The lemon juice will help flush the liver. The cranberry juice will help flush the kidneys. If you drink a lot of it, every day, you will feel an amazing difference in your health and vitality. This recipe is a far better choice for most people than the Master Cleanse.

Juice Tonics

Sweet juices including most fruits, carrots, and beets may not be ideal when Candida or another fungus is an issue. On the other hand, herbs like turmeric and ginger can be juiced for amazing benefits.

Enhanced Golden Milk Tea Recipe

This is a new twist on an ancient way of experiencing the benefits of turmeric. Ideally, use all fresh, unadulterated herbs whenever available.

• 1 cup of warm coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon of freshly grated turmeric with skin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger with skin
• 1 pinch of black pepper
• Pinch of cayenne pepper

Mix it all up and drink. For the drink to be warm, warm only the coconut milk, and be careful not to cook the other ingredients. Add them in when the coconut milk is not too hot to drink so as to preserve the enzymes and other fragile micronutrients.

Simmer in the Sauna

Our skin is our body’s largest detoxification organ. When most people think about detoxing they tend to focus on the liver and kidneys. But this is far from a complete protocol; there is a lot more we can do. We live in air-conditioned homes and drive air-conditioned cars. Although this is more comfortable than constant exposure to high temperatures, living like this robs us of opportunities to sweat out toxins as we normally have for millennia. When thinking about what is best for our health, air-conditioning may in fact be overrated. What’s even better than AC is getting a good blast of heat from time to time.

It’s better not to be in a sauna alone, especially if you aren’t used to them. It’s possible to pass out from the heat. If this happens when you’re alone, it could prove fatal if you aren’t discovered quickly enough.

Dry Heat Sauna

This is a great way to give our bodies the needed opportunity to sweat out harmful substances. This is the most popular sauna and the one most likely available to you at your gym. Sweat will evaporate off your body quickly and efficiently in a dry sauna. Many of these saunas are kept very hot, some as hot as 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Steam Room

Unfortunately steam rooms are breeding grounds for pathogens. Although someone can sweat a great deal in a steam room, they may not be worth the effort. Along with the steam other unwanted problems arise from chlorinated water, fungus and bacteria. Finding a clean steam room may be more trouble than it is worth.

Infrared Sauna

This is the best kind of sauna available. We sweat out more toxins in an infrared sauna than in other saunas. This is also a dry heat, so there aren’t problems associated with this kind of sauna like you would find in a steam room.

Hot and Cold Hydrotherapy

Many alternative health care practitioners believe one of the most effective treatments for a wide array of diseases and ailments is hot and cold hydrotherapy, but very few are willing to say it can help cure cancer and many other diseases.

Hot water increases blood flow to the surface of the body. Cold water drives the blood from the surface to the core of the body. Alternating hot and cold water increases blood flow and speeds up circulation. It brings fresh blood with oxygen and nutrients to the organs and glands and carries away toxins and pathogens. Dr. Shillington suggests starting with water as hot as you can stand for a minimum of two minutes. Then turn off the hot water for two minutes of cold—the colder the better. Alternate back and forth for a total of 20 minutes, ending with cold.

Exercise

Exercise that’s not too intense, depending on the detoxification protocol, can help flush the body by getting the blood pumping and the lymph moving. Lungs expel toxins as well.

Breathe Heavily and Properly

Most of us are rapid, shallow breathers. We raise our shoulders, pull in our diaphragm, and take a breath that fills only the top portion of our lungs.

When you breathe properly, your diaphragm, your stomach, and your ribcage expand, not the pectoral area. Fully exhaling is important, too. Remember, you are breathing in oxygen rich air and releasing carbon dioxide and toxins.

When you expand your ribcage and breath deeply, you increase the body’s natural detoxification through the lungs. This is not insignificant; 80% of our toxins are eliminated through our breath.

Sweat

Another 20% of our toxins are released through the skin. If you are working out hard enough to break a sweat, you’re also helping to drain the lymphatic system. This system detoxifies under a bouncing or up and down jarring of the body, like running, martial arts, rebounding, dancing, and…

Squats

In addition to helping clear the lymphatic system (especially when done quickly, or with jumping variations), squats add and release pressure onto the elimination organs such as the liver, kidneys, and the intestinal tract. Don’t underestimate the power of squats. We used to squat all the time in nature. In fact, once you couldn’t squat back in the paleo days you didn’t have long to live. We squatted while we were outside tending to the garden, while we were hunting and tracking, while we were just relaxing but trying to stay out of sight from other predators, and every time we defecated.

Get Enough Quality Sleep

Most adults in our modern society do not get enough quality sleep, even if they do sleep a full eight hours. If you find yourself waking up regularly, having trouble getting to sleep, or just feeling tired and drained in the morning, it could be caused by a lack of deep, restorative REM sleep.

Could Your Mattress and Bedding be a Problem?

What do you know about your mattress? If it isn’t organic, it includes chemicals. If it isn’t relatively new, it contains flame retardants – nasty endocrine disrupting chemicals. If this is the case, your mattress and your bedding could be adding to your toxic load, effectively undoing much of your efforts at detoxifying during the day.

Coffee & Stimulants

Coffee is almost a spiritual experience for many people, a daily ritual that may help you be more awake and alert during the day, but you pay the price in less restful sleep at night. Once a tolerance to coffee is built up, it doesn’t even help you be more alert during the day, and it still interferes with the quality of your sleep.

Most people will not give up their coffee habits until their cup is pried from their cold dead hands, but as much as we try to find health benefits with coffee it causes us more harm than good. Caffeine wears out our thyroid and adrenal gland, which disrupts our whole endocrine system (our hormone system) which effects our energy levels throughout the day and our ability to sleep.

The same is true for other drugs and not just stimulants. For instance, marijuana helps people fall sleep, but it does reduce REM sleep, disrupting the quality of sleep.

Other Causes of Poor Sleep

Lighting and Wi-Fi can disrupt REM sleep, too. Make sure all lights are off or covered, including tiny blinking lights on phones and other electronics, and turn off signal producing electronics, too. You may also benefit from moving your bed a foot away from the wall to reduce the amount of EMFs your body encounters throughout the night.

Manage Your Stress

Yoga, meditation, and deep breathing are great stress relievers, and so are other forms of fitness, but stress can be very difficult to handle if the endocrine system is not optimally functioning. Getting beneficial bacteria in the gut, and flushing the body with lots of cranberry lemonade can help.

Detox Tea

Detoxifying the blood and boosting the liver’s ability to do its job are of paramount importance. Here are some well-known formulas that you can make yourself at home. Make sure all of the ingredients are organic and/or wildcrafted and of the highest quality.

Doc Shillington’s Blood Detox Formula (or purchase here)

Mix the following by volume, and make a standard tincture using 100 proof vodka as your menstruum:

• 2 – parts Red Clover Blossoms
• 2 – parts Chaparral
• 1 – part Lobelia
• 1 – part Cayenne
• 1 – part freshly chopped Garlic Bulb
• 1 – part Burdock Seed & Root
• 1 – part Poke Root
• 1 – part Yellow Dock Root
• 1 – part Goldenseal Root
• 1 – part Oregon Grape Root
• 1 – part Blood Root Sap
• 1 – part European Mistletoe
• 1 – part Periwinkle Flowers

Doc Shillington’s Blood Detox Tea (or purchase here)

Use the exact same herbs as above in exactly the same proportions and make as a decoction only. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for 15 minutes, then drink.

Salads

You can detoxify without fasting. A large, diverse salad can help you do that. I have a huge salad every day without at least 15 different vegetables and herbs in it. Here’s a list of my salad ingredients:

• Spinach
• Arugula
• Collard Greens
• Spring mix
• Leeks
• Red onions
• Red cabbage
• Red bell pepper
• Rainbow chard
• Beet greens
• Grated beetroot
• Grated carrots
• Grated zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Cilantro
• Pomegranate (seed)
• Raisins
• Sesame seeds
• Ground papaya seeds
• Avocado

Fresh, organic, raw produce helps draw out toxins in the body. Beets detoxify the blood, cilantro and garlic draw out heavy metals, raw vegetables feed the healthiest bacteria in our gut, and I could go on and on. I don’t recommend fasting to get well unless digesting food is too difficult. Most people are better off eating salads while they detoxify.

Grounding

Our bodies are a living matrix of energetically charged biochemical circuits that are charged and coordinated through the activity of the central nervous system.  The Earth itself is regulated by subtle but dynamic electrical circuits. The electrical crosstalk between the Earth and our central nervous system helps to program trillions of biochemical reactions.

The Earth’s electrical rhythms play a significant role in the natural circadian rhythms that govern our sleep/wake cycle, hormones, mood, and energy production.  Studies of people fully disconnected from this natural electrical rhythm have shown abnormal circulating cortisol levels indicating abnormal stress responses.  Additionally, disconnected people often struggle with issues such as insomnia, hormone disruption, chronic pain, headaches, and fatigue among other things.

Niacin

Niacin (B3) is an inexpensive way to boost the efficacy of a detox. Most doctors recommend starting with 100 mg. I weigh 220 pounds and I took 1,500 mg for three days. Don’t take it for more than a few days. Drink lots of fluid (like the cranberry lemonade) and sweat out the toxins. Niacin won’t do you much good if you aren’t flushing out the junk while you do it. It’s powerful. You’ll be itchy, hot, and flush red all over. The effects last about an hour. Most people without damaged seriously livers can easily handle 500 mg for a few days, but some suggest to start with as little as 25mg and build your way up. Don’t take any one B vitamin for long without taking the whole complex.

Conclusion

A cleanse or detox is a wonderful way to aid your immune system in eliminating waste, debris, pathogens, and parasites from the body. A healthy body is always eliminating these toxins as fast as needed to stay healthy, but in our modern chemically laden lifestyle the body’s natural detoxification pathways can get overwhelmed. Many of the aforementioned protocols can be utilized to support a healthy lifestyle at any time, regardless of whether or not you’re “on a detox.” The most important aspect of a good detox for most people is eliminating excess candida and balancing gut flora. Also check out this Shillington’s Protocol if you need a thorough, full body detox.

Recommended Reading:

• How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children
• Heal Cavities, Gum Disease, Naturally with Organic Oral Care – Toothpaste recipes included
• How to Detoxify From Chemotherapy and Repair the Body