You are probably aware that frequent cleaning of the body is essential to feeling healthier and more vital. However, knowing how to approach natural healing seems much more complicated. That is why I wrote this guide to the best full-body detox cleanse that shows you how to heal your body through detoxification without gimmicks or short-term fads.
Whether you are looking to lose weight, feel more energetic, or reverse the symptoms of chronic disease, detox is the essential step toward improving your overall health.
Essentially, the human body possesses self-regulatory mechanisms, which are self-healing.
A healthy body is capable of eliminating the toxic substances generated by its normal functioning and imposed on it by the demands of the modern lifestyle.
If the body’s metabolic waste and the ingestion of toxic substances overwhelm the organs of detoxification and excretion, the body stores these substances in tissues, fat, and organs, which weakens its capacity to regulate, protect, and self-heal.
Our primary aid to the body is to relieve it from the burden of waste and toxic substances so that its regulatory self-healing mechanisms can function again.
Why Detoxification is Key to Natural Healing
In Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and other traditional healing traditions, disease is seen to be caused by obstructions in the body caused by diet, emotions, and lifestyle, and the work of every healer is to work through these obstructions and help to flush them out of the body so that energy and metabolic pathways are free to circulate.
Acidic and metabolic waste usually accumulate in the body due to underperforming elimination pathways (elimination organs) that had been weakened by diet, and lifestyle practices or could have been weaker from the get-go due to genetics.
It is in the genetically weakest areas that acidic waste most generally accumulates, and therefore our weaknesses become our health conditions over time due to the accumulation of free radicals and the growing toxin load.
This is why it is of utmost importance to know about our body’s constitution and mitigate habits and practices that can negatively affect health and the body’s detoxification system.
Once the obstructions are removed, the key to healing is to bring in more alkaline (healing) chemistry that will hydrate and regenerate cells and tissues. This influx of nutrition and energy will provide the body with the support it needs to self-heal and regenerate.
Detoxification is the healing art that removes blockages and supports the body with healing chemistry so that it can heal and regenerate.
These two steps are the only pathways to healing all diseases since the body is highly intelligent and will always strive to fix its most harmful problems first. Essentially, disease is a symptom of toxicity/acidity that manifests in the weakest areas of the body. Ultimately, the mechanism for healing all illnesses is always the same – through detoxification and regeneration!
The Role of Bioenergetics in Nature
Bioenergetics is the principle of life that honors the wisdom of how energy works in nature. Its principles are the basis of a highly efficient detoxification system, which is predicated on healing the body naturally with energy. Our bodies are biological entities that utilize energy from chemistry (food) and thoughts/emotions (which create a chemical output) to run.
Knowing how we show up in the world and how our actions either contribute to or rob us of life force is how we can empower ourselves to work with the laws of nature to stay healthy and vital for life.
Everything living in nature requires energy from some other source to live and thrive. Bioenergetics shows us that:
The source and the nature of our energetic fuel do contribute to our health and longevity.
If we do not have enough energy in our bodies and use our energetic reserves, we will expedite degeneration, disease, aging, and death.
Natural law is predicated on cause and effect – what you put in and vibrate, you experience and attract.
To thrive in wellness and longevity, the energy you take in has to be greater than the energy you spend (the surplus energy will ensure that healing won’t compensate energetically by leaching from other tissues and organs for healing; the surplus energy will be used for the body to heal and regenerate)
It is of essential importance to consume the chemistry/energy that you’d like to absorb
When healing, energy conservation is a must (sleeping/resting, fasting, not exerting oneself, etc.)
High vibrational emotions/thoughts create energy and heal organs
Food is fuel and medicine for the body (although we eat mostly for pleasure, which leads to the destruction of health)
Can Your Body Heal on Its Own?
Yes, the body is designed to heal on its own! However, due to the advent of the chemical industry, pollution, modern lifestyle, and the stressors that come with our technological age, the body has a multitude more stressors than it did just a century ago.
In addition to our environment, packaged foods and modern medicine have also introduced chemical compounds to our daily lives that never existed in our grandparents’ generation. As a result, our bodies are struggling under the acidic pressure of modern life and need our help more than ever.
So, let’s look at the main mechanisms of detoxification in the body! Foremost, the lymphatic system is the body’s sewage system that is twice as long and extensive as the blood network; it covers the whole body and dwells interstitially surrounding all the cells and tissues. It circulates through movement and exercise to help carry the waste back to the kidneys for elimination.
An acidic diet composed of processed foods, processed sugar, grains (even whole grains!), and lean protein will acidify the body over time, causing chronic inflammation that weakens cells and tissues, including the kidneys. It will cause the lymph system to be overburdened with acids but with the kidney filtration being compromised, the acids will stay in the body, circulating to the weakest areas of the body that are energetically and chemically similar.
This is where degeneration and health problems occur, with the body adapting to damage through the leaching of electrolytes from other organs that are less essential for survival (such as connective tissues, skin, bones, etc.).
An effective detox protocol will always include hydrating fruits and vegetables, bitter greens, fruit smoothies, and fruit juices, vegetable juices, super-food supplements that come from organic whole foods (for example, spirulina and chlorella, which detoxify heavy metals exceptionally), and herbs.
Cruciferous vegetables are a bit heavier on digestion but can be a part of a balanced detox diet if consumed sparingly. They contain glutathione, which is a natural protein the liver makes that aids in the body’s detoxification process.
Essentially, certain foods like fried foods, most processed foods high in preservatives, as well as substances like caffeine and alcohol should be avoided at all costs during a detox protocol!
Likewise, any serious detox program that recommends animal products, protein, whole grains, and cooked food should be skipped for your own good! If you’re just starting out, my advice is to try out a few detox diets that speak to you personally to see which ones have the best results and to always use your intuition and go with what feels right.
The liver is essential when it comes to detoxification and should be supported with liver-healthy foods throughout the detoxification journey. You can also supplement with powerful liver detox herbs like milk thistle, dandelion, turmeric, and chicory root.
Although it converts toxic substances into less-harmful compounds in addition to 2,000 other activities it performs daily to keep us alive, it is not an elimination organ and relies on the kidneys and the bowels to help it remove this waste from the body.
The water-soluble waste is sent to the kidneys, while the non-water-soluble waste is excreted through the bowels. That is why it is essential to have a healthy gut and regular bowel movements.
The skin is another elimination organ that the body uses for detoxification. It is a breathing, porous organ that absorbs elements from its environment and purges water-soluble toxins from the body, especially through sweat.
That is why it is vital to never place anything on it you wouldn’t eat, as it can interfere with the skin’s natural detoxification function. Likewise, all the ingredients and chemicals are directly absorbed into the bloodstream and carried to the liver for processing and storage.
In fact, mainstream cosmetics, products, and household cleaners are heavily laden with toxic chemicals, which inflame and weaken the body over time. Instead, invest in natural cleaning products and cosmetics, and you will lower the toxin load on your body significantly!
Is Detoxing Safe While Pregnant?
Detoxing is not ideal when pregnant, since the mother’s lymphatic system is so closely connected to the baby’s, and detoxification could circulate toxins from the mother’s tissues to the baby. Since the baby is growing and any disturbance in this natural process could impact the fragile chemical balance, it is best not to detox when one is pregnant.
If you haven’t started your detoxification, vegan, or high raw diet before pregnancy, the best course of action to take to provide the healthiest diet for your baby is to consume a high percentage of alkaline foods (raw) along with some grounding and filling cooked foods, such as roots, vegetables, and more alkaline pseudo-grains such as organic amaranth and quinoa.
After the pregnancy, you can introduce even more raw vegan alkaline foods, but don’t overdo it with astringent, detoxifying fruits, since your baby can still internalize acids and toxins from any detoxification efforts through breast milk.
After you wean the baby from breastfeeding (6 months is the ideal time to do so), you can start your detox protocol, which will help you lose the extra baby weight, regenerate the body after pregnancy, and help you feel more energetic and vital.
How to Detox Your Body Fast: The Power of Fruit and Herbs
Fruit is full of antioxidants, fiber, and nutrients that are very alkalizing and hydrating to the body. It goes through a very simple digestion process that doesn’t require insulin, which means it circumvents the digestive process that employs 70% of the body’s energetic reservoir.
It takes approximately thirty minutes to digest fruit and provide energy to all the body’s cells; therefore, due to its nature, it can provide the most energy to the body out of all other foods – especially to the nervous system.
Sugar found in whole foods versus natural sugar that is isolated and extracted will impact the body very differently. Unlike processed sugar, the simple sugar found in fruit is the true fuel that the body requires for all its systems – not protein.
The body runs on simple sugars and the nutrition that complements their absorption; however, this craving for simple sugars for energy is usually satiated by most of us with complex, processed sugar.
What this does is that it provides us with a quick energy spike that is followed by a crash and constant craving for more sugar, since the body is starved of the nutrition that it wanted in the first place. This creates a cycle of addiction to processed sugar, where cellular hunger is never satiated, which leads to weight gain, chronic inflammation, and blood sugar problems.
Contrary to popular belief, the holistic properties of fruits include minerals, vitamins, enzymes, and simple sugars that hydrate the body and strengthen its cells and organs. Therefore, fruits are not only beneficial for sugar metabolic disorders such as diabetes and hypoglycemia, but they actually help to reverse them!
Both fruits and vegetables are alkaline, meaning they are ideal for detoxification and regeneration. However, fruit is better chemically at cleaning and purging, whereas vegetables are stronger at repairing and building.
In addition, herbs are nature’s medicine cabinet and are known to improve the body’s ability to naturally detoxify and reverse the damage of oxidative stress. There are many types of herbs meant for detoxification, tonification, and rebuilding. When consumed on a daily basis, they help correct and regenerate the function and awareness of cells and tissues.
Herbs have been around for millennia as the go-to medicine for every ancient tradition and continue to be utilized as the main healing method of naturopathic and alternative medicine traditions.
Overall, quick detox diets promoted ubiquitously these days are indeed meant to hydrate the body and help you to feel better temporarily, but they do not make you healthier in the long term since health is a cumulative process. Given a lifetime of eating acidic foods and living in this modern world, the best full-body detox cleanse takes a good 4-6 months (depending on your health) of solid commitment and investment to detoxify the body properly and reverse many symptoms of high inflammation (disease).
Weight loss, immune health, good gut health, a clean digestive tract (which leads to better nutrient absorption), clear skin, stronger organ function, and more vitality are just some of the overall health benefits of proper, long-term detoxification.
The Best Full Body Detox Cleanse Diet
Knowing how to detox your body properly is key to achieving the results you desire. Although there are many detoxification diets out there these days promoting everything from protein to artificial supplements, the body only seeks very simple chemistry to clean and regenerate. Whereas proteins are complex in chemistry and building in nature, simple sugars in fruits are energizing and hydrating.
Therefore, when on a natural healing journey, the best diet you can eat is a fruit-based diet! Fruits are the most hydrating, electrical, and astringent foods found in nature – meaning they clean and purge acidic elements with their alkaline chemistry.
They also provide cells with energy through simple sugars (the main sources of energy the body needs to thrive in terms of health and longevity), providing a malnourished body with the energy that it needs for its metabolic processes and healing.
Without energy, the body may use all its reserves on digestion, nervous system activity, and metabolic function and will never have enough surplus for repair, let alone regeneration.
For maximum benefits, if you’re just starting with a plant-based diet, go slowly with fruit. It is a very powerful cleanser, and if the body is full of mucus and acidic waste, it may cause a severe healing crisis as this waste is circulated and pushed out to elimination organs for body purge.
What I suggest is to consume fruit for breakfast and begin with converting your diet to solely plant-based. I know it’s hard enough to change one’s eating habits, so simply going plant-based is a big feat!
Once your body adjusts to plant-based foods, your pallet, your taste, and your craving for cleaner foods will all change and will drive your new, healthier habits. As you feel your body changing to this new lifestyle, it will be time to make even greater changes.
At this trajectory (perhaps after a few months), you should look to introduce more raw foods in your diet and limit cooked foods. Your body will then adapt to increased energy levels and will continue to detoxify and heal.
Simply make sure to avoid protein sources, as protein slows down the detoxification process and strains kidney function, and to concentrate on eating simply, organically, and cleanly.
The next step would be to introduce herbs to the mix! Herbs are incredible healers and regenerators of tissue, and after your body has had enough time to adjust its pH levels to higher alkalinity, help re-balance the gut flora and work to remove some of the most problematic obstructions through fruit/raw foods, it will be more readily primed to go even deeper!
By delving deeper, it is possible to fix issues that are underlying and which will never emerge as problems. We can also heal injuries we had as children that we thought we healed years ago but that didn’t heal properly.
What is even more fascinating is that we can heal genetic weaknesses by rebuilding tissue that we inherited from our parents and ancestors (our constitution), which we can then pass on in better condition to our offspring.
The Body is Intelligent and Self-Healing
Our bodies are complex biological beings that adapt, heal, hold memory, and pass on our experiences of life in a memory capsule we call DNA – a code that reflects our relationship with our environment that we constantly influence through our diet, environment, lifestyle, habit changes, thoughts, and traumas.
To detoxify effectively, you need to prime the body for higher plant-based, then raw, then greater fruit/herbal intake incrementally, so that these changes won’t overwhelm and shock the system (healing crisis and detox symptoms of this overwhelm depend on the toxicity levels of the body and can be both physical and emotional).
By going slow and letting your body adjust, you will condition your body for the detoxification journey and won’t feel compelled to give up once detox symptoms kick in and you start to feel the effects of a healing crisis.
Many people confuse detox symptoms (which mimic colds/flu, body weakness, and emotional anxiety/panic attacks) as a sign that what they are doing is unhealthy, when all the body is doing is loosening up and purging acids and pockets of toxins (pre-tumors) and circulating them through the lymphatic system to be eliminated en-masse. Imagine what an overflow of acids feels like (yikes!), and you’ll realize that it is inevitably better to feel the discomfort of getting them out than let them fester inside.
Wellness Habits to Heal Your Body and Life
Eliminate toxins and chemical overload in the body
Toxin elimination starts with the thorough elimination of toxic substances from our kitchen, medicine cabinet, and cosmetics counter. This includes lesser-known toxic culprits like air fresheners, insect repellents, and laundry detergents.
According to the Consumer Protection Agency, an average of 150 chemicals that are found at home contribute to allergies, birth defects, cancer, and psychological disorders. In addition to these products, aluminum foil and pans, BPA-laden cans, plastics, and other items we use for storage can be quite toxic and weaken liver function, contributing to neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, and certain cancers.
Have an uplifting morning routine
Since the morning sets the tone for the whole day, by eating well, meditating, exercising, cultivating feelings of gratitude, and taking a bit of time to reflect on how you want to show up in the day or the type of experiences you desire to have during the day will create a precedent for manifesting that awareness into reality. With this practice, you’ll also feel your stress levels decrease significantly throughout the day.
Set time for self-nurturance and proper rest
This means that you must refill your cup with energetic fuel through an alkaline diet, good sleep, self-care, and spiritual practice. You can use your energy and invest it back into yourself in the form of creativity, learning, and growth.
When we learn, take care of our emotional/physical/mental/spiritual needs, and spend time in nature, we replenish our reservoir and prioritize our evolution as human beings.
If we give to the world without filling our cup first, we are not only doing ourselves a disservice but are also limiting our potential for greater influence (as we could give back manifold with greater energy and vitality).
Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting is the easiest fasting you can do and one that is the most effective! Eating late is one of the worst dietary habits you can make, since our bodies naturally start shutting down as the sun sets; biologically, we produce fewer enzymes after sundown, since our biology is intricately tied to the cycles of nature, which govern our circadian rhythms.
Also, when we eat close to bedtime, not only are our bodies stressed because they rather start winding down their metabolic activity for the day to start the process of regeneration during sleep, but digestion itself takes time and energy.
If we go to sleep with undigested food in our bowels, we not only rob the body of the energy it needs to heal, but we also experience poor quality of sleep due to indigestion and discomfort.
On top of that, our bodies won’t have the energy to deal with restoration if they have to constantly handle the digestion of food. In fact, 10 pm to 2 am is the optimal organ regeneration time when body restoration occurs at night!
My advice is to eat dinner around 6 pm and fast until the next morning. Or if you do want to eat a bit later, make sure that you eat at least 3-4 hours before you go to bed to ensure that you have digested all of your food fully before sleep.
By intermittent fasting, you’ll be able to give your body a long break (14 hours, on average) from digestion that it can use for healing; you’ll also sleep during most of this time, so it won’t feel “hard,” and it will bring forth incredible results!
Go to bed early and wake up early
As just mentioned, the body heals most optimally if we go to sleep at 10 pm. In Chinese Traditional Medicine, every organ has a designated time and during this time, supporting the organs with herbs/food/rest is ideal!
By following nature’s cycles, getting adequate sleep, and being in tune with our circadian rhythms, we will be healthier and more vital. If we eat too late or go to sleep too late, we disrupt our body’s processes and balance. It’s best to follow the rhythms of our environment!
Consciously choose environments that nurture you
Did you know that cells quickly adapt to their environment and can change from a liver cell to a heart cell only by dwelling in the environment that cultivates heart cells? Did you also know that neutral bacteria and parasites can become highly volatile just by being exposed to more acidic environments?
And I’m sure you’ve heard of this one – that you are the sum of the 5 people you most often relate to. The environment is a big reflection of who we are and who we become! It shapes us, our cells, and our DNA…and the whole field of epigenetics studies how our experiences and environment make changes in our DNA that are passed on to the subsequent generations that are reactive to the same environments/experiences.
Our experiences shape us and by actively choosing them and how we want to experience life, we become active agents in our destiny and evolution.
Move your body
The lymphatic system – the body’s sewage system – does not have a pump like the blood has the heart, so the body requires movement to circulate metabolic and acidic waste throughout the body and back to the kidneys for elimination. It is also a part of the immune system, in charge of white blood cell production that helps the body fight off foreign pathogens and infection.
That is why it is of utmost importance to exercise in the morning, take walks in the afternoon and stretch in the evenings (my personal tips that work well, since a walk in the afternoon also affords you to get fresh air and sunshine)!
Jumping jacks work wonders to circulate the lymph fluid, as they work with gravity to stimulate lymphatic fluid movement in all parts of the body, including the lower limbs.
To improve your lymphatic movement function, do 50 jumping jacks a day alongside other exercises and light stretching.
Let go and forgive
Since what we hold inside our bodies are not only acidic compounds that come from our diet but also emotional traumas that act as energetic blocks in our bodies, to truly heal and be in optimal health, we need to process our emotions, let go, and forgive.
We forgive to free ourselves so that we don’t become prisoners of our own making, and not to let the other person off the hook – that is their own burden and karma to carry. By ceasing to enforce ties and emotions that harm us, we empower ourselves, and invite healing into our lives!
As I’ve already discussed, emotions can get trapped in our organs – and all of our emotions correspond to the function of the organs; for example, both high states of joy and low states of anger influence the liver, providing it with energetic nourishment or depleting its vitality.
When a certain low emotion takes hold of our lives, the corresponding energy of the organ that governs that emotion will be compromised. That is why many individuals who eat well and do everything right in terms of health, but who have had a difficult life, suffered a loss, or had a traumatic event occur that they haven’t properly processed, can still fall ill with chronic illnesses like cancer.
Food, thoughts, and emotions are INFORMATION, and the type of information we feed our bodies (low frequency or high frequency) cumulatively is going to determine our state of health.
If you see life as a net gain or loss of energy, you will understand why it is important to always internalize or create more energy than you lose due to diet, lifestyle, and emotional/thought patterns.
Natural Law for Health and Longevity:
Health and Longevity = Net Energy in the Body > Net Energy Leaving the Body
Ready for Your FullBody Detox Cleanse?
Understanding how to heal naturally doesn’t have to be an enigma! The most important step is to introduce more organic, plant-based raw foods into your diet and increase this intake with time. But the deeper you go, the more you’ll feel the need to be guided on the journey.
Natural healing is ultimately about the release of all that no longer serves our well-being and which is blocking us from full potential and experience in life. By investing in self-care, we are investing in our transformation and the ability to live the lives we envisioned for ourselves. Short-term investment (even though it may seem painful and hard at times) is worth more than gold in long-term benefits!
Chronic diseases cannot thrive in an alkaline body terrain, and the process of detoxification ensures that the body is cleansed of obstructions and acidic chemistry that are detrimental to proper function.
Indeed, the best full-body detox cleanse is based on consuming a diet with raw, alkaline foods and herbs. This is the best way to clean the body and invest in its repair and regeneration.
But remember, taking on regular detoxification as a part of your lifestyle is a journey full of ups and downs that will instigate physical, emotional, and mental changes.
Removing toxins from tissues and re-balancing the body to its proper function can instigate many physical and emotional sensations to come up, which is usually described as a healing crisis. I suggest you get in touch with a healthcare professional of your choice to help you navigate the journey with support and understanding.
Ultimately, it’s a complete rebirth of oneself, which is truly worth the commitment and effort. The other side of suffering is ripe with energy, mental clarity, joy, calm, and peace.