Spring Cleaning (your body) 101
At the culmination of the bleak Winter season, the sun begins to position itself closer to earth and the increasing intensity of its rays give rise to Spring. In the same way that nature utilizes the energy from the sun to sow the seeds of growth and rejuvenation, as humans, we also employ the suns zeal; we have habitually associated the coming of spring with the practice of deep cleaning our homes, organizing and setting forth any clutter that has accumulated during the winter months. However, we fail to cleanse, tidy and purge our most important home: our bodies! Just as our homes benefit from a reset at the start of spring, our bodies do too!
Don’t know where to start? We’re about to give you five points to focus on to act as a “spring cleaning guide.”
1.Drink lots of water: We know, it's nothing earth shattering, but you most likely are not as hydrated as you might think- you are supposed to be drinking at least half the amount of your body weight in ounces, which is a lot! (Don’t believe us? Calculate your ideal water intake here!) Eighty percent of the population does not drink enough water, which means that eighty percent of the population is not reaping the benefits of adequate water consumption. When you drink enough water, your kidneys, which oversee ridding the blood with toxins, waste and excess fluids, are able to function properly.
2. Sweat it out: While the liver and the kidneys are the organs most important in cleansing the body, there is only so much that they can do. The body then turns to your skin in order to assist in ridding toxins. Many studies have shown that sweating removes heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury that builds up in the body, as well as endocrine disruptors (think BPA). If you want to take your sweat levels to the next level, employ an infrared sauna: in just 15 minutes the average person can sweat out around 600 ml of fluid.
3.Rest up: Your body and mind need a break! As strange as it sounds, when you sleep your brain undergoes physical transformations: during the slow-wave sleep stage your brain cells shrink which creates space in between them, allowing your body to better flush out toxins from your brain. In addition, sleeping allows your body to naturally achieve a fasting state, which improves digestion and detoxification. Having trouble falling asleep? Try this 20-minute guided meditation before bed to better optimize your sleep!
4.Read that ingredient list: A lot of times, packaged foods that are advertised as “healthy” are loaded with chemicals and sugars. When deciding what to eat, it's important to take a good look at the ingredients that make up that “healthy” food. Packaging is deceiving: look at this Califia Farms Oat Milk. Looks healthy, right? Not quite, this oat milk contains Dipotassium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Tricalcium Phosphate as well as sunflower oil, a major inflammatory oil. A general rule of thumb is that if you cannot pronounce the ingredient, your body cannot digest it, which will result in toxic build up throughout the body, causing harm to the digestive system. Instead, look to shop for whole, natural foods that your body can easily digest. One trick that helps to ensure you are consuming “good for you” foods is shopping the perimeter of the grocery store: this is where you will find the freshest produce, poultry and dairy products that will not harm your digestive system.
5.Help your body out: Certain foods go above and beyond just serving the purpose of providing basic nutrition. These foods are called functional foods as they provide an additional physiological benefit to specific bodily functions. While your body does have a natural detoxification process, certain functional foods support the detoxification of the body. For example, foods such as leafy greens, lemon, garlic, ginger and cruciferous vegetables, promote the body’s production of internal antioxidants, in specific glutathione, an antioxidant that is used to fend off free radicals and toxins in the body. Check out our detox tea, which is blended with almost a dozen functional foods that work to kickstart our bodies “spring cleaning!”
