Detox-3 Steps: Cleansing, Rebuilding, Maintaining

According to Linda Page, a brief 3 to 7 day juice cleanse is a good way to release toxins from the system.  Shorter cleanses don't get to the root of a chronic problem.  Longer cleanses upset body equilibrium more than most people are ready to deal with outside a clinical environment.  A 3 to 7 day cleanse can clean your pipes of systemic sludge-excess mucous, old fecal matter, trapped cellular and non-food wastes, or inorganic mineral deposits that are part of arthritis.

A few days without solid food offers an enlightening experience about your lifestyle.  It's not absolutely necessary to take only liquids, but a juice diet increases awareness and energy available for elimination.  Fresh juices literally pick up dead matter from body tissues and carry it away.  Your body becomes easier to "hear," telling you via cravings what foods and diet it needs--for example, a desire for protein foods, or B vitamin foods like rice, or minerals from greens.  This is natural biofeedback.

A detox works by self-digestion.  During a cleanse, the body decomposes and burns only the substances and tissues that are damaged, diseased or unneeded--like abscesses, tumors, excess fat deposits, and congestive wastes.  Even a relatively short fast accelerates elimination, often causing dramatic changes as masses of accumulated waste are expelled.

You will know your body is detoxing if you experience the short period of headaches, fatigue, body odor, bad breath, diarrhea or mouth sores that commonly accompany accelerated elimination.  However, digestion usually improves right away as do many gland and nerve functions.  Cleansing also help release hormone secretions that stimulate immune response and encourage a disease-preventing environment. 

Healthy Healing- Linda Page, PH.Dl, Traditional Naturopath