How To Stimulate The 11 Detoxification Pathways (Do You Know Them All?)

We all know that detoxification is important in today’s overly-chemical used world. We live in a world full of additives, toxins, preservatives, chemicals, petrochemicals, pesticides, and synthetically made ingredients in our food, our water, our environment and in our air. If you want to stay healthy you really need to understand how detoxification works and what organs and systems in the body detoxify and how to detoxify these areas and how they connect! That’s why I wrote this post. This information is valuable and when used together will help much more!

I hope that you read this full post (it is long, over 2,000 words) and get a more clear and beneficial understanding of the body, the detoxification pathways and how to use these to your advantage and vitality!

Here’s The Full List of Detoxification Pathways:

1. Your Skin: Your skin is the largest organ your body contains. It’s used as a protective barrier to protect internal organs and to also take in vitamin D from sunshine. It’s used also as a detoxification pathway through sweat. If your  skin has toxic chemicals a great way to detoxify your skin is to simply open your pores (with heat, sun or sauna, or a hot bath) and sweat them out. When enough heat is exposed to your skin your pores enlarge, which opens the pathway for sweat and to detoxify whatever else may be in the pores of your skin. It’s a great way to detoxify and it only takes working up a sweat! whether that’s in the sauna, exercising in the sun or a hot bath. Either way, work up a sweat… detoxify your skin and live healthier and your skin will have a glow afterwards.

2. Bowel Movements: Regular bowel movements are crucial and for the constant detoxification your body needs to stay free of chemicals and toxins. The digestive system needs to work well as a whole in order to have regular bowel movements. You should have at LEAST one bowel movement each day minimum and up to 3 or 4, really depending on how much you eat.  One bowel movement per meal is really the ideal number to be at so if you’re like me you only eat 1.5 or 2 meals a day and that’s how many bowel movements should correlate. If you don’t have enough bowel movements your Colon, Liver and other digestive organs may be backed up, and need nutritional support to work properly. You can stimulate your body to have more regular bowel movements which helps detoxify through this pathway. I recommend getting plenty of both soluble & insoluble fiber in your diet, eating plenty of organic fruits and vegetables rich in digestive enzymes, acids, minerals and vitamins as well as drinking plenty of pure water to get bowel movements regular and consistent again.  I also recommend looking into your posture on the toilet by reading this article to make sure you’re squatting in the best way to have the best bowel movements.

3. Urination: Urinating is another detoxification pathway that is crucial along with bowel movements. If your kidneys and bladder need to be healthy in order to detoxify often. If you have infrequent urination or are up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom then your kidneys or bladder could use some nutritional support to be healthy and to be excreted at the right time. If you have an overactive or underactive bladder then you’re harming your bodies natural ability to detoxify through urine. You don’t want to and shouldn’t be going to the bathroom every 5 minutes. Healthy visits to the toilet for urination range from 4-10 times per day, depending also upon how much fluid you intake. You can improve the health of your this detoxification pathway by improving your kidney, bladder and urinary tract health. Excessive caffeine, and other acidic drinks with artificial sweeteners harm the bladder. Foods like kidney beans and cranberries are some of the best foods for urinary health. If your bladder is under or overactive then water is the best choice to drink overall until things get balanced again. If you feel that you have water retention and bloating you can use diuretics to urinate more frequently and stimulate more detoxification that way. Diuretics are substances in specific foods like lemon, celery, ginger and beets for example that help to stimulate the production of urine. These foods help you pee more often, which if you stay hydrated and drink plenty of water can be a good thing to clean you out!

4. Your Eyes: Your eyes aren’t often seen as a detoxification pathway but they actually are. This is a very uncommon detoxification pathway because it’s not often discussed. What’s interesting about your eyes is that tears are detoxifying. The act of crying is actually a detoxifying process. The Biochemist William Frey found that emotional tears contained more toxic byproducts than tears that were formed through irritation from an onion, or something stuck in your eye, for example. Incredible huh? NY Times reporter Benedict Carey refers to crying as emotional perspiration, and for good reason. Did you know that tears actually enable you to see? It’s true! Tears lubcricate your eyeballs and eyelids as well as prevent dehydration of your of several mucous membranes. Crying is a way to release toxins, specifically crying tears of pain, loss or sadness. By releasing and letting go, and letting out a good cry you actually improve your eyesight and remove toxic by-products from your eyes. You can read more at crying more is healthier for you.

5. Your Nose:  Your nose can carry a lot of mucous as well as toxins and chemicals that you inhale. Thankfully the hair in your nose ducts work to purify the air before entering your lungs. This doesn’t mean that every particle you breathe in through your nose will be trapped by your nose hairs but it does help. Your lungs will still inhale chemicals and exhaust from automobiles along with other toxins as well. A great way to detoxify your nose though is to do a netti pot. This helps you drain your nose and clear everything out which is beneficial every once in a while! especially around this time of year when winter is over and spring is starting. It’s good to clear your nose each season to prepare for new allergens and to adjust well. Xlear xylitol nose spray is another great way to clear your sinuses and nose and to remove anything that doesn’t add value to your health and well-being.

6. Your Ears: You would think if nose is on the list ears must be also. This is a 50/50! Earwax actually has value and isn’t straight waste to completely remove like most people think. Earwax is antibacterial as well as antifungal properties. It’s beneficial to prevent earaches or ear infections. It is a double edged sword though. If you have too much earwax and that plugs your ears it can cause earaches, ear infections and other problems according to Harvard.edu. So can earwax cause potential health issues? yes, definitely. If you have too much earwax you can remove it simply by doing an ear candle session. This isn’t something I recommend doing often because it has it’s role but if you have too much it can cause multiple problems in your ear drum and we’ve all gotten a little too waxy and stuffy in our eardrums before!

6. Lymphatic system: This is an important internal detoxification system, not necessarily an external pathway like previous pathways discussed but a system that leads to pathways that helps to release excess chemicals, toxins or endocrine disruptors. Lymph nodes and circulation can be stimulated by dry skin brushing which is a technique to simply brush your skin with a brush while your skin is dry. It works to move and stimulate lymph nodes and your entire lympathic system (if you brush your whole body) and improves circulation to remove toxicity as well. Many people have inflammation in their lymph nodes throughout their body. This process helps to break some of that up to release it into the blood and out of the body through a bowel or urinary movement, or both.  Another great way to detoxify and drain the lymphatic system is to jump on a little trampoline called a rebounder. These little trampolines help to move your cells, increase circulation and drain the lympathic system. Draining the lymphatic system is very important because the lymphatic system collects dead cells, chemicals and other harmful compounds that your body doesn’t process properly. The lymph system does not have a pump like your heart and cardiovascular system do so it’s important to get exercise, rebound and get massage work done to move these lymph nodes. The best thing for your lymphatic system is exercise, movement, dry skin brushing and massage.

8. Kidneys: Your kidneys play a crucial role in the detoxification process. These organs play a role in filtering your blood, keeping your blood healthy. They are important to filter your blood as well as playing a role in keeping your urinary system healthy as a whole. Eat foods that benefit your kidneys such as red bell peppers, cauliflower, garlic, cabbage, onions and kidney beans.

9. Liver: Your liver plays a vital role in detoxification as well. The liver is crucial because you can detoxify your kidneys, lymphatic system, and do things to begin the detox process internally but if your liver is not healthy your body will not dump this out! Your liver has to do with drainage. Detoxification is great but you need your liver working properly to drain, to pull the plug to release and remove all of these built up toxins, petrochemicals and whatever else your body as accumulated that it shouldn’t! The liver also helps to filter the blood along with the kidneys and is an important hormone production organ, along with the kidneys once again. The liver benefits greatly from beets, grapefruit, garlic, green tea, leafy green vegetables, lemon & lime. Doing a liver gallbladder flush is a great idea as well! here’s a great book on that topic by Andreas Mortiz. I would venture to say that this is the most important organ to detoxify along with the others. If you detoxify the others and fail to pay attention to your liver then every other organ detoxification program or protocol could be going to waste. Why? your liver drains ALL of it. Two other great ways to detoxify and cleanse your liver is to drink warm lemon water in the morning as well as to get a bottle of CPTG (certified pure therapeutic grade) lemon essential oil and add that to your water and drink it. I recommend drinking  fresh squeezed lemon water.

10. Spleen: Once again, the spleen is another organ that helps to filter and purify the blood along with the kidneys and liver. The spleen is the largest lymphatic organ, the spleen function is crucial because blood runs through your entire body and if any of these three organs are compromised you’re compromising the health of your blood throughout your entire body. Blood carries nutrients and removes toxic compounds. Blood is life! if your blood isn’t healthy then other organs and systems within the body such as your brain, cardiovascular system, joints and your entire digestive system will not have the purest form of support. The spleen can be weakened by too much cold food. Eat cooked food every once in a while and include warming spices such as cinnamon and cardamom and ginger to your food and drinks. This helps to activate Qi (chi) energy in traditional Chinese Medicine, otherwise known as TCM.

11. Colon: The colon (intestines) is OVER 5 feet long. Think of it as a hose going back in forth in your abdominal region. The colon is needed to digest food properly and you need good healthy bacteria (probiotics) in your intestinal walls in order to digest and use food properly. You also need plenty of water and both soluble and insoluble fiber to keep your colon healthy. You can get probiotics from drinks like kombucha, non-dairy kefir or food like saurkraut or kim-chi. You can get soluble and insoluble fiber from foods like chia seeds, broccoli and leafy green vegetables. I also recommend having a high quality fiber supplement on hand at any given time if you feel that you need it, and just to use every once in a while for a few days to keep your bowel movements healthy and consistent. It works extremely well and you’ll be glad you have it on hand at times. Your colon also needs to stay hydrated! remember there is over 5 feet of intestines in your gut. You need plenty of water to keep the intestines moist to digest food easier. If your colon is dehydrated it’s much more difficult to digest food and benefit from the nutritional content. Your intestines also do a great job at extracting nutrients from food as it passes through over 5 feet of intestines to use this nutrition. This nutrition is vital for other digestive organs and detoxification pathways. Like Dr. Schulze says “All disease begins in the Colon” and I can see why he says that. It’s a vital detoxification and processing pathway in the body.

I hope that this article added value to your health and life? so what can you do to detoxify more often? Go in the sauna, exercise, get a massage, eat fermented foods and take probiotics, drink more water, eat organic healthy whole foods, have better posture on the toilet, let your emotions go and release them with a good cry and last but not least… Make sure to save this article because you may want to come back to it in the future! There is a lot of information here that may help you down the road.

Please share this article if you found it valuable. Cheers to living Healthy, Wild And Free!

Image: Wikipedia