Detox: Over time, impurities can build up in the body because of certain lifestyle choices. These impurities are also commonly known as toxins. Toxins can be caused by a number of things such as:

• A poor diet
• Smoking cigarettes
• Hair care products
• Cosmetics
• Pollution in the environment

Most of these causes of toxins in the body are completely avoidable and can be managed and removed by performing a detox body cleanse regularly. The only one that is an exception is the environmental pollution. Not everyone can just get up and move away, and billions of people live in metropolitan areas where there is a lot of vehicle exhaust. However, you can still be mindful of this cause and try to reduce its impact it has on your body. What is a Cleanse? A cleanse is performed by replacing the junk food you consumed regularly with healthy and nutritious foods. This sounds like a very generalized answer, so what is a good detox exactly? A good detox should contain foods and drinks that help remove these toxins. Many healthy food options contain antioxidants which help to combat free-radicals, which are harmful to the body. Because free-radicals can attach to your cells and DNA, they are associated with a number of problems such as :

• Different Cancers
• Atherosclerosis (the clogging of arteries)
• Diabetes
• Asthma
• Joint Inflammation

These are some serious issues, but luckily, they can be prevented by changing your diet and enjoying the benefits of detoxification. In fact, your body has it's own natural ways of flushing out toxins from the body. This process usually happens in the kidneys and the liver. It can also happen through sweating as well. Other than muscle and joint relaxation, saunas are popular because they make you sweat, where toxins can be released. What Are The Benefits of Cleansing? One of the obvious benefits of cleansing is that it evicts the harmful toxins from the body. However, by doing this, the benefits can be a bit more specific. Having a detox body cleanse can help you heal your body in a number of ways. Here are some detox benefits that you can enjoy: 1. It Can Encourage Healthier Eating Habits By performing a detox body cleanse, you may realize that you want to stick to the foods that you used. Eating and drinking healthy shouldn't be a temporary thing. Let's make an analogy. Have you ever spent a lot of time cleaning up a room in your house, only for it to get messed up not too long after? It's probably very annoying, and you feel like your effort was a waste. This is what it is like to do a detox but going back to poor eating habits immediately after. Your body is the room for all of your organs and you want to keep it clean. A lot of foods and drinks in a poor diet can be replaced with much healthier alternatives. Here are some great choices:

• Fruits & Vegetables
• Whole Grains
• Legumes & Beans
• Good fat sources (avocados, nuts, and seeds)
• Teas (green, white, cinnamon, ginger)
• Non-dairy milk (coconut, rice, almond)

Many of these foods are actually quite tasty and make excellent snacks, which can make it easier to make the transition from eating a lot of junk food to making healthy choices. Your body is a temple and you should keep it clean. Switching to good eating habits is why cleanses are safe. 2. Improved Digestion System The previous section in the list of detox benefits listed many foods that are part of a good eating routine. Most of these foods are excellent sources of fiber, which has an important role in the digestive tract. More fiber will help keep you regular and make bowel movements easier. Poor diet choices often result in constipation, which can be quite uncomfortable. This is because bad foods usually have little to no fiber in them. Excrement needs a place to go; this is why the colon needs a cleanse along with the entire digestive tract. 3. Weight Loss One of the most awesome body benefits of doing a cleanse is weight loss. This is something that many people can look forward to when doing a whole body detox. So many people are looking for the quickest way to lose weight. The honest truth is that weight loss usually begins in the kitchen, by adjusting your diet. By switching to whole foods, you will be replacing unhealthy fats, refined sugars, and carbohydrates with good fats, natural sugars, and complex carbs. Additionally, junk food often has a lot of calories, which in excess, will cause weight gain. Additionally, many toxins, especially caused by the environment and pesticides are lipophilic . This word literally means “loves fat and lipids”. By losing weight by burning fat, you not only excrete the toxins, but also give them fewer places to hang out at. 4. Improved Mood and Energy Levels People have a reliance on caffeinated drinks to get them going throughout the day. This includes coffee and many soft drinks. Caffeine is a stimulant and it can give you energy, but people can develop a dependency on it, requiring it to function normally. The sluggishness caused by the lack of caffeine is actually a symptom of withdrawal . Withdrawal from any substance can cause irritability and poor functioning. So, in actuality, the alertness that you get by drinking coffee in the morning, or having a soda in the afternoon, is relieving withdrawal symptoms rather than giving you a true energy boost . Granted, tea does have caffeine in it, but it's considerably less than a cup of coffee. A cup of tea can have about 45mg of caffeine it, whereas coffee typically has over 100mg . That's at least double the caffeine! With tea, you can taper off caffeine a bit, as well as get detox benefits through antioxidants. Additionally, added sugars and a lot of carbs in many popular beverages can create a rush of energy but lead to crashing. By detoxing, you will have more stable energy levels, which will have a positive effect on your mood. Reducing caffeine levels can also result in higher quality sleep. 5. Better Skin As mentioned before, a way that toxins are released is through sweat, from the pores in the skin. Acne and other blemishes are commonly caused by clogged pores and oily skin. Clearing the pores can be done by actively sweating, and through a good diet. You can purposely sweat by engaging in physical activity or sitting in a sauna or steam room. Your skin is your largest organ, and toxins can be trapped in it. This can lead to skin issues. Toxins can even age you faster; cigarettes contain harmful chemicals and free-radicals that affect the skin. This is why someone who smokes will typically look older than a non-smoker, especially if they are older as it is. By doing a whole body detox, you will release them. By eating healthy, you give toxins fewer opportunities to stay in the skin, just like how they can reside in fat cells. If you choose to include sweating as a way to detoxify your skin, make sure to wash your face off; you probably don't want any toxins staying on the surface of your face. 6. Craving Reduction Junk food has a tendency to make us want more of it. Other than tasting good, processed foods often contain an ingredient called MSG. MSG is an acronym for monosodium glutamate, and it is known as an excitotoxin . Just like how it sounds, these toxins excite the cells in your brain, making us want to eat more junk food. While it's an ingredient in making things taste good, it's a recipe for disaster. By craving bad food choices, you put yourself on a path to obesity and disease . Another way that junk food makes us crave is because it can contain ingredients that can cause spikes in our blood sugar levels. This is caused by an increase of glucose in the blood. Insulin is responsible for regulating glucose. Over time, insulin resistance can be a symptom of diabetes, and while glucose isn't bad per se (it supplies energy to the brain, muscles, and other organs), it needs to be regulated so it doesn't roam too freely. By doing a detox body cleanse, you can free your body of excitotoxins, eat less processed foods, and make a switch to healthier choices. These are the foods that you should actually be craving. 7. Enhanced Immune System The immune system has the ability to distinguish foreign substances from its own. These foreign invaders are what causes people to get sick. Some people have a better immune system than others and don't get sick as frequently. These can be caused by bacteria and viruses. However, in regards to toxins, many of them are caused by the environment and it can cause issues. Heavy metals are a major example of toxins that are caused by environmental factors. These are examples of heavy metals:

• Arsenic
• Chromium
• Cadmium
• Mercury
• Lead

Metals aren't inherently bad – they can be found naturally in many food products, but in high doses, they can be very poisonous. Essential metals like iron and zinc are common in different food sources, but heavy metals can be more concerning. If you are in a toxic environment, you can put yourself to increased exposure to heavy metals. When it gets stored in body tissue and blood it can interfere with :

• The brain
• The heart
• Lungs
• Kidneys
• The Liver

If exposure to heavy metals is constant, you can put yourself at risk for :

• Multiple sclerosis (MS)
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Parkinson's Disease
• Cancer

By using a detox body cleanse to flush out toxins from your body, especially harmful heavy metals, you can prevent minor illnesses as well as major ones. Cleansing can prevent you from getting sick in the short-term as well as the long-term. 8. Improved Mindset As we have discussed throughout this detox benefits article, toxins can affect every part of the body, including your brain. Your brain controls all of your actions, thoughts, and memories, and toxins are harmful to it. There has been a connection between psychiatric illnesses and toxins, such as depression, anxiety, and even psychosis . However, these toxins can also be harmful to your general cognitive abilities. Environmental toxins have been shown to impact people of all age groups. Young people's cognitive development has been shown to be hampered in areas that are high in environmental toxins, and adults who have developed brains have displayed impaired cognitive function, which prevents them from thinking and moving the way they should . This is another example of how the environment that you live in can be deleterious to your body. As mentioned before, moving away might not be feasible, but you can take action and make an effort to detox. A whole body detox can give you clarity and an improved state of mind. Summary & Conclusion A detox body cleanse can lead you to have better health. Toxins, like free-radicals, are harmful to the body and are caused by lifestyle choices and the environment. There are many benefits of cleansing toxins from your body as you can see from this article. From the inside to the outside, a good cleanse can help your body function like it's supposed to and you may see a new and improved version of yourself through weight loss and clearer skin. You only have one body, so it's important to take care of it. A cleanse may sound like a routine thing, but it may encourage you to stick with healthy habits. If you change your diet and quit habits like smoking cigarettes, your body will have to use less effort in cleansing itself. The body has natural mechanisms for doing this, but allowing impurities to enter it makes its job harder. Is a detox safe? It absolutely should be. You are replacing bad foods with healthy foods and trying to cleanse your body of the toxins that are harming you presently. A good detox does not involve starving yourself. The body benefits for cleansing and detoxing are vast, but it's important to maintain good health after you have seen the advantages of doing a whole body detox first-hand. References 1. Florence, T. M. (1995). The role of free radicals in disease. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Ophthalmology, 23(1), 3-7. doi:10.1111/j.1442-9071.1995.tb01638.x 2. Jandacek, R. J., & Tso, P. (2001). Factors affecting the storage and excretion of toxic lipophilic Lipids, 36(12), 1289-1305. doi:10.1007/s11745-001-0844-z 3. Cappelletti, S., Daria, P., Sani, G., & Aromatario, M. (2015). Caffeine: Cognitive and Physical Performance Enhancer or Psychoactive Drug? Current Neuropharmacology, 13(1), 71- doi:10.2174/1570159x13666141210215655 4. Michels, K. B., Willett, W. C., Fuchs, C. S., & Giovannucci, E. (2005). Coffee, Tea, and Caffeine Consumption and Incidence of Colon and Rectal Cancer. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 97(4), 282-292. doi:10.1093/jnci/dji039 5. Blaylock, R. (1995). Review Of: Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills. American Nutrition Association, 38(2). Retrieved from http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/review-excitotoxins-taste-kills 6. Jaishankar, M., Tseten, T., Anbalagan, N., Mathew, B. B., & Beeregowda, K. N. (2014). Toxicity, mechanism and health effects of some heavy metals. Interdisciplinary Toxicology, 7(2). doi:10.2478/intox-2014-0009 7. Mental Health and Environmental Exposures. (2008). Learning and Developmental Disabilities Initiative. Retrieved from https://www.healthandenvironment.org/uploads- old/MentalHealthFactSheet.pdf 8. Liu, J., & Lewis, G. (2014). Environmental Toxicity and Poor Cognitive Outcomes in Children and Adults. Journal Of Environmental Health, 76(6), 130-138. doi:PMC4247328