Tag Archives: clean air

How To Detoxify Your Environment

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By Georgianna Donadio, MSc, DC, PhD

Detox Your EnvironmentWe are bombarded every day with hundreds of chemical toxins in our environment. Plastic particles, heavy metals, pesticides, cleaning toxins, air pollution and hundreds of other chemicals find their way into our lungs, blood stream, immune system and body systems.

Here are 10 easy tips from the National Institute of Whole Health, to help de-toxify your environment and purify your body, preventing illness and even early aging.

Tip #1: Protect your body from pesticides by thoroughly washing your fruits and vegetables to remove most of the pesticide residue.
If you can find, grow or afford organic produce, this is your best assurance against ingesting unwanted pesticides.

Tip #2: Use cotton, polyester or hemp over plastic bathroom shower and window curtains. Plastic emits toxic chemicals easily eliminated by using alternative materials

Tip #3: Don’t inhale gas fumes when you are filling your tank and avoid exhaust fumes when jogging or walking in a heavily trafficked area. We know that gasoline contains lead and other pollutants and should not be inhaled>

Tip #4: Use only natural body creams or replace them with olive or walnut oil. The chemicals found in body creams and lotions as well as makeup and other beauty products can be carcinogenic and should be avoided.

Tip #5: Avoid all second-hand and third-hand smoke. Exposure to second- or third- hand smoke kills over 50,000 people every year.

Tip #6: Keep over the counter pill use to a minimum. Studies show a direct correlation between high over the counter drug use and liver and brain damage, as well as an increase of Alzheimer’s disease.

Tip #7: Wipe your feet or take off your shoes of before coming into your house. This will reduce the amount of lead dust and allergens you can bring into the house from your shoes.

Tip #8: Lather up. Using soap liberally when you are showering or bathing is the best and most natural way to eliminate environmental toxins from your skin, which is the largest immune component of your body, and also the part of the body most in contact with the external environment.

Tip #9: Eat low mercury fish. By choosing cod, flounder, wild Alaskan or Pacific salmon – as well as clams and shrimp – you can avoid mercury rich foods. Swordfish, mackerel and tuna fish all have higher levels of mercury than the white fish mentioned.

Tip #10: Replace highly chemical house cleaners with the now popular green cleaners that do not irritate the lungs or skin.

By following these 10 simple ways to detox your environment, you can save your liver and immune system the work of detoxifying these chemicals out of your body. This will, over time, prove to be a “life saver” – literally!

You may also be interested in these articles:

Every Breath You Take:
How Breathing Affects Whole Health

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Every Breath You Take Whole Health Living

Most of us take our breathing for granted. We generally do not think about how our amazing brain automatically regulates the most urgent and important bodily function we have. If we do not breathe we do not live beyond a few short minutes. The ability to breathe and the quality of our breathing clearly has an important impact on our ability to live, but also expresses a great deal of information about the state of our nervous system and emotional health.

Breathing is such a critical function that in addition to being under the automatic control of our brain stem it is also a physical function we can control at will. We know that our breathing is affected by and directly affects our emotional states, exertion levels, nervous system fluctuations and overall whole health.

The affects of emotion on the respiratory system can readily been seen during an asthma attack, which can be very frightening and further reduces the individual’s ability to “catch their breath”. Many of us do not breathe freely. We are breathing freely when we breathe in and out through the muscles of our bellies. We tend to breathe through the chest muscles because we are tense and “holding our breath,” which starves our cells of energizing oxygen.

Deep breathing or relaxed breathing exercises can make an enormous difference in our health and vitality. By changing our breathing from shallow to deep,  we can experience many whole health benefits:

Every Breath You Take: Whole Health Living

> Breathing deeply rather than shallowly creates detoxification within our cells, bringing oxygen rich blood into our cells and cleansing out carbon dioxide.

> Breathing deeply into our bellies rather than our chest muscles produces a greater sense of calm and relaxation brought about through the increase of oxygen to the nervous system.

> This form of cleansing, nourishing breathing is conducive to whole body health and brings about a sense of inner peace.

> Deep breathing can help you sleep better and also feel more energetic because of the increase of oxygen to the brain

This is a great subject to review in your patient education. If you would like to re-train your breathing so that you derive the most benefit each day from this life-sustaining, automatic body function – start slowing. Take just five minutes twice a day to sit quietly in your chair with eyes closed, body relaxed. Allow yourself to focus on your breath. Rather than tensing your shoulders and back muscles, let your breathing rise and fall from your belly muscles. Slow, relaxed breathing for five minutes each day, twice a day, can re-train your automatic breathing patterns and help you to feel better, sleep better and be healthier and more energetic.

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