In modern times, healthy lifestyle knowledge and practices have become widely sought out, as many people seek to feel their best for as long as possible, to live their lives to the fullest. Interest in organic, nutrient-dense food is at an all time high, and many people are now aware that sourcing clean food and water, breathing clean air, and keeping their body “tuned up” is not only important for longevity, it is essential.
One result of this widespread new awareness is interest in cleansing and detoxification, especially in the springtime when the weather warms up and people have more energy and motivation to make positive change in their lives. It has even become trendy, as celebrities gush about their newest cleanse program to their millions of followers, and now even conventional grocery stores stock detox products on their shelves.
You may wonder, are all these cleanses great for the body, or are there some drawbacks and even potential harm to some or most of these detox approaches? Is it okay to just jump into any cleanse craze you see out there, or is it important to have discernment, to ensure that your approach will truly work with your body to safely release and eliminate toxins without damaging your organs and metabolism in the process?
We certainly advise discernment, and educating yourself on how the body actually detoxifies, so that your approach to cleansing is not only productive, but at times, enjoyable!
So many people suffer through harsh cleanses or starvation diets, feeling miserable the entire time, all the while thinking, “No Pain, No Gain!”
What they don’t realize is that if the body is having a strong stress response to your cleanse approach, it goes into a sympathetic nervous system state (also known as “fight or flight”), causing all bodily systems to basically freeze until the stressor has resolved. This is not good for detoxification, as eliminating toxins requires feeling safe and relaxed enough to LET GO.
It’s one thing to do a little bit of fasting and feel a little bit hungry and tired, which can be a beneficial digestive rest and reset. It’s also totally okay if you’re doing a good, productive cleanse that’s compatible with your body, and you feel a bit fatigued or under the weather for a little while, signaling the need for more rest to come out the other side rejuvenated.
It’s another thing entirely to grit your teeth and bear miserable suffering for one or more weeks, feeling starving and unable to sleep, your neurotransmitters and brain chemistry becoming wildly imbalanced due to lack of fuel, putting you into a foul mood and a consistently low energy state.
It may sound like the opposite of a commonly held belief about cleansing, but you need nourishment to detoxify. In fact, we often don't start with detoxification for people who have significantly compromised health. The body requires quite a bit of energy to be able to detoxify effectively and efficiently.
When a person is in a low energy state with the organs not having optimal energy to support proper detoxification, we typically get them on the following:
- Rice Sprouts for exceptionally easy to assimilate, broad spectrum nutrients and amino acids
- Adapt, a top grade adaptogenic herbal formula to balance and build the core energy of the body
- Protect Mint, which is a broad spectrum immune booster then helps gently start the cleansing process in a tolerable way
It is very important for people to build the energy of the body prior to cleansing. If done correctly, cleansing frees up an amazing about of energy which can translate to more even and smooth energy, mental performance, athletic performance, rejuvenation, and overall better mood.
How Does the Body Detoxify?
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Japanese folk medicine perspective, the strong and seamless functioning of all five organ systems is necessary to keep the body running at top notch. A well functioning body is energetic, creative, adaptable, and is able to burst into action or relax into deep rest whenever each is appropriate. This level of vitality requires excellent assimilation of nutrients, and detoxification of waste products. The digestion must be strong to absorb the nutrients from food, and those nutrients strengthen each organ system, ensuring optimal functioning.
A big part of optimal organ function is the natural and continuous mobilization and elimination of waste products. These include any part of the food we eat that’s not usable, or toxic to the body. It also includes the metabolic waste products that build up every time we eat, drink or move. There is no way we can get through life without our bodies creating waste that needs to be removed. Fortunately, we don’t need to, as our organ systems are perfectly designed to automatically eliminate everything we don’t need!
The liver is the primary detoxification organ. Our entire blood volume cycles through our liver, which purifies the blood and removes waste, leaving only the essential blood essence that our body needs for fuel and nutrients.
In TCM, spring time is the season of the liver. After the dormant, sleepy energy of winter, the stirrings of spring ripple all throughout nature. The birds and animals wake up and become active, the sap in the trees moves back upward and outward into the branch tips to grow new leaves, flowers grow and bloom… everything moves in an upward and outward, yang energy of fast, vigorous growth.
Our bodies are part of nature. If we are healthy and in tune with the seasons, spring will also awaken our bodies. Our energy levels will increase, we will want to clean our homes and go for long walks to enjoy the beauty and excitement of the season of awakening. Our body processes speed up, and the winter’s yin, inward energy, where our essence was stored in our kidney system, bursts forth into movement. Winter can often bring physical stagnation and weight gain, as we may be more sedentary and eat more food to stay warm. The natural energy of spring is lightening and movement.
When we are in tune with the seasons, we will naturally cleanse from winter stagnation. We may go outside and find young edible wild greens growing, and crave their fresh, crisp flavor, and the unique properties of young spring greens will naturally cleanse and energize our bodies. We feel thirstier from increased activity and warmer temperatures, and naturally drink more pure water, which washes out our digestive tract, cleaning out old residue. We eat less food, often without realizing it, as we become focused on spring time projects and play, and no longer need the extra calories to maintain our body heat with the warmer weather. Our winter cravings for dense, rich food fall away, and we begin to crave freshly grown food right from the ground, and juicy fruits and veggies.
We find ourselves eating food only when we truly need it, as fuel for our activities. Less food and lighter food reclaims and redirects energy to other bodily processes, such as deep cleaning and regeneration wherever we most need it. But since we are following an intuitive process, we also won’t starve ourselves when we truly need fuel, and eating when we need fuel will keep our metabolism revved up, as opposed to forced calorie restriction which can slow our metabolism and create a whole different form of stagnation.
This is natural, intuitive, effortless cleansing and detoxification. This is the healthiest approach, and we think it’s a wonderful goal to be this in tune with your body, the seasons, and nature!
Helpers to Activate & Enhance Your Cleanse
Since we do need fuel and nourishment to properly detoxify, what fuel should we choose? Fresh green foods provide essential minerals and cleansing polyphenols and flavonoids, and cleanse the digestive tract with their fiber. Sour foods like lemon and cultured/fermented foods activate the liver. Specific herbal substances assist the liver and lymphatic system to deeply detoxify. Enough protein, fat and carbohydrates from nutrient rich sources will keep our metabolism high and our brain chemistry balanced.
You can get pretty far by eating more green vegetables and juicy water rich fruits, but with the right herbs and special foods, you can go so much further!
Shen Blossom’s nutritive foods and herbal formulas are designed to nourish all of the organ systems, promoting vitality and longevity of the whole body and mind. If you browse our store, everything you see is designed to improve your nutrition and whole body function, from our variety of sea vegetables, miso, green tea, medicinal mushrooms and nutritive berry extracts like schizandra and goji.
Since almost every food and herb is now accessible to humans due to the efficient shipping system of the modern world, we don’t mess around with your standard health foods and supplements. We only have time and space for the best of the best, rare offerings you won’t find anywhere else!
If you’re looking for nutrient density and detoxification enhancement, everything on our site fits the bill to some degree, but let’s get into the specialized, targeted cleansing and detoxification support that we offer.
Wood Formula (Element Series)
Our Wood formula is the perfect place to start if you’re looking for cleansing and rejuvenation. To effectively cleanse, we need to first make sure our liver is working at top notch! The liver does most of the job of detoxification for us, as long as our liver qi is flowing smoothly and evenly. This formula eliminates any stagnation or sluggishness in the liver, which would impair smooth flow of qi and create wild fluctuations of either excess energy buildup and/or deficiency of energy and nourishment.
The way this formula works with the liver system can really smooth out the cleansing process, making it more effective and more enjoyable! Stagnation in the liver can result in many uncomfortable physical symptoms, as well as emotional symptoms like mood swings, anger and frustration. Most of the time, the reason people quit a cleanse or detox is because they’re experiencing strong emotions and mood swings that are hard to deal with, and they go back to their comfortable and familiar habits to get a quick respite from the emotional extremes. Supporting the liver supports emotional ease, and allows us to feel enough balance and ease to let go of toxins and stagnation.
The Wood formula is the perfect herbal blend for the energy of spring. It supports the natural energy of expansive growth and movement, attuning and harmonizing your body to the season, helping you get the most out of the fresh, inspiring energy of spring.
A strong wood element is responsible for high energy levels, optimal digestion, a consistently good mood and balanced emotions, easy detoxification, and more. This formula is a simple daily tonic that strengthens the wood element over time, so it helps to take it consistently. We recommend at least taking it throughout the months of spring for optimal results, yet it is balanced from a 5 elements perspective so you can use it any time of year when you need extra liver support.
Herbal teas are great tonic beverages in the spring. The right blend of synergistic herbal substances can activate all of our detoxification organs, including the liver, lymphatic system, lungs, colon, kidneys, bladder, and skin. Brewing a simple herbal tea, drinking it warm on cool mornings will give your spring cleansing a major boost! It also increases hydration, activating the kidneys, bladder and colon in removing waste.
This tea can be used alone as an adjunct to your regular diet, and is also great to combine with fasting, juicing and herbal cleansing. It is designed to support all the organ systems, so they can work together to optimize the functioning of the body and mind. It gently stimulates the body to remove toxins and stagnation in the elimination pathways. It also tastes great!
Unlike harsh herbal formulas that force urination from your kidneys and bladder through irritation, or irritating your colon to stimulate a bowel movement, this formula is gentle and supportive, enhancing the body’s natural detoxification process and gently increasing the flow of qi. To use this tea blend, steep 1 teaspoon of herbs in 4-6 ounces of boiling water, and strain after 4-5 minutes. You can use the same herbs a few times, to get the most out of them.
To help these herbs do their job, we recommend also increasing your intake of pure water, and increasing your physical movement, such as stretching and going for long walks.
Mountain Detox (Parasite/Microbe Detox Formula)
This potent, comprehensive and synergistic formula supports a deeper and more specific type of detox. It specifically targets imbalanced levels of unwanted microorganisms that are residing in the body, such as parasites, bacteria and yeasts. It’s not common knowledge, but the vast majority of the human body is composed of bacteria, far more than actual human cells! We depend on microbes to keep us alive, and this healthy and symbiotic microbe community keeps everything functioning smoothly.
However, often when our bodies are under stress from poor diet and lifestyle choices and environmental toxicity, our immune system is weakened, and the healthy microbes suffer. The parasitic organisms then begin to gain a foothold, proliferating unchecked and causing a myriad of unpleasant and eventually dangerous symptoms. Parasitic organisms steal our nutrients and don’t give anything back, which eventually weakens and depletes their host: our bodies.
Specific herbs are key in creating and internal environment that supports the removal of excessive parasitic organisms, so we can reclaim the energy they were stealing from us and restore our vitality.
This formula works to allow the immune system to overcome harmful parasites and parasite eggs, harmful bacteria, and imbalanced yeast colonies (such as excessive growth of Candida albicans). Since the life cycle of most parasitic worms and their eggs is 100 days, we recommend taking this formula for at least that amount of time, but this formula is safe enough to take every day without any harsh cleansing reactions, when taken as recommended. Not only does it ward off parasites and their eggs, but it safely escorts the byproducts of the die-off out of the body, instead of letting them wreak havoc on their way out like less skillfully crafted parasite cleansing formulas do.
It’s best to take one dropper of the tincture under the tongue first thing in the morning before food, then again 20 minutes before meals throughout the day. Follow up with 8 ounces of pure water after taking it, to move the herbs through your system. We also recommend taking 10-15 drops before bed, and not drinking water afterward, so it will coat your mouth and throat and move slowly through your body during the night.
Aka Hinoki (Blood Purifier)
This tiny bottle packs a potent punch! You only need to start out with one drop daily to begin experiencing the benefits of this deep cleansing formula. Aka Hinoki is a combination of tree resins that act as a potent blood purifier. Resins (sometimes referred to as pitch or tree pitch) are concentrated substances produced by conifer trees to protect the tree from infections and pests. Likewise, it cleans and purifies our bloodstream, detoxifying glands and tissues along the way. It is the most potent purification product per drop we have created yet!
It works synergistically with our Mountain Detox product to eliminate parasites and harmful microbes, plus it boosts the immune system, supports healthy blood sugar levels, increases total body strength, and nitric oxide production.
Start out by taking just one drop, and holding it under your tongue for a couple of minutes, breathing deeply. First thing in the morning on an empty stomach is best, followed by 8 ounces of pure water. For best results, take with our Mountain Detox formula, for the most effective combo!
Sea 7 Flush
To round it all out and make sure your cleanse is as effective as possible, you want to make sure your large intestine is eliminating frequently, to carry out all the toxins being released from deep inside your body. One of the major risks of improper detoxing is stirring up all the toxins from your organs and cells, only to have them hang out in your body for a while afterward, causing damage to your organs and tissues because your colon isn’t moving out waste as quickly and fully as it should!
A good colon cleansing formula is absolutely essential for an easy, comfortable and effective cleanse. Sea 7 Flush is a 7-day gastrointestinal tract cleanse that sweeps out the intestines, removing unwanted debris and helping to dissolve mucus and plaque buildup.
A common side effect of poor dietary and lifestyle choices is a sluggish colon full of impacted, hardened material. Not only does this inhibit proper and timely elimination and promote recirculation of toxins through the bloodstream, but it also inhibits nutrient absorption, depleting our body of vital nutrients. A well functioning colon essential to overall health and vitality.
Symptoms of poor GI tract function include constipation, leaky gut, bacteria/yeast/parasite overgrowth, weakened immune system, skin and autoimmune conditions, fatigue and lack of focus, and nutrient deficiencies.
This cleanse formula can be taken by itself, or ideally combined with Mountain Detox and Aka Hinoki for a deeper, more comprehensive cleanse. Be sure to increase your intake of pure water to help this formula work optimally.
If you are planning on doing the Sea 7 Flush, read the instructions here for the best strategy of how to take it.
Conclusion
Whether you want to enhance the natural cleansing energy of the springtime, do a deeper and more focused cleanse, or just cleanse as the seasons change, these 5 products are key to a successful and rejuvenating experience!
While spring is the most natural season to cleanse, it’s also very beneficial to cleanse as the seasons change, as the rapid change in the environment creates a temporary imbalance in the body. Cleansing intentionally during these times can support your body’s seasonal transition and also take advantage of the instability of change to trigger the movement of internal stagnation.
Hopefully you now have a deeper understanding of how cleansing and detoxification works, and how to do it in a way that works with your body’s natural processes, not against them.
If you have any specific questions about cleansing, or our cleanse-enhancing products, we would love to hear from you, and we are always happy to help!