Detoxify your artificial life

Humans. We think we’re so smart…

We can create our own food and invent amazing technologies to make our lives better and more convenient.

In fact, we’re so advanced that we may have managed to orchestrate our own demise.

Though we may have started out running from danger before we were at the top of the food chain — think saber-toothed tigers — now the biggest threats to our survival are almost entirely man-made…

You see, the artificial environments we’ve created for ourselves are unlike any we’ve ever been subjected to.

And it’s sad to say, these artificial environments are dramatically affecting your health by setting you up for disease right now…

Artificial food

There are now thousands of products that line our supermarket shelves — we call them food but much of it is not food at all.

Though these products are edible, they are simply ultra-processed artificial products that conveniently store for long periods of time and ultimately make food companies billions of dollars.

This artificial food is not the type of food we’re naturally designed to eat, and actually results in full-belly starvation because it’s void of nutrients and full of adulterated ingredients.

One such example is refined sugar.

Imagine being an ape or Paleolithic man in the jungle. You’d gather and eat fruits in higher doses when they were in season, then would go without any kind of a sweet treat for months.

Unfortunately, food manufacturers have taken full advantage of our fondness for sweets. Subsequently our taste buds have evolved from craving the simple sugars found in fruit — to barely recognizable junk food that’s fluffy, fatty, deep-fried, sugarized and glutenized.

More than 77 percent of supermarket products contain added sugars, which provide no nutritional value for our bodies — the worst of which is high fructose corn syrup.

This is just one of our manmade threats driving us to higher rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and any number of other illnesses.

Artificial light

When Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, harming anyone’s health was the furthest thing from his mind. But with the advent of LED light and blue light from electronic devices, few of us ever experience total darkness during our waking hours.

This ever present artificial light impacts your circadian rhythm, your 24-hour body clock that keeps your sleep/wake cycle regular. This disruption is now causing sleep and insomnia issues in millions of people around the world.

Lack of sleep subsequently drives other chronic health problems. According to Dr. Brad Cutler, when you sleep your body services all of your systems that have been extremely busy doing all the things they have to do when you’re awake. If your sleep is interrupted or cut short, so are these necessary restorative processes…

1. Gut balancing
2. Detoxification
3. Immune balancing
4. Hormone balancing
5. Cardiometabolic restoration
6. Brain restoration
7. Skeletal muscle and boney matrix restoration

Spending too much time indoors also robs you of a nutrient vital to your overall health — vitamin D, which your body synthesizes with the help of natural sunlight.

My colleague Bob Livingston refers to it as a miracle pill because vitamin D is a potent neuroregulatory steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 of our 25,000 genes.

It reduces the risks and effects of 17 different kinds of cancer, especially in women, and drops the risk for heart disease, hypertension, stroke, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, infertility, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, pre-menstrual syndrome, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), depression, allergies and influenza.

Most of us are deficient. Get outside and get some sun, but see recommendations from Bob on boosting your intake.

Artificial smell

Because we need to work to live, most of us are living in congested cities full of highly polluted toxic air.

But even if you reside in the country, your personal living space is filled with toxic perfumes and deodorants, a wide array of chemical cleaning products, not to mention the toxic thyroid disease trigger lurking in your living room furniture.

Every which way you turn you’re faced with artificial smells that disrupt your natural sensibilities.

Quite incredibly, disrupted sense of smell leads to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety, contributes to overeating behaviors, and can even cause changes to our DNA — this stuff is serious!

The fact is we’re not really made for the modern world.

And while medical, rational and political realms may say that we can handle it, that we don’t need to detox, there’s a lot of compelling evidence that we indeed do.

Detoxify your artificial life before it’s too late

When people think of the word ‘detox’ they think of the latest fad diet or living on juice smoothies for a week.

But detox in the sense we’re talking here goes a bit deeper than that. It goes back to finding your human roots, stepping out of the artificial life and getting in touch with your natural inclinations.

The first place to start is with the food you put into your body…

Detoxify your body

There is great power in the food we eat! Hippocrates back in 400 BC said: Food is our medicine.

This is entirely true, however that medicine can’t be found in ultra-processed artificial products.

The power of food to heal us comes from eating it the way nature intended. That means consuming natural whole food sources such as grass-fed meat, free-range chicken and eggs, wild-caught seafood and organic fruits and vegetables that come directly from nature without going through processing or being adulterated with hormones and pesticides.

Many studies have shown that following a whole food diet can reverse even the most stubborn of health conditions.

To reconnect with real food:

• Avoid the supermarket and try visiting your local farmers market.
• Plant a backyard garden and grow vegetables so you can watch your food grow and experience the process.
• Keep backyard chickens so you can get in touch with living things and be grateful for their offerings.

Detoxify your senses

Take a break from technology and get outdoors — daily!

It’s vital to to reconnect your senses with the natural world… to be in the natural light of green spaces and look at the bright colors and shapes of nature. Look far into the distance and enjoy the view so your eyes can realign their focus.

Studies have shown that something as simple as being in green space for as little as 10 minutes per day completely heals people of depression and stress-related conditions.

And while you’re there, take off your shoes! My colleague Dr. Mark Wiley wrote recently about the barefoot movement and it’s truly amazing what the simple act of wriggling your toes in the grass will do for you…

Researchers and scientists in the field of environmental medicine say that walking barefoot, or wearing simple animal skin foot coverings, connects us with the Earth’s surface in a natural way that allows transfer of free electrons into our body.

This is important because humans are essentially electrical beings. Among other things, we are made up of water, minerals and electrons. We produce positive charges that produce oxidative stress on the body. But when we walk barefoot, a practice now called Earthing or Grounding, free negative electrons from the Earth are transferred back to us, acting as antioxidants, reducing a huge assortment of modern health concerns including cardiovascular issues, autoimmune diseases, sleep disorders, pain and inflammation.

To reconnect your senses:

• Go for a nature walk on a regular basis.
• Take a daily break to sit in the park and spend at least a few minutes in direct sunlight.
• Take your shoes off and walk bare footed on the grass or sand.

Detoxify your environment

Although you can’t control the wider environment, you can control your personal space by detoxing your personal environment. For starters:

1. Open your windows to let air flow through and ventilate your environment if you live where the air is smog-free.
2. Keep plants in the house as they are natural air detoxifiers and have the benefit of adding green space around you.
3. Install water filters for your drinking water and on your showerhead to help limit your exposure to chemicals.

The next step involves finding alternatives to your personal care products. Ditch the toxic perfumes, deodorants and cosmetics, and look for safer alternatives at a health food store where you’ll find essential oils and personal care products made from natural ingredients.

Avoid chemical cleaning products. There are natural, less toxic options available. Alternatively, you can make DIY cleaning products from simple ingredients such as vinegar, lemon, tea tree oil, lemon oil, vegetable soap, and bicarbonate soda.

Detoxifying your artificial life is well worth the effort! You’ll be incredibly surprised that even small changes can make a significant difference to your health.

Sources:

1. Johnston, I. (2007, January 2). “Mismatch” between the way our senses evolved and modern world is making us ill, experts warn. The Independent – Environment. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/pollution-evolution-senses-sight-smell-taste-short-sighted-obesity-depression-aaas-a7590666.html

2. Mendonca RD, et al. Ultra processed food consumption and risk of overweight and obesity: the University of Navarra Follow-Up (SUN) cohort study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2016;104(5):1433-40.

3. Zobel EH, et al. Global Changes in Food Supply and the Obesity Epidemic. Current Obesity Reports. 2016;5(4):449-55.

4. Maghbooli Z, et al. Epigenetic Alterations and Exposure to Air Pollutants: Protocol for a Birth Cohort Study to Evaluate the Association Between Adverse Birth Outcomes and Global DNA Methylation. JMIR Research Protocols. 2017;6(2):e29.