I can always tell when it’s been too long since my last detox.  In truth, I go through periods of laziness and my diet and lifestyle take on uber-toxic proportions.  Living in the modern world, especially in an urban setting, it’s easy to fall into this trap of toxicity and less-than-optimal health practices.  But then I start getting the signals from my body and I acknowledge that it’s time to make a change.  So how does my body let me know that it’s time to detox.

Body Signals Requesting a Detox

For starters, I usually start to feel weak and achy. My muscles are tense, my joints are tight, and no amount of stretching quite takes care of the sense of tightness in my body.

My neck and shoulders get tense and I get mild headaches.  This is usually a sign of dehydration and I try to cut out beverages that aren’t plain water.  It’s amazing how easy it is to avoid drinking plain old water in our culture.  There are literally thousands of beverage options throughout the day, which are all nice and tasty but, let’s face it, humans survived on regular old water for thousands of years before Coca Cola came along.

I’m tired all the time and, usually, depressed.  Now, granted, I go into bouts of depression for lots of reasons ranging from the reduced sunlight in the winter months to reading too much mainstream media, but there is a distinct feeling that accompanies depression caused by an overly-toxic body.   If you pay close enough attention, you begin to learn your own body’s “language” and can discern its cries for attention.  For me, when I go through the period where I don’t want to sleep but I’m tired, where I feel like I need to be productive but I don’t want to do anything, and when I want to be happy but I just feel like crap… I know my body needs a hose-down from the inside-out.

Nothing sounds good to eat, especially healthy food.  When my cravings are all for salty grains or heavy foods, and I just can’t get up the desire to feast on fruit or vegetables, it’s a clear sign that the body is bogged down with too much crap.  Heavy foods are somewhat addictive to the body because they produce opiate-like chemical floods in the brain.  Chocoloate and sugar are major culprits, which is why they make us feel so good when we bite down.  It’s only later that we realize, as with any addiction, that the immediate benefits don’t outweigh the longterm effects of toxicity.   When I get in this “downward spiral” of eating in unhealthy ways, it’s clear that the reward circuits of my brain are overloaded and need to be detoxed.

Where to Go from Here

While I recognize that it’s time to clean things out, I don’t have time in my life right now to do a full-blown Master Cleanse, which requires some serious time and energy set aside to outlast its intense detoxing effects.  Instead, I’ll start by cutting out the more harmful things I’m taking in, like sugary drinks and heavy carbs, in favor of more fruits and veggies.  This way I can ease out of the slump and then, say next week, I can get into a more strict body cleanse.