Detoxing seems to get a bad wrap these days. I’ve heard a lot of people say you don’t need to detox, you can’t really do anything to help your body detox, it just does it on its own through your liver. I disagree. While it is true the liver does detox for you, there are still a great number of things you can do – and likely should do – to help support your body while it is detoxing. Do you need to do all of these things at once? Certainly not. Rather, what can you add in that feels reasonable to your lifestyle? That is what we are aiming for with this post.
While my son, Raleigh, was on the GAPS diet I did a number of these things to help support his body in detoxing. The body is working really hard when it is burdened by disease so anything you can do to help lighten that load is important. In fact, I always encourage my clients to do many of these things while they are on their GAPS journey.
In order to really detox well we need to get the lymphatic system moving. Many of these ideas below help move the lymph.
Detox Baths
Almost everyone has a bath tub and if you do this is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to support your body in detox. I gave Raleigh many, many detox baths when he was healing from eczema. Filter the water, if possible, and add 1-2 cups of Epsom salt to a very warm bath – basically as hot as you can tolerate. You can also use things like apple cider vinegar, baking soda, sea salt, dead sea salts, bentonite clay and seaweed. I don’t recommend it all at once, but in a nice rotation. The idea is to stay in the bath long enough for the water to cool a bit so you sweat out toxins.
Milk Thistle and Dandilion
These are fantastic herbs that help the liver detox. They are supportive herbs, you could say. I recommend starting with milk thistle, it is more mild. You can drink them in teas, tinctures or even juice dandelion greens.
Dry Brushing
I think dry brushing is really underrated. It was one of my favorite modalities to use for Raleigh once the eczema wasn’t causing him physical pain. I would dry brush him and then he would take a bath or a shower. I still use this modality today, mostly for myself, because I really enjoy how it feels. I also use a facial “dry brush” to move the lymph in my face in the morning. Dry brushing is a cheap, easy way to move the lymphatic system and get toxins pumping out of the body.
This is a good body dry brush.
This is my face dry brush.
Be sure and read about how to dry brush correctly.
Rebounding
Good ‘ol jumping helps move the lymphatic system. If you have a small rebounder or a large trampoline, either will work. This is one of my favorite methods for children on GAPS because they typically want to move anyway.
Walking and Sunshine
Walking in fresh air can change your life. Moderate exercise like walking or yoga helps the body detox. Bonus if you can do it in the sunshine without sunscreen on. The sun detoxifies and it is vastly important for us to get adequate sun exposure.
Bare Feet
Being able to ground yourself by putting your bare feet into soil is another free and simple way to help your body detox. The frequencies from the earth combined with sun exposure help the body heal and detox.
TRS
TRS is a gentle, heavy metal detox. If you are on the GAPS diet I do not recommend it unless you are 1-2+ years into your healing journey. However, if you are ready to detox metals and parasites this is the best option to do so. I used it for Raleigh to remove parasites and heavy metals and it played a critical role in helping him finish his journey. You can purchase it here. I’ve written a lot about it. You can read posts here and here.
We still use TRS to this day in maintenance doses.
Happy Detoxing!
