If you’re experiencing detox symptoms, I think it’s time to take a look at the different ways of dealing with detox.

Photo by Beth

During my fast I experienced some detox symptoms that included headaches, low energy, and strange bowel movements.

Luckily when it comes to detox, it’s not permanent.

After you move through detox you can see your energy soaring past the stars, have clearer skin, drop a few pounds, and just feel fantastic.

Two Approaches to Getting Through Detox

They are two ways of dealing with detox. One of them is to slow it down, while the other one is to speed up.

You have to keep in mind that when you are going through detox your body is trying to clean house. If you’re eating more fresh vegetables and fruits, your body will start to remove toxins that may have built up over time.

How to Slow Detox Down

There are a number of ways to slow down detox. You should consider slowing down your detox if you cannot handle the detoxification symptoms.

These detox symptoms may be taking place if you switched from a highly processed standard American diet to a high raw or 100% raw food diet.

If you want to slow detox down eat some cooked grains, or cooked vegetables. Essentially you’re introducing more heavy foods to give your body time to adjust to the high fiber, quick exit raw foods.

This in turn gives your body time to release toxins more slowly, and reduces the detox symptoms you might be experiencing.

How to Accelerate Detox

You can speed detoxed up by giving your body what it needs to continue cleaning itself. I like to think of detox as tunnel, the only way out is through.

Accelerating detox is a good strategy if you are feeling confident that you can deal with the symptoms and you want to get through it as quickly as possible.

• Dry skin brushing: Your skin is the biggest organ of your body, and the third most important detoxification organ. Help it help you by dry skin brushing it.
• Drink more water: To help flush toxins out of your body, drink lots and lots of water. Start your morning off with at least 500ml to 1 Liter of water. Drink enough water all day, it makes a big difference.
• Take naps: If you feel your energy dipping while you’re detoxing, then by all means take care of yourself. Taking a nap is a great way to help detox along.
• Move your body: Doing physical exercise is a great way to expel toxins. Try jumping on a trampoline, running, stretching. Getting everything moving is sure to help eliminate toxins more easily.
• Move your bowels: This might seem a little obvious, but you’d be surprised how often we overlook this. It’s so easy to be caught up in our day to day activities and not take the time to slow down and take good care of our bowels.

Detox Plateaus

Photo by Bertrand Monney

The more healthy food you eat, the more detox you may experience over time. Your current diet or lifestyle is likely not recent, so you will need to go through a few different levels of detoxification. Raw food detox doesn’t happen all at once, it’s more like peeling an onion.

You might have a “bout” of detox right after you change your diet, and then not have another detox episode until a few months down the line. These are what I like to call detox plateaus.

Hopefully you’ve learned how to make the most of your detox symptoms. And yes, this too shall pass!

Share your detox experiences here…

Currently going through detox? Let us know in the comments, and we will support each other as we continue to detoxify our bodies.