Start Detoxing Today With These 6 Simple Steps

Hey crew: NADS Blogman, checking in.

Let’s get straight to the point: we’re definitely big on advising our readers of actions they can take to avoid, or even counter, the effects of harmful chemicals that have snuck into their environment. I mean, that’s one of the basic foundations behind NADS in the first place. With that said, we wanted to discuss some of the more common signs that you may be in need of a serious detox from these chemicals, and how you can start detoxifying today.

Let’s start with the bad news.

It’s no secret that both natural and synthetic chemicals enter our bodies through our skin, lungs, and digestive systems. In our modern environment, as saturated as it is with harmful chemicals,  (found in everyday items from cling wrap, to ziploc bags, to take-out containers & utensils & more) it can be difficult to avoid these hazards all together. Broadly speaking, most of these chemicals fall under a category called “endocrine disruptors;” substances that disrupt the body’s natural hormonal systems that regulate testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, insulin, cortisol, and appetite control. When these hormones go out of whack, you’re going to feel it–BIG TIME. Common symptoms of a possible hormonal imbalance include things like brain-fog, constipation, anxiety, depression, weight gain, bloating, difficulty sleeping, chronic stress, hair loss, and more. For men specifically, when we throw off our oh-so-precious T levels, we end up with decreased strength, muscle loss, brain fog, fatigue, decreased sex drive, lower sperm count, and even erectile dysfunction.

Very bad, indeed.

Now for the good news.

While we should always try to avoid exposure to endocrine disruptors altogether (which we discuss in other blog posts), we know sometimes it’s just not feasible to do so across the board. But it turns out that there’s a host of lifestyle changes that you can implement right now to counter the effects of environmental endocrine disruptors and set your body on a detoxifying trajectory. We’ve condensed some of these into a workable list that you can start doing today – as soon as you’re done reading this!

Without further ado, here are 6 steps you can start taking today to detox from hormone harming chemicals.

1. Add probiotics to your diet, which help support digestive bacteria to metabolize excess hormones. Common probiotic-rich foods include kefir, yogurt, fermented vegetables, even kombucha. Always opt for dairy from grass fed sources! 
2. Eat organic foods as much as you can. Organic foods are a surefire way to avoid pesticides and synthetic hormones. If your wallet wants to argue on this, just refer back to the list of adverse consequences above – is the disaster wrecked upon your physical, mental, and sexual health really worth the few dollars you’d save by continuing to eat processed foods and pesticide-riddled veggies? We think not.
3. Fiber is your friend. Fiber has been shown to increase the activity of the antioxidant and detox enzymes in your liver. Start incorporating fiber rich foods into your daily nourishment. Think cooked vegetables, avocados, pomegranates, berries, and other fruits as a starting point.
4. Drink filtered or spring water. Though some states in the U.S. score better in this regard, fertilizers, pesticides, sewer overflow, and other toxic compounds still find their way into our tap water. Stick to filtered water or spring water and avoid drinking water from plastic bottles as much as possible.
5. Go to sleep! Most of us need between 7 and 10 hours of sleep, each and every night. When you wake up, your cortisol levels spike, which bears an impact on all of your other hormone levels. How rested you are from the night before has an impact on the severity of that morning cortisol spike! Pro tip: to ensure you’re getting enough sleep, go to bed early enough so that you don’t have to set an alarm to wake up “on time” the next morning. Let your sleep cycles run their course without any interruptions, like an annoying wake-up alarm. There’s no better way to start your day off with a sky-high cortisol spike than by abruptly waking up to an alarm. 
6. Once a week, get hot. Prolonged exposure to heat offers tremendous benefits for detoxifying the body. Choose your method – dry sauna, steam sauna, hot tub, hot shower – and start with low heat, slowly building up the temperature over time. For our purposes, the goal with heat therapy is the release of growth hormone, which is responsible for muscle growth, strengthening bones, repairing tissue, increasing metabolism, and more. Sweating is also hugely beneficial to detoxification. 

Not that hard, right? 

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a great start to building the awareness, and quite frankly the discipline, needed to put your well-being FIRST in a toxic world that’s seemingly hell-bent on the destruction of your health and livelihood.

And on that unintentionally-apocalyptic note, this is NADS Blogman, signing off.