3 Ways to Cleanse Toxins from Your Body
Updated: Mar 22
Written by Sujata Shah
You may have heard of ancient Chinese medicine, but did you know that there is also an ancient Indian medicine? It is called Ayurveda.
Ayurveda states that the purpose of life is to know or realize the creator. This bold statement in the first chapter of an Ayurvedic textbook I was reading blew my mind because I thought I was going to be learning about diseases, diagnosis, and medicine. It turns out that the ancient gurus had figured out that in order to have a deeper connection to yourself, your higher power, God, or whatever you want to call it, you needed to have a clean and healthy body. They developed Ayurvedic principles with this in mind. Starting with a clean body (inside and out) is a great place to start.
There are many ways to cleanse your body in order to keep it healthy on the outside, like your daily hygiene routine but Ayurveda goes deeper and has many protocols to cleanse your body of toxins on the inside. The buildup of toxins (ama in Sanskrit) was thought to be the cause of many diseases. Kind of like our modern discovery that heart attacks are caused by a build-up of cholesterol or Alzheimer's due to a building of plaque in the brain. More on how Alzheimers can be avoided through meditation in a later blog post.
I have picked 3 of the easiest ways to easily remove toxins.
Scrape your tongue - Use a simple tongue scraper to scrape the gunk off your tongue in the morning. You know that bitter taste on your tongue when you wake up? That taste is caused by toxins on your tongue, it is much healthier to scrape the toxins off rather than swallow them.
Oil pulling - Swish coconut oil in your mouth about 2-3 times per week to melt away further toxins in your mouth and brighten your teeth.
Neti (pronounced Ne-thi) - Use the neti pot at least once a week to cleanse your sinuses. Here's a video on how to do it properly. You can buy a neti pot anywhere these days but I like the stainless steel kind, it just feels cleaner than ceramic or plastic.
I find that my ability to concentrate and maintain focus, whether it is during meditation or at work, is less of a struggle when I routinely and mindfully cleanse my body. There are many, many more Ayurvedic protocols for cleansing the body on the inside, but they need support from a trained practitioner or may seem gross at first.
If you are interested in learning more or tried these methods and want to share your experience, please comment below.
