Many people celebrated the vernal equinox this past weekend, marking the day of the year where night and day are exactly equal. It’s spring! The increasing light gives us some pep in our step, and there are only so many more snowstorms to live through!
In many cultures and traditions, this time of year is celebrated as a time of new beginnings, with ‘good’ (light, rebirth, spring) triumphing over ‘evil’ (darkness, death, winter).
From a health perspective, spring is a good time for new beginnings as well. A winter of being cooped up inside, eating comfort foods and hibernating can make for a pretty sluggish system.
It’s at this time of year that we get many questions about “doing a detox”, or “cleansing”. There are many detox products and diets out there. Should you do a colon cleanse? Is a juice cleanse safe? What about a liver flush? It can all be very confusing and the truth is what is best–and safe–is different for each person.
Take juicing, for example:
- If you’re taking many medications, doing a juice fast or a liver flush, may negatively impact how your body is using those medications.
- If you’re more then 30 pounds overweight, however, a short-term juice fast may be a miracle for you.
- If you’re normal-weighted, though, a long-term juice fast may crash your blood sugar and affect your long-term metabolism.
There are similar complications for diets and detox treatments:
- If you have lots of inflammatory systems a sugar-free, alcohol-free, grain-free detox diet might be the best.
- If you have a genetic variation in which you do not detoxify fat-soluble toxins effectively then colonics and colon cleansing might be the right thing for you.
“New beginnings” aren’t the same for everyone. Detoxing and cleansing change your biochemistry–it’s part of why they work. But it’s also part of why they need to be taken seriously. So yes, put a spring in your step. But take your new beginnings seriously!