Colon hydrotherapy can be an essential tool to help you overcome your digestive health troubles.
To help you understand this, here something a little personal: I never realized quite how important regular, daily detox was until I started struggling with constipation…
If you have the same, you understand that bloated, foggy, crabby feeling that I get when I haven’t had my daily poop.
Until I studied functional nutrition, I didn’t understand how essential this process is. The primary ways that toxins move out of your body include pooping, along with hydration to promote urination and kidney-excretion, and exercise to promote breathing and sweating.
And regular release of toxins is essential for good health.
However, those of us with chronic health challenges often have impaired detox function and need some additional support.
This week, I’m sharing an interview with Arcata, CA colon hydrotherapist Ashton Wiesner, who owns the Vital Flow Cleansing Center, about colon hydrotherapy, and how it can support your detox process.
You might think that colon hydrotherapy isn’t for you, or you may feel a little squeamish about it…I hope that our interview helps clear away some of your worries about it, satisfies your curiosity about what it’s like to get a session, and helps you understand how it can help you with your healing process.
Can I help you? If you are struggling with digestive or food sensitivity issues and you’re confused and aren’t sure how to move forward, I invite you to schedule a free, 30-minute assessment session with me. I’ll help you clarify your next steps, and let you know if I think I can help you. You can schedule that here.
I used to do a cleanse every spring when I was in my 20s. My favorite acupuncturist created it, and called it the Spleen Vacation.
You would choose a list of 20 foods, and only 20 foods, to eat for a week, to give your spleen and liver a break. No animal products, and only whole foods. Like 1-2 grains, 3-6 veggies, 2 fruits, one healthy fat, nuts and seeds. It was hard, and I would eat a lot of rice, steamed greens and avocados, but I always felt better afterwards, more clear, clean, and calm in my brain.
But I would return to my normal (not-so-good) eating habits soon after the conclusion of Spleen Vacation. And I never used the step-by-step reintroduction plan I teach in my Inflammation Free program.
Well, I’ve come a long way, baby!
Why Cleansing?
The purpose of a cleanse is, of course, to clean out your insides, but I’ve come to view it as so much more.
A cleanse is also an opportunity to settle down your underlying issues, so you can gain clarity on what may be contributing to them. Often, our symptoms are made worse by foods we’re eating every single day, but we can’t see that because we keep doing it. The same goes for some of our self-care habits.
Are you wrestling with signs and symptoms like insomnia? Panic attacks? Sudden bouts of diarrhea or gas? How about bloating? Are you feeling generally depressed, irritable, or unmotivated? What about rashes or acne? Do you experience PMS?
Though all these symptoms or conditions may seem unrelated, in my practice, resolving them always begins with removing the top inflammatory foods, and adding anti-inflammatory lifestyle habits. I call this process “clearing the muddy waters” because the inflammatory foods really cloud the picture if you’re trying to understand what your body is doing.
Cleansing Can Help Resolve Symptoms
I love helping my clients focus on permanently eliminating the foods and habits that are mucking things up inside to help them resolve symptoms, and to allow us to see what else is going on in there.
It’s so often something small. A recent client came to me with body aches and pains, as well as challenging moods. They also weren’t sleeping well. They were worried that something was seriously wrong with them, and didn’t know what to do.
In their intake session, we discovered that they were drinking around four cups of coffee every day, and regularly relied on sugary treats in the afternoon when they were feeling tired and mentally worn out.
Though it’s never an easy conversation (some of you might say things like “You can have my coffee…over my dead body”, right?), I suggested at least reducing the coffee slowly. We were also working through an inflammatory food elimination diet.
They already knew gluten didn’t work for them, and suspected dairy didn’t either. But they found that eliminating sugar made a huge difference with the pain they have been dealing with for quite some time. Combined with the reduced coffee, they began sleeping better, as well. So often, experiencing this success inspires more action, and gives us some breathing room to figure out what to do next.
Small changes add up to big results.
And of course, the devil is in the details…they weren’t sure how to go forward long term without sugar, as their body was still craving it strongly. And this is a challenge we all have to face with our health issues.
How do we continue to make the right choices, when the temptations to make the wrong ones are so ever-present, delicious, and easy?
I’ve found that the answer lies inside of our own personal “why”. Why do we want to feel better? What would we do if we were free of that symptom?
To define our “why” provides our motivation. After that, success is a practice of taking action, however small, to keep moving in that direction. Some days, that may entail staring down the cookies and moving on to something else. Other days, it might be skipping the extra coffee. Some days, you’ll fall off the wagon, but you need to remind yourself about your WHY, and take action.
So get out there and get taking action, even small steps, and get cleansing.
Just the other day, my five-year-old found the dried beans in jars in the pantry, and begged me to make sprouts. What’s a mom to do?!
We started mung bean, adzuki bean, and clover sprouts, and I realized that there is no better time to make sprouts than the spring season, as our metabolism is emerging from its winter dormancy. Spring is an ideal time to clean out the cobwebs in our body by cleaning up our diet, and adding lots of fresh foods like sprouts to our diets.
Shown are my mung bean sprouts, and they contain bioavailable vitamins A, C, and E which are important antioxidants to help keep our cells healthy, along with iron and potassium, and 20% protein. The adzuki beans also have niacin (B3) and calcium, along with all the essential amino acids and 25% protein! Clover sprouts also have vitamins A, Bs, C, and E and 30% protein, along with the minerals calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, and zinc. Each of these minerals is important for maintaining the adequate function of our cellular enzymes that keep our DNA healthy and help support our energy and moods.
With all these benefits, I want to make sure you know how to make sprouts! It’s really very easy, and they are a tasty addition to salads, sandwiches, and stir-frys.
Pour a few tablespoons of your favorite food to sprout: try mung beans, adzuki beans, lentils, or peas; grain; clover or alfalfa; sunflower seeds; broccoli seeds and radish seeds, etc. Radish and broccoli sprouts are especially rich in sulfurophanes, which are potent cancer-fighting nutrients.
Fill the jar with water, and soak seeds until they swell and begin to crack their shells. The time varies with the size of the seeds, usually 12-24 hours.
Once they crack, pour out the water, and rinse the seeds well and drain.
Lay the jar sideways on a windowsill or kitchen counter where it will get at least a little indirect sunlight.
Rinse 2 times per day, and replace jar sideways.
Continue with this step until the sprouts are the length you like. For mung beans, 2-3 days is sufficient.
Rinse thoroughly, and drain well. Then, replace the screen insert or plastic lid with a normal Mason jar cap and store in the refrigerator.
For a very thorough discussion and specific instructions on how to make all the different kinds of sprouts, check out Sprout People. You can usually find many seeds to sprout in the bulk section of your local health food store (make sure to buy organic), or you could click here to order a sampler pack of organic sprouting seeds.
