Your body is a miraculous thing. For all your body’s parts and abilities there are corresponding systems designed to monitor what they’re experiencing and then decide whether what is happening in your body is beneficial or detrimental. The key to health is for all your systems is to function well without interruption.
Your body systems – the circulatory, digestive, endocrine, immune, integumentary (hair, skin, nails), lymphatic, muscular, nervous, reproductive, respiratory, skeletal, and urinary systems are discussed frequently by all naturopathic bloggers. In particular, when your physician asks how you’re feeling, you usually point to something, a symptom, that’s affecting one or more of your systems because they so readily help you check in on you bodies, giving us a sense of how well you are (or are not) at any given time.
What’s Happening When You’re Not Feeling Well?
When you’re unwell, understanding systemic symptoms can help you to determine where to look for the underlying issues. Sometimes you’ll worry about headaches, rashes, frequent infections, or nails splitting showing signs of ill health. Or, you might complain of feeling sluggish, heavy, uncomfortable, or constipated. Signs like these show your physician there’s something deeper going on in your body. It becomes important to then explore these more deeply, to look to the organs that support your systems and keep them functioning effectively, and to take care of them when they’re showing signs that all is not well.
Your organs like the heart, brain, and lungs are responsible for some of the most fundamental functions of life. Without them, well – you wouldn’t be here! But, other organs do equally important jobs by neutralizing and eliminating toxins and irritants. The organs that help most with these functions are the lungs, the skin, the digestive tract, and most importantly the liver and the kidneys. When you start tracing back the symptoms of sickness to these detoxifying organs, you can start to see the connections to possible underlying weaknesses and issues.
How Does your Body Cope When Faced with Toxins and Irritants?
The simple answer? Detoxification. One of the things your body is especially good at is sweeping out any toxic elements and chemicals that can compromise overall health. That’s a big part of what our organs are designed to do – and most of the time they do it extremely well!
However, not all toxins are equal and of course there are many factors that can affect how the body responds to them at any given time. Also, toxins don’t come from only one source. In fact, the definition of a ‘toxin’ is surprisingly simple and broad: anything that the body doesn’t find useful or that harms its integrity is toxic to the body. The fact is, we’re combating toxins all the time both internally and externally.
In its own metabolism your body makes toxins which have to be broken down and excreted. Even if you were in a desert without water, you would still have “obligatory urination” to rid your body of its own metabolic products.
The most common types of toxins you encounter externally come from: poor diets and poor digestion; undigested food that ferments in the digestive tract creating intestinal inflammation and imbalances in a healthy bacterial and fungal growth; medications; drugs; alcohol and tobacco; environmental toxins like air and water pollution, smoke, pesticides and herbicides; animal and insect bites; and – more and more – electromagnetic frequency and radiation like from appliances and tools such as microwaves, cell phones, computers, wireless internet, and TVs. Even negative thoughts and emotions if they persist long enough have been shown to be toxic to your body because they turn into significant sources of stress – the number one root cause of illnesses. This toxic burden is an inescapable part of modern life, and it can sound pretty scary!
When subjected to all of these forms of toxins at once – as most of us are – it’s easy to see how your body can become inundated with chemicals from which we need to protect ourselves. It’s also easy to understand why, even though you might be doing everything we can to sustain a healthy lifestyle and keep your toxin-fighting organs in prime condition, your body sometimes need help in the battle.
How Do I Know if I’m in Toxic Overload?
As I said before: the body is constantly detoxifying. Day in, day out, all day (and night) long! Your organs are designed to do just that to keep you healthy. But, we all experience toxic overload at one time or another. Who hasn’t been super stressed out and fell to a poor diet or more frequent glasses of wine? Who hasn’t experienced an illness that compromised their health to the point where they just don’t seem to get better? These are just some instances when toxic overload can make anyone’s organs’ daily battle much harder to win. Sometimes toxins that you experience daily become, over the years, a combined, overwhelming force while at other times you experience a mix of toxins in particularly high doses. Ongoing situations like this can lead to chronic toxin overexposure. Learning to identify and properly respond to toxin overload can make a huge difference in your ability to heal from it.
Are you in toxin overload? Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have persistent brain-fog, lack of focus, mental clarity, or migraines?
- Do you have ongoing fatigue, muscle aches or pains, general lack of motivation or feelings of depression that just won’t go away?
- Have you noticed an increase in body odor, foul fecal odor, pungent or bad breath?
- Are you experiencing skin rashes in ways you haven’t before?
- Have you recently become newly sensitive to chemicals, fragrances, or scents?
- Have you developed new allergies of any kind?
These are just some of the common changes you might notice and they’re some of the ways your body is trying to tell you: Help me! I’ve had enough!
When you’re experiencing symptoms like these, it’s the right time to visit me. I want to help you reactivate your body’s natural defense mechanisms so that you can experience optimal health every day. Sometimes, our organs need extra help in their work combatting toxins. I have lots of ways to help you ensure that toxins are kept at bay, and that your organs are happy, healthy, and strong.
Call us at 480-284-8155 and we’ll be happy to have a detailed consultation with you to find the right pathway to your optimal health.