“The bioaccumulation of environmental toxins in some individuals can lead to a variety of metabolic and systemic dysfunctions, and in some cases outright disease states. Environmental medicine teaches you to take things away that are keeping your body’s natural way of healing itself from doing so.”
— Dr. Walter Crinnion
This is SUCH a juicy topic (I’m talking about adopting a clean and toxin-free way of life), yet one that I think does not get the attention that it deserves.
Over the years, some brands and companies have jumped on the bandwagon of clean living, simply to make money. They pay lip service to the cause without really offering clean products to their consumers.
But I want you to know that businesses and brands that do not prioritize profit above all and actually care about using non-toxic materials do exist!! And as you begin to educate yourself in this arena, you’ll be able to pick them out!
But first in order to be able to minimize your exposure to environmental toxins, you have to understand their sources. In other words, where do these toxicants come from? The air you breathe, the water you drink, the food you eat and the soil that was used to grow that food, the skincare and cosmetics you use, your cookware and house cleaning materials, your new furniture and your new car can all be adding to your body’s toxic burden and therefore stress.
What do I mean by toxic burden?
I’m talking about the accumulation of harmful chemicals, pollutants, and toxicants in your body over time.
Most of us, thankfully, will not have a major toxin exposure in our lifetime like the Chernobyl disaster, but instead we’re exposed to little amounts of toxins on a daily basis and keep accumulating them.
Your body is not just exposed to a SINGLE toxicant from a single source! It is exposed to A LOT of them from MANY different sources, as I mentioned above.
And, these little all day every day exposures MATTER greatly in every single aspect of your health.
Why should you care?
Toxic burden is a form of stress for your body!!
The higher your toxic burden the more stress your body is under.
And, exposure to these toxicants, like any other form of stress will negatively impact your health: it can cause or exacerbate fatigue, autoimmune symptoms, hormonal imbalances, weight issues, skin problems, allergies, asthma, cancers, neurological disorders, mood disorders such as anxiety, depression and more.
Your amazing body has natural processes to eliminate these toxicants and we’ll discuss them. However, when your level of exposure is beyond what your body can handle and eliminate, you’ll run into problems.
Because when your body can’t keep up with processing and eliminating these toxicants, it has to then store them inside your tissues and that’s not good.
NONE of what I share here is to scare you, rather to encourage you to do what you can to improve this facet of your lifestyle, just like all the others, and as a result improve your physical, mental and emotional health.
This is a topic that at first may feel overwhelming, but in my work with patients I break it down for them and start with what gives them the most bang for the buck based on their symptoms, health goals and current lifestyle. So I take a personalized approach. And this helps them to be able to take immediate practical steps, clean up their lifestyle and improve their health.
Stay tuned for part two, where we’ll talk about your body’s natural detox organs and what you can do to improve the function of these organs.
I have dedicated an entire section inside my online course, Body Aligned™, to this topic of reducing your exposure to environmental toxins and improving your own body’s natural detox pathways. I teach you all the pillars of living a toxin-free life! You can’t balance your hormones, fix your energy levels or lose weight without addressing this issue!