Exercise during a Detox…
The human body was designed by nature to move, not to remain perpetually inert and immobile. When you’re watching television or sitting at a desk, riding in a car or standing in a lift, your lymph stands still and your blood slows down, and whenever this happens, waste drainage halts and toxins accumulate rapidly in the blood tissues.
Insufficient exercise stiffens the joints and tightens the tendons, congests the bowels and reduces metabolic efficiency. An ancient Chinese text on human health states, “moving water never stagnates: active hinges never rust” That means if you exercise gently every day, to keep your blood, lymph and other vital fluids flowing freely, and to keep your joints and other moving parts active, then your bodily fluids won’t stagnate and become toxic, and your joints won’t ‘rust’ with arthritis and stiffness.
Regular, rhythmic body movements are particularly important for moving the lymph, because, unlike blood, which is pumped by the heart, lymph flow depends entirely on gravity and the body movements of mobility. Since the lymph must work even harder than usual to cleanse the blood and tissues during a detox program it’s important to help keep the lymph flowing freely with daily exercise.
The type of exercise required during a detox is very different from strenuous sports activities such as tennis, football and weightlifting. Western field sports and other forms of ‘hard’ style exercise produce lactic acid in the tissues and carbon dioxide in the bloodstream as metabolic by-products of muscular exertion, and this contributes to acidosis, which is always counterproductive to detox. One of the primary purposes of any detox program is to eliminate acids and alkalize the system.
Hard style exercise also keeps the autonomic nervous system locked into the ‘fight or flight’ sympathetic branch, which switches off self-cleansing and healing responses, and causes muscular tension and tightness in joints and tendons, which interfere with the state of complete physical relaxation required for detox to proceed.
Yoga
Yoga and detoxification go hand in hand. The word ‘yoga’ means ‘union’ – hence, yoga helps to bring union or balance to the whole being; bringing harmony to mind, body and spirit.
The gentle stretching postures will pump the lymph through the system, assisting the free circulation of blood, without causing any muscular tension and without saturating the tissues with lactic acid or overloading the blood with carbon dioxide. The gentle movements will help bring your body into alignment, improve circulation and encourage the elimination of toxins.
Specific postures will be used to massage the internal organs, ensuring optimum blood supply to all parts of the body. You will also learn breathing techniques that help to bring more oxygen to the lungs which in turn assists in the removal of cellular waste and toxic matter.
Breathing:
We practice our Detox Yoga in conjunction with slow, deep rhythmic breathing that fully engages the diaphragm. The combination of slow stretching and loosening manoeuvres with deep diaphragmatic breathing drives blood and lymph through the body like a strong pump, facilitating rapid drainage of toxins from tissues and swift delivery of wastes to the eliminatory organs.
Deep breathing greatly enhances oxygenation of the blood and tissues, which helps neutralize acidosis and maintains a healthy alkaline environment inside the body.
When breathing properly, the diaphragm descends deeply into the abdominal cavity, providing an invigorating massage to the internal organs and glands. Diaphragmatic breathing gently squeezes the internal organs like a sponge on inhalation, draining out stale blood, then releases the pressure on exhalation, drawing freshly oxygenated blood into the organs. This deep diaphragmatic pressure on the internal organs and glands accelerates the detox process and extends it into the deepest, densest tissues of the body.
Most importantly, deep breathing, especially when performed in conjunction with slow rhythmic body movements, immediately produces the state of physical and mental relaxation required to switch the autonomic nervous system into the healing restorative mode of the parasympathetic branch. Detoxification and healing can only proceed when the nervous system is operating in the parasympathetic circuit.
Meditation:
Many people ask “What is meditation and what good can it do me?”
Essentially, the answer to the question is a simple one; Meditation is an approach that anyone can use to help them cope with stress, anxiety and medical problems by way of thought, contemplation, and reflection.
In everyday life, your mind is constantly processing a barrage of sensations, visual impressions, emotions and thoughts. When you meditate, you narrow your focus, limit the stimuli bombarding your nervous system and calm your mind in the process.
During our Guided Meditations you will simply practice focusing your attention on a particular object – generally something simple, like a word or phrase, a candle flame or geometrical figure or the coming and going of your breath.
Benefits of Meditation:
- Meditation promotes a state of physical and mental relaxation
- Reduces Stress & Anxiety
- Decreases blood pressure
- Improves breathing due to the increase of air flow that gets to the lungs.
- Relieves Insomnia
- Improves Mood, Memory & depression.