Dr. Mark Hyman explains where toxins come from, what symptoms they cause, and walks through a five-step detoxification program to reduce your toxic load and improve your health.
Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Are you toxic? Welcome back to our series of blogs on Ultra Wellness. In the last session you learned how your hormones, when they're out of balance, can make you sick. Today we're going to learn why we're all toxic and special tools you can use for optimal detoxification. Okay, so what am I talking about? Well, there's a toxic load we're all suffering from. Things like toxic metals, petrochemicals, stress, poor diet, allergies, which burden our system. And when we are overloaded with this burden of toxins, our system breaks down and we get sick. So what kind of symptoms do people suffer from if they're toxic? Well, things like fatigue, muscle aches, joint pain, brain fog, headaches, who's got sinus problems, digestive issues, skin issues, and PMS, hormonal problems, and weight gain. These are all symptoms of being toxic. And what diseases may we find? Well, things like dementia, Parkinson's disease, cancer, heart disease. I just read in the Journal of the American Medical Association that particulate matter from air pollution increases mortality from all causes. So that's just air pollution. Chronic fatigue, autoimmunity, digestive issues, infertility, menstrual disorders all relate to toxins and being toxic. So how do you deal with this toxic load? Well, I've developed a system, a five-step program for optimal detoxification. So what are those five steps? First, find and get rid of the toxins. Two, fix your digestion, which is a big source of toxins. Three, enhance your blood and lymph circulation. Get things moving. And four, optimize your detox system. You have your own detox system that can get revved up and help you eliminate toxins easily. And five, detox your mind, heart and spirit. Okay, so let's just talk quickly about what those toxins are and how to get rid of them. There's a lot of toxins in our world, unfortunately. We have everything from mental toxins, which are our thoughts, sometimes spiritual toxins, emotional and mental toxins, these have a huge impact on us in the form of stress. Toxic foods like sugar, trans fats, food allergens all play a big role in illness. Medications, many of us are on medications which can be toxic like Tylenol, for example, and many others that we may or may not need to take. Heavy metals, things like mercury and lead, epidemics out there in society. Internal toxins, things like bacteria, fungal, metabolic and hormonal toxins, things that our bodies produce and we have to get rid of, mold toxins from the environment, and of course there's those chemical toxins from industry like pesticides and herbicides, industrial chemicals, even household cleaners. So how do we find them? We have to look carefully through our lives and see where these may be coming from and try to identify them and get rid of them. The second thing we have to do is optimize our digestion. Because if our gut's sick, and we talked about that earlier, we get sick. So we have to optimize our digestion as I discussed in the blog on digestion. Three, we have to enhance our own body's blood and lymph circulation. Things like exercise, yoga, massage, bodywork, even saunas are a powerful tool for increasing your circulation, moving things around, mobilizing toxins, sweating them out. So in order to actually get rid of toxins, you have to move them out of your body through your circulation. Very important. Next, optimize your detox system. You have liver enzymes, kidney system, skin, in your breath even, your hair, all these things are nails are ways your body eliminates and gets rid of poisons and toxins. And we can enhance that through eating foods like broccoli and garlic, Herbs like milk thistle, rosemary all help to enhance our detox system. Next we need to learn how to detox our mind, heart and spirit. And that's learning how to deal with stress. We'll talk more about that in an upcoming blog, learning how to deal with the emotional, mental, spiritual toxins that make us sick. So there's basically 12 steps that I created for optimal detoxification. First, get rid of your exposure by eating organic food and filtering your water and get rid of some large fish. Drink lots of water, keep your bowels moving, eat organic food, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, avoid caffeine and nicotine and alcohol as much as possible which are our self chosen toxins, exercise as many days a week as you can, get rid of white flour and sugar, sweat a lot, take a multivitamin, and try sometimes some special supplements like milk thistle or vitamin C, N-acetyl cysteine, all of which help your body detox. And also the last two are important steps for some people, particularly those who are under a lot of stress. Deeply relax every day, very important. And lastly, the 12th step, if you think you're toxic, you may need further testing and evaluation, testing for heavy metals, for detoxification genes, for other things, which I do in my practice. So these are the 12 steps that you can follow to help you detoxify. Learning to detoxify is essential to creating ultra wellness. It's one of the cornerstones of finding your health back. So the next session you're going to learn about why you lose energy, why you age faster than you should and how to prevent it. Stay with me for the next session. This is Dr. Hyman. Thank you for joining.
