When we are emotionally stressed at work or home, we tend to overcompensate and indulge in ‘comfort consumption’. A body detox can be a kick start to breaking bad habits that damage health, making us even unhappier. It can be one positive step towards emotional balance. The scientific community has established that our food choices are emotional and instinctive. For those with the character that need a kick start, a detox can be just the thing to consciously start changing our emotional but damaging eating habits.
At Balance2020, we always look at emotional wellbeing in the interplay of mind/body/soul. Our minds have an annoying feature: ‘hedonic adaptation‘. In simple terms, we get used to stuff and don’t appreciate it anymore. Eating and drinking the best food gets boring. One way to thwart our brain is to ‘take a break’ which is what a detox does.
The length of time needed to change a negative body habit is personal, depending how ingrained our habits are and our emotional motivations: are we looking for happiness through social rewards, propelled by fear of ill health? A study in the British Journal of General Practice, looking at ways to help change health habits, revealed 66 days was the optimum timescale in which a conscious change in habit becomes instinctive. A detox, depending on the type, does not necessarily have to last that long.
We consume to forget our worries and our anxieties. Tranquilising ourselves with over-consumption is not the way.
The medical community is divided on the health benefits of a fasting detox but the idea has been around since religion first invented fasting. It is a regular occurrence in the Hindu calendar, not only for moral and emotional reasons but also the Ayurvedic viewpoint in which the cause of many diseases is believed to be because of accumulation of materials in the digestive system. In the Western world, it is recognized that raised stress levels, and a diet that is high in fat, sugar and processed foods and low in key nutrients inhibits the ‘detoxification pathways’. Unless you have a serious medical condition, toxins are cleansed from the body with the body’s organs. Products and good nutrition can support but not replace this process. Detox diets can come in many forms. Short 3-7 day liquid detox diets of soups or juicing can be beneficial to those with digestive issues and characters that need a kick start.
Detox Retreats for Emotion- the luxury of time out.
What to do in lockdown? Detox products and retreats are almost as numerous as the stars in the sky. Of the top ten detox retreats in the world, voted by those in the know like Conde Nast Travel, World Spa awards, the team at Balance2020 only found a few that focused on emotional health.
Though, we’d all like to have the time to retreat from life, and since the pandemic, the luxury of being able to get to Kamalaya or Lanzerhof or Hippocrates Health Institute or Aro Ha, here some ideas to help you in your daily life:
The Body Detox Myth
Unless you have a serious medical condition, toxins are cleansed from the body with the body’s organs (skin, bowel, kidneys, liver and lungs) and there are ways to support this process. A ‘shock detox’ performed over a couple of days, such as a fast, a soup or a juicing cure can be the right thing for people with a character that needs a ‘kick start’ to changing habits or those suffering from digestive problems and need to get nutrients directly into the body without taxing digestion.
It is being recognized in the scientific community as a health benefit. From a long term perspective, ‘a shock detox’ cannot be sustained, whether it is for weight loss, detox or whatever objective to reach emotional well being. Toxins or even bad habits can be built up over years. It usually takes more than days to change bad habits and the physical impact on the body.
How long should a Detox be? How long does it take to change health habits?
Changing a habit to reach physical and emotional health, either getting rid of an undesired one or forming a new one is a very personal thing. It can take anywhere from 3 days to 2 years, depending on how ingrained the habit is. It can take three days to get rid of the traces of noxious substances like nicotine and a relationship counsellor will tell you that it can take up to two years to get over an emotional break up and all the associated habits that affect the body, such as over-indulging.
Many factors are involved such as how long the habit has been there and motivational factors such social rewards or fear of being blocked by ill health.
21 DAYS IS A MYTH
The span is wider In the self-help world, there is a 21 day myth, formed in the 1960s by Maxwell Maitz in his book Psycho-Cybernetics, defining the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining a personal goal. His work has been used by top athletes. For ordinary people a 2009 study from the University College London published in The European Journal of Social Psychology suggested that the window is much wider from 18 to 254 days.
REGULARLY DETOXING IS OPTIMUM
There is a growing body of scientific research demonstrating the effects of Periodic Fasting e.g a 5 day diet and Intermittant Fasting, e.g. a calorie restriction 2 days per week or a time restricted eating, e.g only eating for 8 hours a day has a positive effect on body health and lifespan.
66 DAYS TO CHANGE A HABIT
A study from 2012, published in the British Journal of General Practice, looking at weight loss and ways to help change health habits, revealed 66 days. The study argues that advisory work aimed at the deliberative motivational processes, which Kahneman (LINK) terms slow or ‘System 2’ processes is short lived because motivation or attention wanes. Whereas aiming at engaging automatic or system 1 mental processes will have long-term impact on change.
FOLLOW YOUR SOUL WITH RELIGION
For the more spiritually religious, 40 days seems to be the number in Christianity or 30 days in the Muslim fast and as cited above, is a regular occurrence in Hinduism. The Buddhist monks are known for entering a fast from midday to dawn the next day. As cited above, science says that restricted eating does improve body health. The idea has filtered through into popular dieting in the form of the 16:8 Intermittent Fasting Plan
‘Shock Detox or Kick Start’ – Juicing or Fasting for emotional health
Juicing or Fasting diets can last anything from a day to a month. Juicing involves consuming fruit and vegetable juices. Fasting can involve a soup diet, with a similar concept and may be more appropriate in the colder weather as one of the side effects of juicing does involve a drop in body temperature.
Fans of liquid detoxes see the process as a quick and effective way of getting nutrients into the body, particularly for those with digestive problems and a way of ‘rebooting’ the body or cleansing the intestines for a proper function including absorption of ‘emotional’ hormones’.
Science of emotions and food
From an emotional health perspective, a liquid detox can break the cycle of consumption habits, for example a dependence on ‘comfort foods’. Many bloggers report increased emotions during ‘detox’. Given the strong relation between nutrition and survival, it can be assumed that many of our food choices are intuitive, automatic and based on emotion. Intuitively, we also know that we can often use food to compensate for negative emotions, such as unhappiness. In the scientific community, there has been an increasing interest in food-evoked emotions and emotion measurement instruments have been developed such as the EsSense Pro (ESP) scale (King and Meisleman 2010) or the Geneva Emotion and OdorScale (GEOS) in French (Chrea et al.2009). Unlike a recognized standard BMI measurement for the body, emotional measurement scales are varied and results are conflicting but the recognition that emotion plays an instinctive role in food choice is there. With a liquid detox, there is a conscious move from instinctive emotional eating to a conscious cognitive choice.
Science of fasting and health
There is a growing body of scientific research demonstrating the effects of Periodic Fasting e.g a 5 day diet and Intermittent Fasting, e.g. a calorie restriction 2 days per week or a time restricted eating, e.g only eating for 8 hours a day on health and lifespan. As Science Direct reports Intermittent fasting activates cellular and molecular mechanisms that enhance DNA repair and counteract disease processes hence improving health. Periodic fasting also promotes stem cell-based regeneration as well as long-lasting metabolic effects.
Clearly, feeling hungry can make you feel irritable but this can be a process of ‘pain’ for gain or as many religions dictate, the ‘pain’ can be interpreted as fellow-pain, reminding an individual of those less lucky and prompting doing ‘good for others’, another positive step to feeling emotionally good. Always talk with your doctor or dietician before embarking on drastic changes to your diet. Finding emotional balance and body health is a personal journey. A form of fasting can have benefits:
The Pros of a liquid detox or fasting:
- A diet of processed foods, high levels of salt and sugar, hormone infused meats as well as environmental toxins can provide pressure on the digestive process. A liquid detox can provide temporary relief.
- A liquid detox will reduce the calorie intake which leads to temporary weight loss
- The vitamins needed from fruit and vegetables can be acquired with a liquid detox
- Juices or liquified fruit and vegetables are rich in anti-inflammatory compounds that may boost the immune system and can help a person feel more energetic
- It can be the ‘kick start’ needed to change habits, which are making you unhappy in your body & mind & soul.
The Cons of a liquid detox or fasting:
- It is a myth that a liquid detox is necessary to reduce waste in your body
- ‘Detoxing your way to happiness doesn’t happen. It is one step on the way.
- Liquid Detoxes unless smoothie based have no fibre, needed to feel full and aid digestion. Similarly, there is a lack of necessary protein in a liquid detox diet.
- The reduced calorie intake may affect blood sugar levels, causing the ‘detox headache’ and lower energy as well as a hungry feeling, which can cause irritability and trigger one of our primary, universal emotions, anger.
- Not sticking to a strict regime can trigger feelings of guilt or anxiety.
Alternatives to the a short Detox Diet – give yourself a challenge
The shock detox may not be for you and the negative emotions or lack of belief may outweigh the benefits. If you feel that maybe that one piece of chocolate has slipped to munching a whole bar and that your consumption is out of balance, you may not feel very happy about yourself. If you know that making changes to your eating habits for the better is something that you need to make you feel better about yourself and happier, there are some alternatives:
- Setting yourself challenges: for example, some may decide that their alcohol or sweet intake is too high and decide to eliminate it for a set period of time
- Replacing comfort foods with healthier alternatives: for example, dark chocolate is a fantastic alternative to milk chocolate and may even help produce the happy hormone serotonin.
It’s all about Balance – Balance2020 Body Detox recommendation
At Balance2020, it’s all about finding balance in your emotions and life in order to avoid the stress on your body, mind and soul of excessive highs and lows.
For a practical holistic guide to a longer lasting detox including body and mind, we recommend Dr Jennifer Harper’s Detox Handbook or The 4-Week Ultimate Body Detox Plan by Michele Schofro Cook.
It’s all about your Emotional Health
We love to hear from our community. Though there is a set of universal emotions that we all feel, emotional health through the body, and particularly attitudes to and experiences with Detox can be a very individual experience. Let us know what you think.
