Why Do A Spring Cleanse?

Now that I’m wrapping up with several clients whom I’ve guided through our Spring Cleanse and Ayurvedic De-tox, and now that Tiffany and I have finished our own annual spring cleanse, I have a few thoughts that I’d like to share with you. First, I recognize that a lot of you are interested in the cleanse but you’re not sure if the program we offer is one that will fit your timeframe, commitments and/or lifestyle. Let me provide a few more details on our program so that you have a better idea of what you’d be getting into if you, should you decide to try it.

Our program generally takes about 2 weeks to complete, give or take a few days. For daily coffee drinkers I generally recommend tapering off in advance of starting the first week of the cleanse. If you count these days you’re reducing your coffee intake, then it can add a little extra time to the program. I also think it’s a good idea for people who drink alcohol regularly to stop for 2 or 3 days before beginning to make other changes to diet and lifestyle. It’s not essential, but even moderate drinkers can sometimes experience a bit of withdrawal from stopping all intake of alcohol and it’s good to get this out of the way before starting this process.

Ayurvedic cleansing is partly about taking as much pressure off the digestive system as possible so that it can do it’s job more efficiently. That job, to transform the food we eat into a form that we can easily assimilate and transform into healthy tissue, can be made more difficult in multiple ways. Eating too fast, eating inappropriate food, eating at the wrong time and eating under stress are just a few of many examples of behaviors that make it harder for our digestive system to transform our food in an optimal way.

Some of these examples, such as eating under stress, may be due to circumstances beyond our control. But others, such as our choice of food, are well within our control and provide opportunities to make choices that are more favorable to our digestive health, better for assimilation, and helpful for producing better quality tissue along with better health overall.

When we make good choices with diet and lifestyle, good digestion and good health tend to follow. But we don’t always make the best choices and our digestion may suffer as a result. When this happens we tend to have poor transformation of food, poor assimilation and may sometimes begin to accumulate toxicity in the digestive tract.

Let me pause here a moment as say that while the above scenario is far from optimal, it is typical for most of us. Life gets in the way of making good choices and as I said, sometimes things are beyond our control. So this formation and accumulation of toxicity in the G.I. tract is something we all tend to have to some extent or another. And when this toxicity sticks around long enough it will eventually be absorbed and follow the food path into our tissue where it can damage tissue health and cause disease.

Again, this accumulation of toxicity is going on to some extent in all of us. However, a proper cleanse is a way of clawing back some of the health we lose as a result of these accumulated toxins, and while I can only offer anecdotal evidence that it works, my experience and that of the clients I’ve guided through the cleanse is a sense of renewal and clarity. The body and mind feel cleaner, better lubricated and they begin to hum along like a well tuned machine (I’m not generally crazy about the machine analogy when discussing the human body but I’m hoping it speaks to you in this case).

In addition to eliminating various foods and beverages to take stress of the digestive system, our spring cleanse also helps eliminate the toxicity that has already made its way into the tissue. This is what makes it different from other popular cleanses or fasts. Our program goes this extra step and and I think that’s what makes it so effective.

Tiffany, myself and our clients have experienced quite a few specific positive changes as a result of doing the spring cleanse. One is less pain in our bodies. Last year a client who has some arthritic joints saw a dramatic reduction in arthritic pain. This year some minor hip/back pain I’d been having resolved during the cleanse. For some clients, minor aches and pains completely disappear.

Another positive change that we’ve noticed in ourselves and in our clients is an improvement in mental clarity. Nearly every person that we’ve guided through the spring cleanse has commented on feeling more clear mentally during and after the cleanse.

The cleanse has also proved helpful to  clients with long standing digestive issues, and some of them have seen those issues significantly reduced or even eliminated during the cleanse. These are folks who have already tried making substantial changes to their diet in the past, such as eating a gluten free diet or eliminating dairy, without really seeing a signifiant change in their symptoms.

The dietary changes in our spring cleanse starts with an elimination of alcohol and caffeine and a short list of hard to digest foods. These changes can have a big impact on how we feel physically, but can sometimes be difficult psychologically (I know they sometimes are for me). I try to remind myself and my clients that however difficult some of these changes might be, they are only temporary and we needn’t feel that we must take on a major overhaul of our diet and lifestyle going forward – FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES!  This is not the point of the cleanse anyway. This cleanse is about making short term changes that have specific intentions meant to have specific effects, and once those effects are achieved then we should feel very free to go back to our normal diet.

Still, longer term changes can and do happen and most clients will decide to continue with some of the changes they’ve made during the cleanse even after they finish. Last spring, for instance, one client decided not to go back to caffeine after her cleanse. She decided she didn’t need it and gave it up. I’m not sure I could ever do that but I fully support her choice and was impressed with her resolve.

I’d also like to emphasize that our spring cleanse is not about pain and suffering. You will be eating three squares a day and will be encouraged to avoid anything that creates a lot of stress for you. In the same way that the cleanse design is partly about taking stress off of your digestive system, it’s even more about taking stress off of you. This give you space to see yourself more objectively and gain some clarity – about your diet, your lifestyle, your body, your mind and your health in general. This space allows the foods, substances or behaviors that aren’t serving you to be brought into focus and it begins a process of letting some things go. Ideally this happens gradually, naturally, and without difficulty.

Still, for those of you who aren’t up for any or all of the above, there are some good ways of making smaller changes this spring that will still have a significant impact. Here are a few:

• Take a break from alcohol : If you drink alcohol regularly, it’s a good idea to take a break now and again. Try taking 2-4 weeks off entirely and see how you feel. Remember. It’s only temporary!
• Lighten your diet : The qualities of moist and heavy tend to accumulate over the winter in the form of excess kapha. Look at all of the light green vegetables nature offers us this time of year. Asparagus, sugar snap peas and spring onions help reduce excess kapha and improve digestive health. Don’t like those foods? Just try eating less cheese.
• Reduce Raw and Favor Cooked : Fresh raw veggies are so healthy right? Well yes, but they contain little or no fire element and can be too cooling for some and place a drag on our digestive fire. The solution – cook your veggies well. Worried about losing their valuable nutrients? Consider all of the nutrients you’ll be getting from your food when your digestion is really working its best!
• Stop Snacking: Small meals more often is in my view, unhelpful for most people. Our digestive system needs time to complete the process of digestion and having a new meal after 2 hours, however modest, doesn’t allow that process to reach completion.
• Try Intermittent Fasting: This can be as simple as not eating after a certain time or leaving at least 12 hours between your evening meal and your breakfast. Feeling more ambitious? Try skipping dinner one day a week.

There’s still time to schedule your Spring Cleanse and Ayurvedic De-Tox. If you’re interested or have more questions, feel free to email me any time.

Happy Spring!