Signs You Need to Do a Cleanse
According to traditions like Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, your wellbeing is dependent on how well your body can balance out what’s happening around you. For example, when the weather is hot, you stay healthy by keeping yourself cool, when you’re in a dry climate, you need to put in extra effort to stay hydrated.
Most of this is very intuitive, but the issue is that there are a lot of factors in modern life that make it harder for you to stay balanced.
From pesticides and other chemicals in food and water, to a sedentary lifestyle and stressful schedules that impact your sleep, there’s a lot more to deal with than our bodies are designed to handle!
But even before the industrial revolution, medicine people from around the world have observed that we become especially susceptible to imbalance as the weather changes in spring and fall.
This is why many traditions advise doing a cleanse.
A gentle cleanse gives your body the opportunity to reset its systems so it can stay balanced and healthy as things shift around you.
It’s not something you need to do frequently, but it can give you extra support when life inevitably becomes challenging, or even just a little bit rocky. Your body will also tell you pretty clearly when it’s time to do a cleanse, but you have to learn how to recognize the signs.
Signs you need a spring cleanse
Spring is active, productive, invigorating, and the time of year when nature is picking up momentum. This is when ideas start to materialize, plans are set, steps are being taken, life is literally blossoming! It’s an exciting time.
Spring’s energy is moving up and out, fast, but if you haven’t cleared out winter’s energy yet, this fast-paced energy can leave you feeling like you’re dragging through mud.
Here are some of most common signs you need to do a cleanse in spring:
- Low appetite
- Congestion
- Seasonal spring allergies
- Lackluster or lethargic feelings
- Frustration
- Restlessness
- Muscle heaviness
- A thick white tongue coat, and/or a swollen tongue with scalloped edges
- Stress and/or anxiety
- Sleep issues
- Sluggish digestion
It’s normal to notice these signs of imbalance as we transition out of the colder, less-active, hibernation phase that is winter, but just because something is normal doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
These are all signs that your life-force energy (a.k.a. qi, prana) isn’t flowing as well as it could, and this lack of flow is having a noticeable, negative impact on you.
The effects might feel subtle right now, but there’s the potential for bigger imbalances to show up down the line…unless you do something about it.
Luckily, there are simple ways to cleanse your system and support your vitality this time of year.
How to do a spring cleanse in 10 steps
Cleansing isn’t just about avoiding heavy foods and staying hydrated.
You’re going to get a lot more out of your cleanse if you take a holistic approach, and this means making small shifts to your lifestyle as well as your diet.
- Get outside every day if you can and make it a point to get a little sweaty
- Take saunas or very hot baths, and alternate with cold if it feels good
- Practice dry brushing, and massage your body with a light oil (like almond or grapeseed,) before bathing
- Wake up with the sun and reduce napping during the day
- Only eat when you’re hungry
- Drink fresh ginger tea
- Favor bitter, astringent, and pungent flavors
- Eat drying grains like barley, rye, corn, millet, and buckwheat
- Avoid cold foods, cold drinks, dairy products, and heavy/sticky/greasy foods
- Enroll in Revitalize™, a self-guided spring cleanse to help you cultivate a calm mind and thriving body
Contrary to popular opinion, a healthy cleanse doesn’t need to involve juice fast or only eating salads. Those can actually be really stressful, and often cause more problems than they claim to fix.
No, the best way to get the most out of spring is by doing a cleanse that supports your digestion, nourishes you to the core, and helps you clear out life’s usual stressors so you can welcome in a lighter way of being. And that’s exactly what Revitalize is designed to do.
Here are some of the benefits people enjoy after completing the program:
- Feeling good in your body
- Waking up each morning as refreshed and eager as a baby bunny
- Going to sleep deeply satisfied, with each cell of your body thanking you for the nourishment you’ve taken in
- Clearer skin
- Easy, comfortable digestion
- Having your inner light shine so bright that strangers ask you for your your secret (seriously, it happens to me all the time)
Signs you need a cleanse in fall
In fall, nature’s energy moves in the opposite direction. Instead of moving up and out like it does in springtime, the in and down movement of energy is made evident by the leaves falling off trees and the nights getting longer.
While in spring you benefit from adding more activity and bold, pungent flavors to your food to clear out the cold and damp that accumulated in winter, in autumn the idea is to to bring more stability, gentle warmth, and deep nourishment so you have the inner resources you need to stay balanced through dry, windy, and cool weather.
The transition into fall can be especially difficult for people who already have a hard time feeling grounded.
Here are some of the most common signs and symptoms of imbalance that show you that you need to do a cleanse in fall:
- Gas, bloating, constipation
- Dry skin, scalp, and hair
- Dry cough
- Brittle nails
- Cracking joints
- Brain fog
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Melancholy
- Jealousy
How to do a fall cleanse in 10 steps
In fall, you want to bring warm, grounding, lubricating, and rhythmic qualities into your diet and lifestyle.
- Eat more naturally sweet and grounding foods like root veggies, squash, and whole grains
- Massage your body in the morning with a warming oil like sesame
- Keep a routine: eat, sleep, and exercise on a regular schedule, don’t skip meals!
- Drink warm water and spicy teas like homemade chai
- Eat only warm foods, avoid cold foods and drinks
- Avoid bubbly water and large beans (they can add too much wind to your system)
- Pre-soak and sprout grains and legumes (to make them easier to digest)
- Add warming spices to your foods, like cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and fennel
- Add more fats to your meals, especially nuts and seeds, cold-pressed sesame oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocados and avocado oil, and ghee
- In early fall, eat bitter and astringent foods to clear out excess summer heat. In late fall, add in more salty and sour flavors
You can also do a full-blown cleanse for 3-7 days as is suggested in Revitalize™, but you’d want to make some modifications to the flavors and routines you emphasize to better complement the fall.
Cleansing is a great way to give your body a chance to reset in spring and fall, but balance is something to strive for all year long.
Click here to take the Best Foods for Your Mind-Body Type Quiz and learn the foods and flavors your unique body needs in order to thrive.
