Today’s article by Dr. Hernán Sosa talks about news, tips and information to live a healthier, healthier and longer life.
Today she explains why to do a detox treatment after the holidays.
And it will try to answer the usual questions: why, how, how long and others that may arise.

Are the excesses over?

Detoxification is always important.
However, it takes on a prominent role after the holidays as toxins tend to accumulate in your body over time.
This is due to a lack of exercise, an abundance of unhealthy foods, and an increase in alcohol consumption. Unhealthy habits that usually happen when we’re on vacation.

A detox after the holidays will help your body get rid of toxins more quickly, but it will also help restore the gut microbiota.
This is extremely important because this area can often become unbalanced due to an increase in the consumption of processed foods and especially alcohol abuse.

Bad habits during the holidays require a detox treatment

It is known that during the holidays, social and family obligations usually have the highest priority.
But aside from staying organically and emotionally healthy, we need to try to control all that fun with a balanced lifestyle.

When returning from a trip, it can be difficult to get back into your usual routine.
This is because your body has gone through very drastic changes in the last few days.
Normally, people eat more and differently than normal (excessive amounts of foods rich in sugars and/or fats), sleep is reduced for several days and alcohol enjoyment increases.

Here’s how to start resetting simple steps to naturally reset your body after the holidays.

Rehydrate your body

It is important to increase your fluid intake after the holidays.
It is essential to avoid dehydration by drinking plenty of water, teas or infusions and eating fruits.

As a general rule, the more alkaline the diet, the more health benefits.
Foods high in acid can cause cellular dehydration and can increase cellular oxidation with subsequent impaired immunity.

More hydrating foods also contain higher levels of nutrients and are beneficial for cellular health.
This includes foods that are anti-inflammatory and have as low an acid to alkaline content as possible.
Cucumber is a good example of an alkaline food, and because of its triterpenes, it can work well to regulate states that involve the immune system.
DOI:10.1016/j.jep.2009.12.045

Dehydration is usually manifested by thirst.
Thirst is the body’s mechanism to alert to a need to increase water consumption in response to perceived deficits of bodily fluids.
It can occur due to intracellular dehydration caused by increases in the effective osmolality of the extracellular fluid.
Here, the mediation is by the osmoreceptors located in the anterior hypothalamus of the brain.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.11.019

An unbalanced diet can lead to increased fluid retention

When we are in the sun, sweating causes extracellular dehydration, because it reduces the volume of water available to the blood and interstitial fluids.
Sweating also causes intracellular dehydration.
Because sweat is less salty than blood, it leaves behind excess salt that increases blood osmolality.
Therefore, these two mechanisms often go hand in hand under normal circumstances.
However, it’s helpful to think of these two types of dehydration separately, because the brain uses different mechanisms to detect them.

But beware, that sometimes an unbalanced diet, increased sodium and alcohol content, together with an exaggerated increase in fluids, can generate an increase in fluid retention.
A good option to counteract this condition could be an addition of some drainant such as our DRENANT – Prickly pear powder

Prioritize sleep

When you’re detoxifying and cleansing your body, it’s important to prioritize sleep.
This will give the body time to repair cells that might have been damaged by toxins throughout the day.
During the holidays, we often go to bed very late, and sometimes we get up too early to take advantage of the sun. Restoring your body’s natural sleep circadian rhythm after the holidays is essential for detoxification.

We all know what happens if you’re not getting enough sleep: cortisol increases, moodiness and unwanted weight gain could follow.
Sleep problems are a growing concern for global public health because sleep deprivation is associated with impairments in motivation, emotions, and cognitive functioning.

Lack of sleep increases cortisol synthesis.

At SALENGEI we have a supplement based on Melatonin, medicinal plants, vitamins and minerals that help to reduce the time to fall asleep, reduce fatigue and the feeling of tiredness, and protect cells from oxidative damage.
We are talking about Active Sweet Dreams.

Administration of alcohol before sleep – in healthy individuals – produced reasonably consistent and well-documented results.
Administering alcohol close to bedtime is associated with decreased sleep onset latency and increased slow-wave sleep during the early part of the night.
However, once alcohol is metabolized within the first few hours of sleep, subsequent sleep becomes lighter with increases in stage 1 and REM sleep and more disruptions throughout the night. https://doi.org/10.1300/J465v26n01_01

Get your oral hygiene routine back on track

Your mouth is the first part of the intestinal axis, so good gut and overall health can start here.
The bacterial communities found in the mouth are very complex, with around 1000 species present and have been shown to be the second most complex in the body, after the colon. https://doi.org/10.1128/JB.00542-10

The commensal microbiota plays an important role in maintaining oral and systemic health. Because all surfaces of the mouth are colonized by commensals, there are few binding sites available for pathogens.
The importance of this effect can be seen when the commensal microbiota is altered, for example by antibiotics. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(01)00066-4

An interesting property of the oral microbiome relates to nitrate metabolism and cardiovascular health.
About a quarter of the nitrate ingested is returned to the mouth through an entero-salivary circuit.
Oral bacteria reduce nitrate to nitrite, which is absorbed into the bloodstream through gastric absorption and converted to nitric oxide.
Nitric oxide is essential for vascular health and helps keep blood vessels supple and pliable, so it has an antihypertensive effect.
Nitrate dietary supplements lower blood pressure by stimulating this mechanism. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.110.153536

Taking care of your intestinal flora is taking care of your immune system directly.

Active Flora contains a composition of bacterial strains with great gastrointestinal survival, saccharomyces boulardii, fiber and aloe vera that help to repopulate your intestines with healthy microorganisms.

Establish and stick to an intermittent fasting schedule

A healthy way to detox after the holidays is with intermittent fasting.
If you’ve been on vacation and have become accustomed to eating four very large meals a day, along with drinks and snacks, an intermittent fasting routine can help you give your meals the necessary discipline and structure. You can start with a 12-hour fast and work it up to 16 hours.
This will allow your body a needed break from digestion and will also help you shed excess weight from the holidays by burning fat stores while preserving muscle mass.

Two publications have reviewed time-restricted feeding in rodent models.
We identified 13 studies that had daily fasting intervals ranging from 12 to 21 hours.
Despite the heterogeneity of published studies, overall, time-restricted eating was associated with reductions in body weight, total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, insulin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and TNF-α, as well as improvements in insulin sensitivity. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2016.06.001 and https://doi.org/10.1111/nure.12104

Fasting allows digestion to rest and will promote the elimination of toxins

To detoxify your body after the holidays, have a cup of good coffee.
Several studies have shown that black coffee can actually be helpful for the liver.
While the exact mechanism of coffee’s beneficial effects is unclear, the drink contains more than a thousand substances including caffeine, diterphenic alcohols, potassium, niacin, magnesium, and antioxidants such as chlorogenic acid and tocopherols. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrs.2007.01.006

A European case-control study has suggested an inverse association between coffee intake and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma that is partly explained by biomarkers (IL-6, etc.) of inflammation and hepatocellular damage. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.115.116095

Recently, autophagy, preferably of damaged proteins and organelles such as dysfunctional mitochondria, has gained much attention as a global anti-aging and health-promoting property.
There is some evidence to suggest that coffee may be partially acting by inducing autophagy in vivo. https://doi.org/10.4161/cc.28929

In addition, the available experimental and clinical evidence suggests that coffee consumption has protective effects against metabolic syndrome, as well as the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver. https://doi.org/10.1021/jf904062c

Finally, if you are interested in losing weight from the excesses of summer, we recommend the Active Silhouette, a supplement based on different components derived from plants with a thermogenic effect together with minerals such as chromium, which contributes to the maintenance of normal blood glucose levels, promote weight loss.

Exercise

This simple recommendation can provide some detoxification benefits, but you’ll need to exercise for at least 30 minutes.
Working with weights will help strengthen your muscles and increase lean mass, which is important since muscles help your kidneys process toxins more effectively.

The liver is very important during exercise due to its contribution to detoxification, synthesis and release of biomolecules and energy supply to the muscles.
Recently, it has also been shown that the liver plays an important role in the redox state and inflammatory modulation during exercise.
In fact, intense and acute exercise challenges the liver with an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the onset of inflammation, while regular training induces antioxidant and anti-inflammatory liver improvements. https://doi.org/10.1080/10715762.2017.1291942

Cardiovascular exercises are ideal for detoxifying the body

A combination could be strength training combined with cardio, yoga, or pilates for at least 30 minutes.
Cardiovascular exercises are ideal for detoxifying the body because they help increase the heart rate and stimulate circulation, which helps with the detoxification process.

One study suggested that physical training attenuated diabetes-induced alterations in antioxidant enzymes in the liver of diabetic rats by improving the redox and elimination status of hepatic reactive oxygen species.
This result implies a positive effect of physical training on diabetes-induced hepatic oxidative stress. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2015.01.031

And for when you finish the detox, which improves your muscle mass during sport, I recommend Protein with Collagen and Cocoa.
Perfect blend of vegetable protein, collagen and cocoa.
Due to its protein content, it helps to preserve and increase muscle mass and maintain bones under normal conditions.

Eat foods for liver health and repair

You can help in the detoxification process by eating foods that are beneficial to the liver.
These foods can help reduce the risk of liver disease, raise levels of antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes, and help the liver eliminate harmful toxins.

And to detoxify the body, Active Detox

Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage are great detoxifying vegetables because they contain sulfur compounds that can break down harmful substances in the body.
Try fermented foods like kefir, kimchi, and kombucha to help support your gut flora.
Fermented foods add natural probiotics to your gut microbiome.

Active Detox contributes to liver detoxification and cell protection against oxidative damage.
You probably remember our article about liver detoxification.
There we explain the phases of the procedure and which enzymes are involved in each step.

Conclusions

While everyone wants a quick fix, remember that it will take a while for your body to get back to normal after a vacation.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it will take more than 24 hours for your body to detox and cleanse itself from the holidays.

As we always say, the idea is always to lead a healthy lifestyle, so you don’t have to make such drastic changes that are not beneficial for your body.
Everything in moderation is the message we give to our customers and readers of the blog.
To conclude, we leave a phrase from the philosopher Epictetus of Phrygia: “At feasts, remember that you have two guests: the body and the soul. What you give to your body you will lose.” Until the next meeting!