Detoxing. The Kundalini Yoga Perspective
Detox
There is a modern fashion with ‘going on a detox’, which normally implies restricting certain foods, a mono diet or even fasting on water and herbal teas or juices.
It is counter-intuitive to think that if you have less you feel more – more energised and more light!
The protein myth, in particular, perpetuates the idea that we need lots of protein and the meat and dairy industry obviously have a vested interest in perpetuating this myth.
Actually, excess protein just pushes the cells of the body to work harder.
In the short term you feel energised but often, later on, more tired.
In the longer term it doesn’t seem so wise to push the body to work harder…
Withdrawl/Die-Off Reactions
So detoxing the body by allowing it to rest and for excesses to be expelled is good for you; (it is common during a detox to have nausea or headaches as a consequence of the death of yeasts/unfriendly bacteria).
These die off reactions are usually short lived and just show that the body is dropping a toxic load.
Some of you will also be familiar with stopping coffee and getting headaches and feel shaking as a consequence of detoxifying from caffeine.
The thing is a lot of people detox and then binge and then detox again and so on but if you don’t overeat and you don’t take alcohol, sugar, too much animal protein, caffeine or drugs the body doesn’t need to detox much in the first place.
Eating Light and Summary
So my suggestion would be eat light and if you want to detox late spring when the weather starts to warm is a good time to do it.
Yogi Bhajan wrote a book called ‘The Art of Self-Healing’ and in there are many fasts, mono diets and foods for specific conditions as well.
In summary, it is worth asking the question why we need to go on a detox in the first place.
Yoga and meditation cultivate in us an increased awareness of our actions and the result of our actions.
Once Kundalini Yoga becomes an everyday practice we are less inclined to overeat or reach for the wrong kinds of food because we have more presence in each moment to make decisions that support our best self, and if we fall of the wagon every now and then we won’t fall too far because Kundalini Yoga will be there the next day to remind us to keep up.
