Gentle Spring Detox
Rachel NelsonSpring is one of my favorite seasons as I am sure it is for many folks. We get to move our bodies more, enjoy warm sunshine on our faces, prepare our gardens for planting, and smell and enjoy the sights and smells of the spring bloom. A truly beautiful time that should be thoroughly enjoyed.
After a long winter of cold and constriction and sustaining, spring ushers in a great time to gently cleanse and detox the body as it too slowly unfurls under the growing sunshine.
Spring is a transition time that helps our bodies prepare for the coming warm summer months. It is a great time to do some body cleansing to shrug off the heaviness of winter. And you don’t have to commit to a long or tenuous cleanse. With mindfulness, a plan and consistency, you can support your body in the seasonal transition and gear it up to look and feel amazing during the extroverted sunny summer months.
Aim to implement the usage of a spring-cleaning routine for about 1 month. You can create a system that works for you and caters to your particular needs or health goals. The end goal of a spring detox cleanse is to rid the body of accumulated heavy metals and other environmental toxins.
It is important to keep in mind that the body holds onto these toxins and if we don’t cleanse them out they keep building up in the body’s tissues eventually causing health problems including but certainly not limited to cancer. That being said it is good practice to cleanse ideally twice a year coinciding with the Earth’s natural rhythms of transition of spring and autumn.
Before we delve into the botanicals that are beloved for their cleansing benefits I want to share some other components of doing a spring detox. It may seem redundant to talk about these things but it is the small, consistent things that get us to our final goals so they mustn’t be shrugged off as not important!
Top of the list is getting plenty of exercise. Move your body. Take a walk around your neighborhood or at a local park, go on a hike, swim, play a sport, practice yoga, anything to get your heart rate moving and your body active.
Getting plenty of pure water to drink daily should go without saying! Get plenty for your particular body size and make sure it is as pure as possible. Your body is only as clean as the water and food you put into it.
One of my favorite wellness routines that is paramount to spring-cleaning is dry skin brushing. Dry skin brushing has been implemented into skincare for thousands of years by peoples from all over the globe. In Ayurveda, the 5,000 year-old medical system of India dry brushing, called Garshana has been used to promote circulation, exfoliate the skin and stimulate and detoxify the lymphatic system. Raw silk gloves or natural and soft bristle brushes are used to ‘brush’ the skin always brushing towards the heart. There are even extra soft brushes for dry brushing the face and neck. Dry brush before you take a bath or shower.
In our modern world of mass food production it is sad to think about how depleted our soils truly are. Many foods just don’t contain the same amount of nutrients unless you are growing it yourself or supporting a local farmer with regenerative farming practices. For this reason I suggest a good multivitamin. Not to replace having a well balanced diet but to supplement it and to cover all your bases.
Eat spring greens! Drink spring greens teas! Violets, chickweed, cleavers, dandelions, nettles, all of these lush spring botanicals can be eaten or made into teas to support all your organs of elimination and will support your main cleanse. Nettles are particularly good for seasonal allergies and are very nutritious.
Nettles
I have come to adore these spring plants that I can rely on year after year. They are friends, teachers, supporters, and beautifiers. All of these plants are gentle foods that can be enjoyed throughout the spring season to support your body and your cleansing routine.
The Cleanse
The main cleansing herbs we will discuss now are cilantro, burdock root, dandelion root, and milk thistle seeds.
Cilantro is a potent herbal ally for detoxifying the body, supporting the body with Vitamins A, C and K, potassium, iron, manganese, calcium, quercetin ( Anti-inflammatory + antihistamine) kaempferol (Anti-inflammatory, antioxidant + anticancer), beta-carotene and fresh chlorophyll (which is a potent anti-oxidant).
Take one shot of fresh cilantro juice 3x a day for 10 days. Take 5 days off days off (still using the binder everyday) then continue with 3 shots a day for 10 more days. If you choose you can do one more round of 5 days off and 10 days on, for a total of three rounds of 10 days.
Juicing creates a high concentration of the plant’s compounds. This is effective at mobilizing heavy metals (like mercury, lead and aluminum) and environmental toxins out of tissues. This is why it is very important to use a binder like Humic/Fulvic Acid or Cracked Wall Chlorella + chlorophyll while cleansing. These substances bind to the heavy metals and environmental toxins, which are then readily excreted. Continue to use the binder for another 4 or 5 days after ending the cilantro.
If you cannot or do not wish to juice cilantro, you can alternatively use an alcohol or vegetable glycerin extract of cilantro, one dropper-full three times a day.
To this cilantro and binder routine add daily intake of burdock root, dandelion root and milk thistle seeds. You can purchase these tinctures, or you can make one yourself to have on hand for your periodic cleansing. The botanicals can also be made into a decoction. If you have the inclination to make a decoction you can easily make a pre-made tea blend to have at hand any time you wish to make up a batch of the decoction.
All three of these botanicals support the detoxification pathways in the body (liver, kidneys, the gut and the lymphatic systems). Dandelion root offers liver support, helps in the cleansing of the lymphatic system and is a gentle diuretic. Burdock root is a blood purifier and a lymph mover as well as a diuretic. Both Burdock and Milk Thistle seeds promote lymph drainage by reducing inflammation in the lymph nodes. Milk Thistle seeds aide in liver cell regeneration and protect kidney cells from oxidative stress. Using these herbs during cleansing greatly supports your body’s ability to effectively eliminate what is being pulled out of tissues.
Take 1 dropper-full 2-3 times a day for the entire duration of the above cleanse plus 4 or 5 days after ending the cilantro.
You don’t have to significantly change your diet to get the benefits of this detox routine but to be supportive to the detox process aim to reduce or take a break from sugar, fast food, fried foods, white bread, soda, candy and the like. These kinds of foods will tax your body unnecessarily while it is trying to rid itself of toxins. Support your cleanse with herbal teas, cleansing lemon or cucumber water and good quality sleep.
Making Medicine
Make up an herbal tea blend of Dandelion root, Burdock root, and Milk Thistle seed so that you can easily brew up either a decoction or make a tincture.
1 oz. dandelion root
1 oz. burdock root
½ oz. milk thistle seed
Mix herbs together in a bowl, scoop into an airtight jar. Dried herbs will keep for 1-2 years if kept cool, dry and away from sunlight.
Make a decoction
Decoctions are for hard plant parts, like roots, bark, and seeds
1 Tbsp. herb blend per 1 cup of water
Bring the water and herbs to a boil, reduce the heat, place a lid on the pot and simmer for 20-45 minutes. Strain and enjoy. Can be stored in the fridge for up to three days in a clean glass jar.
Make an alcohol extract:
This is a folk recipe that is easy and creates fine herbal extracts. This process takes longer than a decoction, about 4-6 weeks.
Your experience with working with different kinds of plants will reveal the need to adjust alcohol to water ratios to get the most vibrant and effective extracts. For now the folk method is an easy go to and creates fine tinctures.
Fill the jar about halfway with herb blend. Pour any good 80-proof vodka over the herbs allowing it to soak through and stirring with a clean spoon or chopstick to release any air bubbles. Fill the jar leaving about an inch of liquid above the plant material to ensure it stays covered. Allow the herb to expand and add more alcohol if needed to make sure the plant material stays covered.
Allow brew to macerate for one moon month or however long you wish. Shake daily to agitate the mixture. When ready decant using a clean glass jar, a sieve and some cheesecloth. Label contents and the date it was bottled.
Fill a 2 or 4 ounce dropper bottle and label. Use this for your daily medicinal intake.
Dandelion
I hope this spring brings bright greens and plenty of flowers. Usher this same vibrancy into your own being with a gentle spring cleansing.
Moon Wise Spring Detox Products
Your comments and questions are encouraged below. Let me know if this article was helpful and relevant to your life.
Happy Spring Equinox,
Rachel, Herbalist, Owner + Formulator @ Moon Wise Herbals
If you’d like to work with me more closely to design a cleanse for you, inquire by emailing Rachel @ starsignals@moonwiseherbals.love