Cleansing, flushing and fasting are all hot topics right now. We are often asked, “How long should I fast for?” Or “What sort of cleanse should I do?” There’s never one answer.

That’s not something most people want to hear because they want a one-stop-shop for feeling better, but there are many different remedies and they all work in their own way.

We all have a rhythm and when you learn to move with your own rhythm, you’ll begin to feel the benefits.

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Cleanse with the seasons

Just as the seasons change, so do our eating habits. During the winter, we have a tendency to eat a little unhealthier. You might have bread here and there, or a glass of wine. It’s seasonal, but we all have our triggers.

It’s important to check in with your body, and acknowledge the signals it’s trying to send you, rather than ignore general pains and discomfort.

For example, I (Angie) know if I’m starting to break out a little bit more, I need to do something. And if I’m starting to feel more tired, the breath is not enough for me to re-balance.

Often, bad habits can creep in if you don’t change your pace with the seasons. When you notice they’re creeping in, one way to shift the toxic habits is to cleanse. Even better, you can set up your ‘rhythm’ so you come into the new season by cleansing and flushing yourself out. We have been diligent in sticking to a change in season, and we will often flush-out the body.

This doesn’t only hold true to your eating and your physical health, but it holds true to everything. Everything in life, even business, is affected by the seasons, but it’s the shift or the transition into that next season that really counts.

Listen to your body and flush out the pain

Intuitively, you know when something needs to change. I (Angie) recently found I was picking up on subtle messages: one was my gut health. My back had been hurting me for a few months. We go to a chiropractor and get massages often, but it wasn’t until I got a colonic that I realised my guts were inflamed and pulling on my diaphragm. This in turn, was pulling on my back and interrupting my breathing.

To help shift the pain and get rid of toxicity like this, we tried a flush that was recommended to us by Helen Padarin, who co-wrote The Complete Gut Health Cookbook. We chose one that targets the liver and gallbladder because those are the organs that filter everything.

To my (Shane’s) surprise, it wasn’t a huge hullabaloo. You drink a salt-water mix and an olive oil and grapefruit mix to flush out the gallbladder and repeat the flush in the morning. Then you have a look at your shit and it becomes obvious the flush is expelling some foreign objects.

It was simple really: we had to stop eating at a certain time in the afternoon and didn’t eat dinner, so it wasn’t like we had to fast for a week, or 40 days and 40 nights.

It seems that’s what tends to put people off fasting and cleansing; a lot of people are so attached to food that the thought of not having food, even for 24 hours, is a big issue.

I (Shane) have seen it in my past career as a Personal Trainer and in dealing with weight issues.

Everybody’s different, but in the end, it’s really that attachment to food that is a serious blockage, both mentally and physically.

Cleanse to perform

Cleansing is a real thing for many people. It’s not the most comfortable thing to do and it takes a little planning because you have to have access to a toilet throughout the day. However, it’s definitely worth it; we feel absolutely amazing afterwards.

The breath got me (Angie) through the flush because there were a few times there where it was very intense physically as I could feel my body dislodging things in the digestive system. During those moments of intensity, I just turned to my breath and shifted it. The big thing was trusting the body is doing what it needs to do.

Cleansing also makes a huge difference to your mood. When you’re performing at a high level, finding something that takes you one or two percent higher will take you to your peak performance.

Cleanse to perform

We often fast so we’re used to it, but if you want to start, we’d recommend starting with a water fast, or intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting is probably one of the easiest to do. Basically, you don’t eat in the morning until about 11am or 12pm, and then you have a couple of meals in the afternoon and evening. You might do that on a two or three-day cycle, just to get used to skipping one meal or two meals. Then you can progress to a water fast for 24 hours or even 48 hours, where all you take in is water.

There are so many different versions of fasting and cleanses out there. Most of them we’ve tried have worked in one way or another, but there’s no mystery behind it, there’s no best way.

What works for us is not going to work for everyone else, so it’s definitely worth getting a recommendation from a naturopath, someone who’s in the know, or a trusted source.

Three brains are better than one

We’ve talked about the three brains: the head, the heart, and the gut in earlier episodes. The gut is where most of your serotonin is produced, so if you have poor gut health, your body isn’t going to release that happy hormone.

We build on this in our book, Three Lessons On How To Lower Stress Naturally — physiology is the base of your results. Basically, if your body, the skin bag, as Shane likes to call it, isn’t healthy, then nothing else is going to align with it. It’s where it all starts. If the body is not healthy or happy, then you’ve got no chance with the mind, and ultimately, you’ve got no chance with you.