Let’s talk detox.

Most of us are familiar with the concept of detoxing our food, water, personal products, and so on. But did you know that it’s just as important to detox your emotions to prevent disease? Detoxing your emotions by learning to forgive and feel can be key.

As we know, the point of detoxification is to flush out toxins and other harmful substances, helping you recharge your body and improve overall health. But while physical cleanses undoubtedly have a variety of health benefits when done correctly, emotional health – an essential part of overall wellness – is often overlooked.

When you think of detoxing, you automatically think of a body detox, right? But what about an emotional detox. We need those too.

Why might this be important? Well, an emotional health detox will allow you to rid yourself of toxic, stuck, emotional patterns, barriers, and stored traumas.

By removing the negative patterns based on fear, anger, sadness, disgust, envy, and, therefore, you create room to add more joy, love, trust, anticipation, and kindness.

I find it rather surprising that no one seems to talk about emotional health. Both positive and negative emotions are important and part of being human, but when we can’t manage them properly, we can find ourselves in a downward spiral fast. (speaking from experience because I’ve been there.) This can have a severe impact on every aspect of our lives – especially our health!

Studies have shown that the impact of negative emotions can lead to many diseases, causing depression, anxiety, and weight gain.

When bad chemicals build up in our bodies, it causes a toxic overload. This can make us feel lethargic or even make us sick. Which is why detoxing is beneficial for our bodies every once in a while. However, Similarly, negative emotions can build up in our bodies, too. This can weigh heavily on our minds, spirits, and bodies when we ignore it allowing it to build up month after month- year after year.

Just as a physical detox removes the chemicals and other toxins that make us sick, an emotional healing detox will help cleanse all the negative emotions that plague our minds and souls. Toxic emotions build up over time and begin to have an impact not just within our bodies but on our relationships, careers, food choice, and overall stress levels.

This is why doing an emotional healing detox can help you regain control of your life with mental balance and, eventually, happiness.

So, how do we detox our emotions? Here are five simple steps to help you get started.

1. Awareness

Awareness is the first step. Being aware helps make space so that we can more clearly work with our emotions. An essential part of this step is to notice what triggers you and where you become primarily reactive in your life. Once you see what sets off your sympathetic nervous system (that fight or flight sensation), you can begin to find ways to calm yourself down. Studies suggest stimulating your vagus nerve through exercise, yoga, prayer, hugging, or laughter can help tremendously.

2. Journaling

Writing down your emotions in the moment can be helpful. Write down every thought and feeling you’re experiencing and then ask yourself if it’s true. A Lot of our emotional triggers come from our false belief system. And that’s what gets us stuck. We must challenge our brains. Talkback to those negative beliefs and then write down the opposite of our worry. And start to speak the truth over yourself daily.

3. Movement

It doesn’t have to be crazy; all you need to do is get your body moving. Take a brisk walk or run. Do some jumping jacks, yoga, or take a class. When your heart rate goes up, your blood begins to circulate through your major detoxifying organs like your kidneys and liver, helping you to remove toxins. This circulation is key to your emotional well-being because it significantly decreases symptoms of anxiety, making it easier for you to tone down reactivity and think more clearly.

4. Meditate

The average human mind has at least 60,000 – 80,000 thoughts every day, which means you have a new thought about every 1.2 seconds. This is why the human mind is often referred to as the monkey mind. It’s easy for the mind to follow the many random thoughts and get lost within them. So having a way to detox your mind is essential to help you keep your focus. Meditation, praying, reading your bible is an effective way to help calm your mind and center your heart and soul.

5. Letting go

Letting go can be challenging, but it is a must for moving forward. Reflect on what is keeping you stuck in that funky mindset. What or who is standing in the way from allowing you to move forward. Often, it’s ourselves. Or It could be a job, relationship, type of food, emotion, responsibility, limiting belief, time commitment, or otherwise. Recognize what it is, and then try to take baby steps in healing that area allowing yourself to commit to ‘letting it go’ and do whatever it may take so that you can experience more joy and happiness.