Episode 26: How Can I Avoid Toxins In My Daily Life?

Transcript

Hi friends, I'm Ange Peters. I'm the founder of WholeFIT and a double diamond leader here in Canada, which is basically just short form for I believe deeply in what we offer people. I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for the access that we have through doTERRA to truly impact our health. 

I've been educating and coaching within the health space for over 10 years and when I was first introduced to doTERRA, I knew that these tools were the ones that had been missing. And have the access to the purest essential oils in the world really does give us an advantage. So, I'm grateful to have this time with you today to look at simple ways that we can support our body in cleansing on a daily basis and how we can also reduce our exposure to toxins that distract our body from really functioning at a higher more optimal level. 

Detoxing

So, before we go into this conversation, what is detoxing? Why is it important, why is it a necessary part of our self-care today? The main reason is our bodies are burdened more than ever before as we move through simple daily routines that we've become accustomed to. We've introduced over the last 50 years more than 85,000 chemicals and the regulations unfortunately are very loose. So over 90% of these chemicals that are interacting with our bodies on a daily basis have not really been tested to be safe for human health so these chemicals come to us in a lot of different ways, whether we look at our environment in the form of industrial chemicals, if we look at our diet, we're now dealing with agricultural chemicals, food additives, preservatives. How about the products we put on our skin, where we're introducing a lot of things there through the ingredients. If we look in our homes, we have carpet and paint and furniture that we're bringing into our home and our cleaning products and our water. Everywhere you look in our daily life we're being introduced to all of these different chemicals. 

So, we have to be looking at this conversation, from a very real perspective this is something that we have to deal with today and a lot of these chemicals, especially the harmful ones, they will take residence in our body in our fatty tissues. Okay, so our body is often dealing with things in the moment and then looking at ways to store it to deal with it later. Now the organ that's fighting for you all day long is your liver. It's our master detox organ. It has at least 500 functions in the body and it's responsible for cleansing toxins and waste from our blood. So the thing with the liver is it's a pretty silent warrior in your body and you don't wanna get to the point where you know it's struggling. You wanna focus on supporting it in the best way through your daily routine. 

Foundations of Wellness

So, if you're new to doTERRA, I want to make sure you know about one of our favorite tools. It's called the Live guide. So, it looks like this and it sets up this conversation really nicely. When we look through the Live guide we see on page three the foundations of wellness. So, these foundations are listed in a specific sequence, and you can see that our topic today, talking about how we can manage our stress is right around the fourth foundation of wellness. Sorry, how we can reduce our toxic load and of course manage our stress through that, but that's the fourth foundation of wellness. 

So, to back up real quick, we can see that eating right is step number one so we focus on nutrition, focusing on clean whole foods, supplementation, this is always going to be number one because this is what's providing our body with the building blocks and really the raw materials for it to know what it needs to do next. 

That second pillar of exercise or daily movement assists the body in circulating the blood and the lymph and it strengthens our muscles and that foundation's really important, especially if we can move our body every day in a way that induces sweating because sweating is going to be one of the body's most preferred way of excreting toxins and heavy metals. 

So then when we move into the conversation today when we talk about reducing toxic load and ways we can do that on a daily basis, if we're placing our intention on moving our body every day and on incorporating good whole food nutrition, we can now go even deeper into this conversation about cleansing. So, let's dive into this in two specific areas. So, we first wanna look at how we can reduce our exposure to toxins and then how we can use our beautiful essential oils and products to detox even deeper. 

How to Reduce Exposure to Toxins

So first when we're talking about reducing our exposure, we wanna be thinking of our daily routine so we wanna be looking at number one, the products that we're using on our skin and this is often an area where we get comfortable because we find a product we like and we end up using it for years without even thinking about it and without even thinking about how it might be affecting our body. 

Avoiding Toxins in Fragrance

So, when we're looking at this area of the products that we're using, if there were two that I was to call out as the most important area to start, number one would be limiting our exposure to the amount of products that contain fragrance. So, fragrance you'll notice is in the ingredient labels of many, many products. It hides in a lot of things and it typically contains hundreds of synthetic chemicals which end up taking residence in our body tissues. 

And so, swapping some of our beautiful blends in place of using fragrance on a daily basis is a really good first start. So, some of my personal, I like to call them pure fumes that doTERRA offers are blends that have been crafted to provide a beautiful aromatic experience and some of my favorites are Whisper^®, I love Elevation, Citrus Bliss^®. I actually also really love the Yoga Collection of blends and I'll put it on my pulse points or aromatic jewelry, on your wrist or around your neck is a really great way to kind of get those whiffs throughout the day. I'll even run it through my hair so I get a nice gentle experience with it throughout the day. 

Using Natural Deodorant

The second thing I wanted to point out is what we are putting under our arms. Now the reason this is a concern is we have concentrated lymph nodes here and I love our natural deodorant. This is a really great easy swap and we also now have a baking soda free version so you can see how doTERRA is meeting the needs that we have through these more natural product solutions. 

Skin and Oral Care

Now moving out from those two areas, I would also be looking at other places like what we're using to cleanse our skin and, in our body, and I love our Verage^® Skin Care line. It's super clean. I also love our body wash and the body butter. Those are daily staples for me. I would also be looking at your oral care so what you're actually using in your mouth. I love our On Guard^® toothpaste. Of course, we have the new mouthwash. They're the highest quality. Super clean, pure and effective. Okay so those are some real easy switches we can make when we're looking at reducing our exposure. 

Reducing Toxins in Our Air at Home

The second area that we're commonly exposing ourselves to some of these more harmful chemicals is within the air that we're breathing in and it's been estimated actually that through what we're bringing into our homes which we consider to be a safe space, our inside air quality in our homes can be up to five times more polluted than the air outside simply because of what we're bringing into it. So here we can do easy switches by replacing things like candles and air fresheners with diffusers and I'm gonna tell you right now if you're brand new to this lifestyle, probably next year at this time you'll find that you have a diffuser in almost every room of your home. Or at the least you'll have it on, if you have an upstairs and a downstairs you'll have one on each floor because this is a real simple way to not only purify the air, but to create a certain kind of mood or a vibe in your space. 

So, in our home we typically in the mornings we'll diffuse wild orange and peppermint for example. It's really energizing. After school we'll diffuse On Guard^® blend just in case something's come home with the kids from school and then at night before sleep, we'll do a combination of... My favorite is to do lavender with Easy Air or Breathe blend. Or Serenity^® blend is another really nice one. So that's just some ideas there, but it's so customizable and diffusing is something you'll come to love when it comes to purifying the air that you're breathing. 

Green Cleaning

Another category we commonly look at here is green cleaning because this is a way where, typically, when we're using conventional synthetic cleaners, we're introducing a lot into our air, and we are more concerned with this if we have little ones who are crawling around or eating off of surfaces and the great news is we really only need the On Guard^® Cleaning Concentrate. You can make so many great creations with that. You can see I have an example behind me here. The concentrate itself will make about 12 all-purpose cleaners and so that's a really great place to start as you're moving into this lifestyle of reducing your toxic load. 

Clean Eating and Supplementation

The last area that we are commonly exposing ourself is in what we are ingesting, in what we're eating so focusing on eating more whole foods from the earth, organic when possible. Also drinking more clean water. Now I love to add our citrus oils to water which I'll explain more in a moment, but really when you're focusing on your water intake, you wanna be looking at having at least half your body weight in ounces. That's gonna keep everything moving and circulating and going to help your body in excreting things that have been sitting in your tissues. 

Supplementation is another part of ingesting because we wanna look at how we're supporting the communication in our body, how we're supporting our organs. So daily staples I believe are looking at our doTERRA Lifelong Vitality Pack^® which is a great multisystem and then DigestZen TerraZyme^®, which is digestive enzymes that are gonna help your body digest your nutrients properly and the PB Assist+^® which is a probiotic. If I was to pick three supplements to be looking at, those are the three that I would go with. 

Detoxing Deeper With Essential Oils

Now the conversation today about detoxing deeper using our essential oils, this is where we can really have some great results if we are focusing on what I've already gone through with you. Now of course you can skip the first, what I've just gone through and jump right to this part. It's just that you'll experience a deeper effect if you have those other pieces in place. 

There are about three essential oils I want to highlight today and some ways to integrate them. As I go into this conversation about oils for detoxing, I want to remind you that it's wise to alternate and rotate the oils that you use to support cleansing or really in any purpose that you have. We want to rotate our oils because then we're allowing our body the chance to work with various constituents. I'll talk about constituents in a moment. 

Juniper Berry Essential Oil

So, the first oil I want to highlight for you is Juniper Berry. So, this is a natural cleanser and detoxifier. It supports a healthy kidney* and urinary tract function* and you can use this oil in all three ways. So real quick, oils we can use aromatically, topically and internally. So, this one can be used all three ways. 

Internally you could take this in your water so you could add two drops to a large stainless or glass water bottle. You could also take it in a veggie cap as part of a detox focus, so you'll notice—I'm gonna talk about Zendocrine in a moment—but it's actually part of the Zendocrine soft gels, which we often will use to support a cleanse. 

Topically this oil, Juniper Berry, reduces the appearance of skin blemishes. It's also a great skin toner, so this is why it's found in our detox face mask. I also love using Juniper Berry as part of a detox bath recipe which I'll share with you right now. Includes two cups of Epsom salts, half a cup of backing soda and then five drops of Juniper Berry and I like to add the Juniper Berry oil to either a teaspoon of fractionated coconut oil or I'll use our natural body wash. I'll squeeze a little bit of that into my hand with the oil. This is gonna help it disperse throughout the water. 

The last way I love to use Juniper Berry topically is after something called dry skin brushing. You can see I have an example of a dry skin brush there and dry skin brushing, you'll want to look up how to do it. It's very simple to do and it feels amazing, but you basically are helping to move the lymph along from feet to heart so you're brushing your dry skin, circulating your lymph because your lymph does not move on a pump like your blood does so we wanna look at ways to move it along to help transport what's being cleansed out of the body. So, what I like to do with Juniper Berry is I'll dry skin brush and then I will make a little massage oil with two drops of Juniper Berry and some olive oil or fractionated coconut oil and I'll just massage that into my skin after a dry skin brushing. 

Aromatically you can also use Juniper Berry. It plays really well with citrus oils, so I love to combine two drops of Juniper Berry with two drops of either Green Mandarin or Bergamot. 

Zendocrine^®

Now the second oil blend I want to talk about when we look at detoxing deeper is called Zendocrine blend. So, this is actually, it's been master crafted to support your liver and this has a combination of Tangerine, Rosemary, Geranium, Juniper Berry and Cilantro. So, you probably won't want to put this one in your diffuser. It's very herbal, but you could if you like. Now the ways you'll focus on using this will be internally and topically. 

So internally, doTERRA has made this blend in a soft gel. It's actually phase one of our Cleanse and Restore program so we have a cleanse and restore kit in doTERRA which moves through three different phases to support the body in cleansing and Zendocrine is featured in phase one. Now a little warning, you will have geranium burps with this so just a heads up, but you'll get used to it. Topically, I recommend this as a massage oil. 

Citrus Oils

Now the last oil family if you will I want to talk about when we look at cleansing, you may have guessed it, is the citrus oils. Now we have a variety at doTERRA. There's two I wanna talk about because they are the highest in a constituent called limonene and those two oils are Tangerine and Grapefruit. 

Limonene

Now you may have heard me say constituent a few times during our time together. Constituents are, if you wanna think of them as the powerhouse ingredients within the plant oil. They are what go to work in the body to do specific things and when we talk about a constituent like limonene, we begin to understand that this is why not all essential oils are equal. So, if someone is buying their essential oils elsewhere, let's say they're not using doTERRA, they have to have a way of understanding what is actually making up that essential oil. They would need to have access to something like a GCMS report to be able to see the actual constituent components of that oil they're using. Now not every company is as transparent as doTERRA and I'm not sure if you knew this, but you can take your bottle of Lemon let's say and you can go to our Source to You website and you can take a look at the exact constituents that are in our Lemon. So, there you would see that limonene is the highest spike so as we move into this conversation about detoxing, what we're really looking at is having the benefits of that limonene constituent. Okay so back to limonene. It's a heavily researched monoterpene and it's known for its cleansing abilities and its ability to support cell function.* 

Taking Citrus Oils Internally

So, all of the citrus oils can be used in all three ways, however, we're gonna focus mostly on internal and aromatic because topic use of a citrus oil can create sensitivity if you're gonna be in the sun. So, when we are using our citrus oils for deep cleansing, let's first look at internal. Super easy to do. 

Let's say you're carrying around a hot pink bottle like me. You wanna be looking at stainless or glass when you're using your citrus oils and you're gonna add one to two drops to your bottle of water. Now I mentioned earlier that you want to focus as a goal with your water intake to have half your body weight in ounces of water. So, if you are going to be doing that with let's say four or five 20-ounce water bottles, you could add one to two drops of citrus oil to that container throughout the day. So just to give you some perspective there, I drink a lot of water. It is what I believe is the greatest contributor to glowing skin and just a high functioning system and so I drink about four liters a day and throughout the day I will have consumed about 10 drops of citrus oil in my water. So that's a real easy way to introduce the cleansing properties of limonene. 

Using Citrus Oils Aromatically

Aromatically citrus oils are also brilliant. We love to diffuse them. They play really well with mint and florals, so I love to . . . I'll come up with different combinations. I already mentioned the Wild Orange and Peppermint to try. Spearmint and Green Mandarin is nice together. You can play around with them. 

I also like in the kitchen, I'll use citrus oils quite a bit for cleansing in general. I'll add them to green cleaning products' creations. I also will say goodnight to my kitchen at night and I'll add two drops of Lemon to the dish towels and the cleaning cloths which is a nice way to keep everything super fresh. 

Cleansing Routines and Rituals

Now I mentioned, as we close this out, I wanted to just highlight how important it is to have a focused time period where you are integrating more cleansing rituals. I think it's wise to do a deeper focused cleanse one to two times a year or even seasonally is a really smart thing to think of integrating and we have a kit in doTERRA called the Cleanse and Restore kit. It comes with a 30-day schedule where you take your body through three different phases of cleansing and rebuilding. 

I also like the opportunity that comes with doing a cleanse to really look at our daily routines and our rituals and some of those habits that are just on autopilot and it gives us a chance to really think about what's no longer serving us when it comes to our health. So, think about doing that cleanse program sometime this year when you want to really focus on your taking your body a little bit deeper and cleansing. 

Health and Vitality

Okay, I wanna wrap up by sharing a proverb that you may have heard before. When we have our health, we have a thousand dreams. When we don't, we only have one dream. So, the level of care that we take each day really illustrates how committed we are to living our life with vitality and I do believe that in doTERRA we have access to such powerful tools that really support us. So daily cleansing rituals and honoring the foundations of health as we learn about in this Live guide are really the best assurance we can have for living a big, beautiful life.