How Clean or Toxic Are You?
Total load is often used in holistic healthcare to describe toxicity. It’s a term used to describe all the factors affecting someone’s health. Here’s a great definition to help you understand the concept:
Total load:
the sum of factors that influence an individual’s life and health, including food, chemicals, microbes, psychological factors, and other elements. Any one of these factors would not normally cause illness, but the cumulative effect of these agents may overload the functioning in an individual.
Jonas: Mosby’s Dictionary of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. (c) 2005, Elsevier.
The importance of looking at a person’s total load can’t be overstated in the face of chronic pain, chronic fatigue, systemic inflammation, memory or concentration problems, or other health challenges.
Think about this. The typical woman uses 9 personal care products every morning before leaving the house. The products are things like toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, moisturizers for face and body, sunscreen, make-up, and more.
Those nine products expose a woman to about 126 chemicals known to be hormone disrupting, neurotoxins, and possible carcinogens. Moreover, these chemicals can be detected in the bloodstream within seconds.
Now, personal care products are not the only source of chemicals in our lives. We also use cleaning products everyday such as dish soap, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, bathroom cleaners,and more.
Of course, there’s also air and water pollution, too. Think about your water for a moment. We are very fortunate to have clean water in this country. But, one of the things that cleans the water is chlorine. Chlorine can negatively affect the thyroid. How many women do you know with thyroid problems? Maybe you have a thyroid condition.
Another area contributing to toxic load is stress. Everyone has stress. It’s our response to stress that determines the affect on our health. When you think about your response to stress, do you tend to frame things in a positive way or do you feel like “it’s always something?” Do you feel overwhelmed like you’re never going to get ahead of things? Feeling overwhelmed is not only hard emotionally, but it’s also hard on us physically. Our emotions will manifest physically if not effectively managed.
These various factors affect our health and the demands we place on our bodies.
Have you really thought about the “load” you’re carrying? Are you struggling with health problems, sluggishness, brain fog? Maybe it’s time to clean out the toxins in your life.
I invite you to join me for a “Clean Living is the New Sexy!” Class beginning January 10, 2017. Click here is see class details and to join us.
