Episode 56 of the Living Life Well Show: The Best Detox for your Overall Health
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Living Life. Well show the intersection of God's word, today's science and healthy living with common sense application, all based on the truth of the word of God. I'm your host, Dr. Jon Skelton. Now let's get straight to the truth.
All right. Welcome back to the Living Life Well Show. Today I'm excited to talk about detox and what is the best detox that you can do. So let's face it, there are hundreds of potential detoxes. There's. Hundreds of potential opinions about detox and which one is the best one? How long does it need to be, and what do you really need to pay attention to?
Well, one of the things I'm really excited about is there's a lot of attention [00:01:00] now to what's going into our minds because. I did a search on chat GPT and reports that the most search detox in the last few months of 2025. Now, I. Has been for a digital detox and how to go about that.
And I think that really means that we're finally on the right track because one of the tenets that we live by here at the Live Life Well Clinic is that physical training, physical health. Is valuable, but it really has to encompass the entire person and what encompasses the entire person? Well, I think the verse that best describes this is I Timothy 4:8.
So I'm just gonna read that for you here. It says, for physical training is of some value. But godliness has value for all things holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. When we [00:02:00] talk about godliness, really what we're talking about is our entire life. Every facet, right?
And so when you're looking at doing a detox, I think you really need to take. That approach with it. So let's kind of go back and define what detox is in current definition standard from the world. So medical definition typically would be. Removal of harmful substances. We think of a medical detox as things from like drugs or alcohol.
If there's been some sort of poisoning that's gone on. Typically it is related to more substance dependency and, and poisoning type aspects than anything else. Now, we also have the physiological definition, which is. How God wired our bodies to operate most efficiently. So the liver converting and filtering toxins into less harmful substances to be removed by the body, kidneys, [00:03:00] filtering waste and toxins from the blood the lungs just even the, the.
Internal, very small airways and the alveoli and the whole bronchial tree. Being able to remove those things that come in that can be harmful as we breathe and, and even swallow. And then skin obviously eliminates waste through our, our sweat glands and through our pores, through perspiration. And then, of course the way most people think about detox today is through the digestive system.
Okay. The holistic approach or, or functional medicine approach would be enhancing that physiologic elimination, meaning we would want to enhance the liver, the kidney the skin, the lungs, the digestive system's ability to do that job that God already created it to do well. Why do we live in a time in which we need to do that?
Well, quite frankly, we are exposed to [00:04:00] toxins every single minute of every single day in multiple different ways and in many, many forms that we have never seen before in the last. 60 to 70 years, that toxin load has increased dramatically. But when we look at the history of detox, people have been doing detoxes for millennia.
So really the, the earliest known detoxes were with the Egyptians at about 4,000 bc Then we see it in, ayurvedic medicine and Chinese medicine. We see detoxes there. And now when we think about more quote modern medicine we think about Hippocrates. Hippocrates really started the idea that how we live our life really conveys health.
He talked about. Fasting and sweating. And then that brings us really even to our current area in North America with the Native Americans really looking at sweat lodges and, and [00:05:00] having those times of really trying to eradicate any kind of impurities and improve health and cognition and all these different facets of life.
And then we kind of fast forward into the 1900s, and that is kind of where we get our modern idea of detoxing because that's when they really started things like mud baths and, and colon cleanses, charcoal cleanses, even hydrotherapy talking about mineral baths or even cold water immersion in, in these things.
And today really now in the 2020s, we have all of those available to us return, if you will, to many of these previous detoxes. But now we have all of the above and we have more modern things like red light therapy, IV vitamin detoxes, juice cleanses, supplement cleanses and now even the digital detox or digital cleanse.
It can be very confusing, right? So what is the best? Is it, is [00:06:00] the old ways the best? Is there value in these new things? Or is it just a, a charlatan's errand trying to really pursue what is the best detox? So that's what I really wanted discuss today because I believe that there is one detox that absolutely is best and stands out above all the rest in addition.
I tell all my clients that this is something that you really need to look at doing at least once a year. Why is that? Because of what I just said a while ago. We have more toxins that come at us now than any other point in history. And taking time to thoughtfully remove those toxins or minimize the exposure of those toxins needs to happen on a recurrent basis.
This isn't a one and done type of approach. You can't detox your way. Into good [00:07:00] health once a year. You have to have mindfulness that is ongoing, setting up parameters to help you however. We live in a world that is busy and busier and busier each and every day. And so when we get into those busy cycles, some of the things that we know that we should do fall by the wayside, right?
So we need to consciously identify when those times are we really need to take the time to eliminate those toxins that we're exposed to on a daily basis. Why do I say there's one detox that's best? Well, I call it an input detox. All these other detoxes really focus primarily on the physical as we just looked at. There is much more to us than just the physical.
As as I Timothy 4:8 says, so we really need to take an input detox. So [00:08:00] what? Are inputs. What am I really talking about? Well, really what I'm talking about is any of the senses that we have been given, sight, smell. Hearing, taste, touch, any, any of those can be ways in which we can detox. Now, the most common ways are going to be that we think of is taste, right?
Things that we bring in through our digestive system is typically what we think of.
That's, that's primarily what we are thinking of. However. Many times people think of things that we smell or breathe in and are exposed to, and things that we touch or feel, those, those chemicals that we can come in contact with, that, that leach into our body.
But when we look at that, we're, we're thinking that it is really all. Very physical but I would [00:09:00] submit to you that the hearing and the sight are as much or more important than those because other than breathing, listening.
Looking are the things that we do most often. Eating is secondarily things that we're putting into our body through our mouth is secondary. And so when we neglect these two primary points of input, we neglect an entire capacity of health. And so for true health, we have to really look at all these inputs.
So I would really tell you that the things that you listen to, the things that you expose yourself to visually, both of those really confer the biggest impact I. On your thoughts and your thoughts are what are really going to lead to you being able to be successful with regards to [00:10:00] behavior change, with regards to motivation, with regards to failure, and so looking at what you're exposing yourself to in a visual capacity and auditory capacity is gonna be very important to allowing you to fully get the benefits that you are wanting of a detox.
So what do I, I really mean by this, how are we going to go about an input detox? The, the reason we do a detox in the first place, right, is what we're really wanting. Is we want to feel better feel different, feel lighter, feel less stress, feel more joy. It's all about feeling right? Well, how do you feel?
Typically, you feel because of your thoughts and if you don't capture your thoughts, and you're typically just living in your [00:11:00] feelings. You're gonna feel better for a little bit when you do one of these detox, but if you don't capture the thoughts, then that's where you're gonna have difficulty.
And that's why I say the input detox is so important because it not only looks at the physical, it also looks at the mental and spiritual, and that is going to be. What is gonna confer success to you? To allow you to feel more joy, to feel better, to feel lighter, regardless of what the circumstance is that you're currently dealing with.
So let, let's talk a little bit more about how to go about this. Well, the first thing that you want to do is you want to set a baseline. So anytime we set a baseline, what that means is that we want to take an inventory. So you want to spend a week of your time really looking at your food, your sleep, your physical comfort and discomfort.
Your, your interactions, whether that be with a physical person, whether it be virtual or whether it [00:12:00] be something that is being input into you, something that you're listening to something that you're watching. We want to also take inventory of positive and negative thoughts and what are the activities you're involved in at those times and with who.
So we do this for a week. This kind of sets ourselves on baseline and we can gauge that that day, Monday was a great day, Wednesday was a horrible day, and then try and look at some of those differences. When we set that baseline and we look at those differences between good days and bad days, that helps us to go to phase two, which is starting to eliminate.
So we want to eliminate those obvious stresses and toxins first. That may be. A relationship, you may realize that your relationship with a coworker, with a friend, a frenemy, if you will even potentially. A family member may be really [00:13:00] contributing to your, your stress levels and your positive and negative thoughts and or your physical comfort and or discomfort.
So when you look at a relationship, you want to look for a relationship that you can modify in some way. So what do I mean by that? Do I mean cutting people off? Well, potentially, but not necessarily generally. What I mean by that is start thinking about that relationship differently. Choose to think about how you would approach that person differently when it is a negative response that you're having.
But however it is that you can modify that relationship, may putting up boundaries. It may be minimizing contact or contact in certain situations, but really just assess that and determine what are those stresses and toxins that.
Can occur from this [00:14:00] relationship. It may be that it's not a relationship at all. It could be that it, it's an activity that you're doing or an activity that you're not doing. Meaning that you're sitting for too long. You're, you're not actively involved. And you notice that on the days that you work out you feel much better or you do this workout, you feel much better, but you do that workout, you feel.
Not nearly as well. So really assessing to see which activities cause and seem to alleviate stress and, and take that. Into account, then you want to take a category of food. Okay. Generally speaking, the categories that are gonna be most needed to eliminate that are most associated with negative symptoms is either gonna be sugar or processed food.
Then dairy. Then particular animal products being pork or beef or fish or chicken. So you would need [00:15:00] to really assess that for yourself and then eliminate those things. After we eliminate and we do that for a period of time. We also want to add in good, we want to lean into the joy givers, the obvious joy givers, those relationships, those people that we are around, that always seem to lift us up.
Maybe it's somebody that there is a lot of distance between you and them. Make it a regular habit to phone call, text message whatever the case may be, email if that works whatever it is. Then look at activities. What activity do you do that really seems to invigorate you? Add that in. Maybe it is literally going and having coffee with someone and so you're kind of combining the two things.
Maybe it is a particular workout, maybe it is. More rest and really look at that movement as [00:16:00] well. What movements really seem to cause the best benefit for you? Is it simply walking? Is it involved in some tor sort of hit workout? Is it lifting weights? Is it yoga? What is the movement that really seems to be most beneficial to you?
And like I said, rest, rest and movement both count in the activity category. So we want to look at both of those aspects and determine which one of those we really need to lean into the most. Some of us are so busy that we really need to lean into the rest more so than the movement. We also need to define.
What really is restful to us is sitting at home watching YouTube all day, really restful to us, is that helping or or is it hurting? And then we want to take away and then add back in when you are [00:17:00] confused. And then we'll notice the changes. So when you take away a food and you can't really tell a physical difference, add that food back in.
When you take away an activity, add that activity back in. When you set boundaries around that relationship and you can't really tell if things are better or worse, maybe do away with those boundaries for a little bit. Now all of these things are gonna require different timeframes to tell, but in general, what I recommend is about a two week timeframe to really help you determine if you are feeling better and the ways to look at that.
Is your sleep better or worse? Are your physical symptoms better or worse? Is your emotional stability better or worse? And so when we look at this. We're really assessing. We're daily [00:18:00] assessing, and I generally recommend that you do this for anywhere between 40 to 90 days every year. To take an inventory, an inventory as to what works, because over time, as we age, as stations in life change, different things that didn't seem to cause issues in the past, now do and relationships change over time.
You will change over time. And so that's why I say doing a detox once and doing the same detox every time is not beneficial. You are going to develop new inputs over time. You're gonna develop new things that you're looking at, new things that you're hearing, new routines in the home, and this idea of an input detox is something that you can take with you all of your life, looking at the senses and figuring out a time that really works best for you.
So let me kind [00:19:00] of give you an idea of how I think this works best. As I said, going into real busy seasons of life it can be really good to anticipate that. Do that detox prior to going in or do that detox immediately coming out after. Sometimes the overwhelm that we get into when we get into what we know is gonna be a busy season.
Can really send us over the edge if we don't do that detox before. And just the opposight can be true as well. If we don't do that detox after we kind of continue in these, these new habits that form quickly and then we find ourselves six, seven months down the road now that is that same time of life is coming back again and we're feeling horrible.
So you just really need to determine for yourself what works best for you, for me. Typically going into the holiday seasons, particularly starting in [00:20:00] late October, I know that things are really gonna ramp up for me. So I want to start that detox process sometime in September to really take a look at that.
In addition, I also typically want to wait until after January to look at doing a detox again. As I come out of that, now you can mix and match this. You can make this a short detox, you can do it two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, but generally speaking, at least two to three weeks is what's gonna be necessary.
I think when you initially do this input detox or if you notice that you're at a very different stage of life. A longer detox is gonna be more beneficial than a shorter one. So I hope this has been beneficial. I hope you will embrace this idea of a input detox and. You will see [00:21:00] results if you really put in the work to eliminate those things that are most har harmful and increase those things that are most beneficial.
So thanks and God bless.
Speaker 3: That's it for this episode of The Living Life. Well show if you like what you've heard and want to learn more or want to know how to put this into practice for yourself, go to live life well clinic.com. Until next time, this is Dr. Jon Skelton saying go out and live the truth so you can live life well.
