When you hear people talk about detoxification, the subject of side effects always comes up. They discuss the various fad diets and what happens to people who try them.
We hear that there are very few acai berry detox side effects but lemon detox side effects and low carb diet side effects are severe. The truth is what we do with our lives is the main cause of any side effects of detox regimes.
Alternative therapy practitioners talk about detox side effects as a “healing crisis” – the pain we feel when we are cleansing our bodies of toxins. In this article, I thought we could try to pin down the known side effects of detox that bring about some of these unpleasant symptoms.
When we go on a fast or a diet, whether we are substituting food with lemonade, berries, water or supplements, we are mostly centered on giving up stuff that we have come to depend on.
First of all, a short note on changing our daily habits. Going on a detox diet involves changing your daily routine. This in itself will have repercussions. Until we attempt to change them, we don’t notice how much of our life consists of mindless habits. Just try going without watching TV for one night and see how it affects your mood.
Coffee, tea, chocolate, energy drinks all include varying amounts of caffeine. The withdrawal of caffeine will bring on drowsiness, headaches and nausea. As well as feeling sick you will experience anxiety, irritability, lack of concentration and a drop in motivation to do any kind of physical tasks. Your side effects from stopping your caffeine intake will begin to become serious at about twelve hours after your last cup and be at their worst after around two days, and taper off after five days.
If you drink up to three cups of coffee a day, you probably won’t have serious side effects, but spare a thought for people who are hooked on drinking ten or more cups every day! During your detox you can substitute coffee or tea with decaf coffee or herbal tea. Don’t wait till you begin your detox to cut your consumption of caffeine. You can start with reducing your coffee drinking by half a cup per day. If you drink a lot of tea or hot chocolate you probably won’t suffer withdrawal symptoms too much.
Some of the foods that are high in carbohydrates are also high in other necessary nutrients, so care should be taken to only go on these diets for a short time and watch out for low carb diet side effects. Low carb diets replace carbohydrates with proteins and fats which do not supply our bodies with a high enough level of energy.
This results in our feeling tired all the time. Not the least of the low carb diet side effects is the cravings that come with sudden deprivation of the tasty foods we are used to. There are other side effects of low carb diets ranging from bad breath to osteoporosis, so this kind of dietary regime should not be entered lightly.
If you are not dependent on alcohol, you will probably not feel any serious side effects from giving it up during your detox. Of course, the ritual of having a drink at a certain time of the day is a comfort and will certainly be missed. It’s best to prepare for this by simply substituting juice of water for alcohol at the usual time. You’ll be surprised how well this works. Once again, try cutting your alcohol intake a little each day for about a week before your detox.
If you are a smoker, you will suffer from some effects of nicotine withdrawal. For many people this is the most serious side effects of detox regimes and the one that keeps them putting off actually taking action to improve their health.
After a few hours you will feel the first effects and they will be at their strongest at three to five days. The physical symptoms include sweating, nausea, cramps, headaches and coughing. You will also find yourself having temper tantrums, being unable to sleep and enduring feelings of anxiety. Most recovering smokers also go through a short period of depression.
Dietary supplements are often based on some natural ingredient like herbs. This does not mean you can take these products without exercising some caution. If you are on any kind of medication or have a chronic condition, see your doctor before using any dietary supplement. The most serious of the potential dietary supplement side effects is liver damage.
Taking more than one supplement at a time or too much of a particular supplement can be dangerous for your liver. Even too much vitamin A can hurt your liver. Getting information about dietary supplement side effects is mostly the responsibility of the consumer. That’s us. We embark on a detox or weight loss program for the sake of our health, so we should find out all we can about dietary supplements for the sake of our health.
Much of the so-called “food” we eat is actually bad for us. Even so, we get used to it, become dependent on it and undergo side effects when we go without it. In general we have the usual side effects of giving up any harmful substance: headaches, depression, moodiness and nervousness.
