If you are a highly sensitive person (and/or an empath) like me, you likely have had the experience where some doctor or medical professional has prescribed a medication or treatment of some type, and you had THE WEIRDEST effects afterward. If you went back to said physician to complain of the side effects, they likely look at you like you're crazy because those effects aren't listed on the documentation. This post is for you! You likely experienced a pharmaceutical side effect detox.
Case Study
I recently had a client go into the doctor for a relatively routine colon scan. It wasn't even a full on colonoscopy, just a simple scan. After the procedure, she started having severe panic attacks. I'm talking full on freak-outs with body shakes, elevated heart rate, and difficulty breathing. This is a client who is not prone to panic attacks. In fact, she has done extensive mindfulness work to deal with anxiety, which manifests in completely different ways for her. When I tuned into her, I knew that her panic was a detox.
I want to be clear, the pharmaceutical is not the devil here. It is more of a catalyst. In most cases, when we have a severe reaction to a pharmaceutical, it is because we have other energies to expel (not necessarily chemical or physical toxins, but rather energetic and emotional toxins).
In my client's case, she is both an HSP (highly sensitive person) and an empath. The pandemic has been especially hard on her as she's deeply felt ALL the emotional pains and feels of people around her (both loved ones and strangers) throughout the year. When she feels things emotionally, they manifest into physical issues for her. Which is very common for HSP/Empaths. As a result, over the course of the entire pandemic, she has ABSORBED so much. So now that the world is starting to open up and the end of the pandemic is in sight and people are in general happier, her body is needing to get rid of all the extra stuff it absorbed and held over the last year. For her, as with many HSP/Empaths, it also means a roto-rooter to some of her own personal deep seated icks and gunks.
The pharmaceutical stuff that the doc gave her for the scan, that was the catalyst that forced the detox. The detox was bound to happen. In HSP/Empath world, we need occasional detoxes to cleanse ourselves of the icks and gunks we absorb from the world. But we prefer to do our detoxes our way, not to have them roto-rootered out of us forcefully through chemical reactions in our systems. Not Fun.
I told this client, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that this is getting at some really deep seated junk, the worst of the shit, some of which might go way back to her childhood and embedded patterning of her entire life. Only deep intense detoxes can do that. The bad news is that once triggered by a pharmaceutical side effect reaction, there is no way to stop, speed up, and lessen the intensity of the detox.
There are, however, ways to soften it and make it easier to endure.
How To Endure a Pharmaceutical Side Effect Detox
Focused Breathing
Ask anyone that when you have a pain that needs its own time to subside, the absolute best thing you can do is BREATHE THROUGH IT. The more you do this breathing, the softer the detox will feel, and it could actually expedite the whole process some. Oxygen is your greatest healer. Focused breathing activates that.
What NOT to Do
However, all deep breathing techniques are not the same. I don't mean that you should gulp in a bunch of air through your mouth and sigh it out loudly. This kind of breathing (mouth breathing) can cause even more stress to your system because the mouth air triggers stress hormones. Try it, take a gasp of air in through your mouth and make the sound like you just saw a dog get hit by a car. The sharp little tickle sensation in your belly, that's adrenaline. That's a stress response. That's NOT what you need to do. Avoid that!
What To Do
The Focused Breathing technique is one that uses your lungs and heart to the fullest and most efficient capacity. You want to release all restrictions on your lungs so they can breathe fully, and then slow down the breath in ways that trigger the calming and relaxing hormones in your system. This focused breathing technique is my most important and most effective teaching! I highly recommend you take the 30-minute online focused breathing course to learn it best.
Keep your belly still so that your ribs expand and contract as much as possible. This forces the air to go deeper into the bottom of your lungs, making the breath longer. The deeper and more of your lungs you use, the cleaner the air that goes into your heart.
Breathe through the back of your nose with a little rattle at the back of your throat, almost like a subtle snore. Think of the noises puppies and kittens and even babies make when they sleep. This slight constriction in your throat will slow down your breath and tickle nerve endings telling your brain to send calming hormones through your system.
Even your breath so that every inhalation and exhalation is the same in tone, volume, and duration. This will even out your energies, make every stead-eddy.
Sea Salt
Pink Himalyan Sea Salt and Epsom Salt are excellent for extracting toxins from your body. I recommend several ways to use it through your detox.
Sea Salt Bath
dissolve 1-2 cups of sea salt or epsom salt in a hot bath. Stay in the bath for at least 20 minutes, and no more than 40 minutes to get the best results.
Salt Cave
Book an appointment at a local salt cave. This is a room that is made of salt, so you are completely surrounded by it. Usually you lay comfortably in a zero gravity lawn chair and meditate to relaxing music for about 45 minutes as you breathe in the salty air. Just like being at the beach, without the damaging sun rays, the salt does its work to extract the extra toxins from your system, both physically and energetically.
Salt Your Feet
Rub slightly dampened sea salt onto the soles of your feet. This is a great nervous system detox because the salt will extract directly from the nerve ending at the bottoms of your feet, and work its way up through your nerves and meridians of your whole body.
Sleep
When we are detoxing, our body is very busy doing a lot of work. It is stressful and exhausting. We need rest. Just like the docs say when you have the flu ~ REST! When we sleep, our body and energy naturally goes into a state of rebuilding, part of that includes detox. While sleeping, we detox through breath, sweat, dreams, and unconscious body movements. Furthermore, sleeping through the discomfort is a lot easier than feeling it all consciously.
Sometimes the stress hormones of our body make it difficult for us to actually sleep. When that is the case, I recommend the following actions to get your body to rest in other ways, and perhaps help you to sleep.
Legs up the Wall
This is a yoga pose that is clinically proven to relax the nervous system. I suggest you lay backwards in bed with your legs propped up on the headboard. Getting your legs above your heart helps to reverse the energies of your body, and reset your circadian rhythms to a more normal pattern.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra means Yogic Sleep, and studies have shown that 20minutes of yoga nidra has the equivalent in relaxation and rejuvenation effects on the body as two hours of sleep. There are hundreds of free Yoga Nidra podcasts on various streaming platforms.
Eliminate Sugar & Alcohol
Not only are sugar and alcohol substances that have their own toxic effects, but they also impede on the sleep functions of your system. For the duration of your detox, I recommend you stop all sugar and alcohol both to help sleep and to prevent unnecessary toxicity.
Positive Mindfulness
Our thoughts create our reality. What we focus on we create. If we spend the time of a detox focusing on the icks and gunks and uglies of the process, and lamenting the pains as painful, they just stay that, painful. But if we change our minds, flip or perspectives and reframe the process as a GOOD THING, and we focus on the positive intention of cleaning out the gunk for a brighter time to come, it makes it all worth it. The hard part is, when we are detoxing, the tendency is to get sucked into the toxicity of the negativity. Here are a few hints as to how to create and keep a positive attitude while facing the ickiest of sh*ts.
Mantra
Come up with a 3-5 word positive mantra or affirmation. Words have power, and the vibrations and energies surrounding the words have the potential to change our hormones and feelings.
I am getting healthy
This is good for me
This is worth it
I'm feeling better
Movement
A happy movement will trigger happy feelings in yourself. You can do this by "faking it to make it" type positive actions. To double in the impact, attach your positive mantra to the action.
jump up and down like a kid jumping on the bed
dance to your favorite music
spin in circles like a kid on the playground
laugh out loud (fake laugh until it becomes real)
Surround Yourself with Stable Energies
As we are HSPs and Empaths, these kinds of detoxes aren't foreign to us. They happen on a somewhat regular basis because we just have to get rid of the yucks we absorb for others. One of the BEST medicines we can get, we can't get for ourselves, and that's the support and encouragement of people (or pets) who believe in us.
Ask your friends and loved ones to do the following for you:
Feed you nourishing meals made with love
Encourage you with words of affirmation
Remind you that this is a TEMPORARY DETOX and it will pass
Compliment you
Provide you with creature comforts, run errands, take care of business for you
Listen to you, and distract/deter you from negative self-talk
If you live alone and your only support is a pet. They know what to do, and they do it exceptionally well.
If you are and empath or HSP and you suspect you are experiencing a DETOX,
Book an Appointment for a mentoring session to help reframe your symptoms and get a personalized prescription to help you through the process.
Take the Focused Breathing Online Course (30 minutes) for the best and most immediate support in getting through a detox.