Wouldn’t it be great if we could detox while we sleep? Guess what? You can, and you do! Every night as a matter of fact, without any extra effort on your part.

How is this possible? According to Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, co-director of URMC’s Center for Translational Neuromedicine, “…the brain has different functional states when asleep and when awake. In fact, the restorative nature of sleep appears to be the result of the active clearance of the by-products of neural activity that accumulate during wakefulness.”

Our bodies have the necessary?equipment to remove waste from our brain. How cool is that? When we’re sleeping, our brain cells shrink 60 percent which makes more space between the cells allowing the toxins to be flushed away more efficiently.

So what happens when we don’t get enough sleep? Our brain only has a limited amount of energy at its disposal – it can either be awake and aware of what’s going on around us or asleep and cleaning up.

It’s like owning a car. If you don’t get your regular oil changes or engine tune ups, you know that sooner or later something is going to break down. It’s the same for our brains. We need good, quality sleep on a regular basis to keep our system tuned up.

According to Dr. Nedergaard’s research, lack of sleep and ?proper clean up of our brain cells leads to “dirty brain” diseases like Alzheimer’s. And if you’ve burned the midnight oil on a regular basis, you’ve experienced first hand what sleep deprivation can do – foggy thinking, short temper, easily frustrated, sugar and caffeine cravings – to name a few.

If you think about how important our brains are for everyday living it makes sense that we’d want to clear out any junk?that keeps us from functioning properly. So why not get your great 8?

There are so many different ways to detox our bodies. Some methods are more challenging?than others. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on this timely subject that will give you a variety of different ways to naturally detox your body.

Whether you’re experienced at detoxing or a newbie, I encourage you to giving it a try. You can do a short detox that’s less than five days?(sign up for my newsletter and receive a free three day clean eating detox) or you’re welcome to join me in my guided Spring Eat To Nourish Detox, and we can do it together!

Stay healthy my friends!