What Is Body Burden?
Have you ever heard the term body burden? Interestingly, it’s the scientific term that refers to the amount of toxicants in a human body at any given time (also referred to as the toxic load). Each of us has our own body burden that impacts our health on a daily basis so the goal is to reduce toxic exposures when able. Here are our top 5 ways to reduce your body burden and improve your health today.
Total Body Burden & Improving Health
“Body burden” is a toxicology term used to describe the “load” of chemicals in the human body and the health risks associated with that burden. It’s a concept that allows us to track and measure toxicants via blood, urine, or hair. As you may know, toxic chemicals and heavy metals add up over our lifetime through exposures in food, drinking water, home goods, and our environment. Scientists and advocates study body burdens to assess how long it takes for the body to detox certain chemicals and also how toxicants impact our health.
Leaders who continue to raise awareness about the body burden range from toxicologists, to environmental lawyers, advocates in Social Work, and environmental medicine doctors. Unfortunately there isn’t enough protection in place for us as consumers so the responsibility to protect our health and that of our loved ones falls largely upon us. Thankfully the science is substantial and the whistle blowers are many to sound the alarm that we pay attention!
Altogether, the power lies with all of us as a collective- as we improve our body burden we protect our individual health but also demand better standards for everyone. And the return is huge! By reducing toxic exposures we are less likely to experience the following: autoimmune disease, behavioral & developmental challenges, fertility issues, and even cancer. So here are a few empowering nontoxic living tips to help you reduce your toxic exposures starting today.
Reduce Toxicants=Reduce Your Body Burden
There are two ways to reduce exposures to toxicants and thereby reduce your body burden:
<> First you can begin to prevent exposures in the first place. By learning what toxicants to look for and how to avoid them in what we do, consume, and buy you’ll be way ahead of the pack! Prevention is a game changer for our health because it means there’s less of a burden for your body to detox.
<> Secondly you can do a Home Detox to reduce exposures in real-time. To learn how to detox one room at a time you can implement Integrative Nontoxic Living, and this can be applied to every part of your life. Both prevention and reduction of toxicants helps reduce your body burden and ultimately your health.
How To Avoid Toxicants
While our bodies are incredibly resilient, priming them for health truly starts with cleaning up our home and lifestyle. At Artisan Home Health we focus on cleaning up 3 things in particular: chemicals, heavy metals, and EMFs. So of course home detoxes include reducing these toxicants in particular. Here are 5 ways to reduce and prevent them in your home:
Pesticides in food. These chemicals contribute to our body burden in a big way. When shopping for produce opt for organic, & when this isn’t an option follow the Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen guidelines.
Lead & other heavy metals in drinking water. Although the EPA has new laws in place to clean up water supplies this will take time. In the interim you can protect yourself from exposure by purchasing a water filter & we’ve written a blog all about that here:
EDCs in plastics. Endocrine disrupting chemicals can add to body burden significantly, but you can reduce your exposure just doing the following: store your food in glass or stainless containers, avoid heating or serving food in plastic, & use plastic wrap alternatives like this bees wrap.
Various chemicals in personal care products. There are many unsafe chemicals in our body care products that contribute to body burden every day. To reduce your exposure you can become a savvy label reader OR use a reliable app like Switch Naturals to guide you.
EMFs from our wireless habits. Our growing exposure to radiation has been shown to weaken the blood brain barrier & damage our DNA. But small changes matter & you can reduce your body burden by simply turning your devices on airplane mode when not in use or turning your router off at night. To make it even easier to reduce EMFs you can purchase a wifi kill switch here.
By following these 5 nontoxic living tips you’ll be on well on your way to better health. Remember that you can always reduce your body burden in real-time, and you can build upon your nontoxic living habits at your own pace.
