I recently explained the meaning of herbal cleansing. In that article I warned that some products available for the purpose are quite unsatisfactory. It may be worth clarifying the two main approaches to using herbs for cleansing. One approach is far more commonly problematic.

Remember that the aim of the herbal cleanse is to improve the cellular environment thereby facilitating better cellular function in order to achieve the ensuing health benefits. Our focus remains at the cellular level.

One approach to herbal cleansing is somewhat rough-and-ready and not one I recommend be followed too often, if at all. It involves little more than stimulating an effective purge of the bowel. An effective purge is sometimes necessary and certainly offers many benefits purely resulting from improving gross elimination.

However, a rough treatment of the bowel with strong purgatives is best avoided. It can be painful and traumatic to the bowel wall. Damaging the bowel wall is counter-productive since we need the bowel to be in best possible condition to continue effective elimination.

The other and much better approach is to combine  a number of functions to achieve our objective. These would include:

• gentle stimulation of elimination of the bowel contents, preferably by natural means
• mopping up of toxic materials within the bowel to ensure they cannot be absorbed
• specific internal cellular level cleansing herbs and supportive nutrients

Gentle stimulation generally involves increasing soluble and insoluble fibre to encourage bowel movements naturally, rather than merely using harsh stimulants. We want to encourage and support the bowel to do its work, not give it a flogging.

Neverthless, a significant bowel elimination remains part of the process. When this is completed, to maximize the bowel's performance in digestion and elimination, replenishment of intestinal microflora is ideal. Various probiotics can readily be obtained these days. This is very important if there is reasonably recent history of the use of antibiotics.

A safe and effective, indeed quite ideal, product for the purpose of herbal cleansing is the one I referred to in the above article. I encourage you to read about it further by following the link.

Remember that herbal cleansing is one of the most useful things anyone can do for health. It should have a place in any overall health plan. However, I recommend the rather more sophisticated (though just as simple) approach that provides deep cleaning rather than a simple purge with harsh herbal stimulants.