A Genuine Fast Cleanses the Body, Mind and Soul

Abstaining from food – fasting -is the dearest thing done throughout history.
Your body needs a rest with each night’s sleep. Your organs work hard and
good health doesn’t come cheap. This year the Islamic month of Ramadan will start around mid September. Muslims all over the world will start this month with fasting from dawn to dusk, daily, for 30 days as ordained in the Quran.

We are all exposed to thousands of toxins and chemicals on a daily basis: at work, in the home, through the air we breathe, our food and water supply, and through the use of pharmaceutical drugs. In addition, we are eating more sugar and processed foods than ever before in human history and regularly abuse our bodies with various stimulants and sedatives. If you never wondered or cared much about the pollution around us, it’s time to change your views and start paying attention to this problem. For decades, scientists have been studying the pollutants in our air, water, food, and soil. Just in the U.S.A. many industries manufacture over 6 trillion pounds of 9,000 different chemicals a year. They dump billions of pounds of industrial chemicals into our air and water year after year. So now scientists have started to examine pollution levels in humans and their findings are deeply disturbing. Research clearly proves that our bodies are not capable of eliminatingall the different toxins and chemicals we inhale and ingest every day. They simply accumulate in our cells (especially fat cells), tissues, blood, and organs (such as the colon, liver and brain) and remain stored for an indefinite length of time causing all kinds of health problems.

Fasting, when properly utilized, is a safe and effective mean of maximizing the body’s self-healing capacities. The results can be truly amazing. Before going on to describe some of the many advantages of fasting, let’s define fasting according to the western culture:

“Fasting is the complete abstinence from all substances except pure water, in an environment of total rest.”

During a fast, a metamorphosis occurs. The body undergoes a tearing down and rebuilding of damaged materials. For this reason, fasting is famous for its ability to rejuvenate and give the body a more youthful tone. Let’s also keep in mind that fasting is only one part of the total health-supporting program we call “Natural Hygiene”, which results from healthful living. No matter how successful a fasting experience might be, it needs to be followed by a consistently healthy lifestyle — especially in the areas of diet, environment, and activity.

Why Fast? Probably the most important reason is that the body uses quite a bit of energy to digest food, and when you fast this energy becomes available for other uses. In the fasting state, the body will scour for dead cells, damaged tissues, fatty deposits, and tumors, abscesses, all of which are burned for fuel or expelled as waste. The elimination of these obstructions restores the immune system functionality and metabolic process to an optimum state.

Fasting restores good digestion and elimination, and peristaltic action is quickened. Fasting allows a deep, physiological rest of the digestive organs, and the energy saved goes into self-healing and self-repairing. By eliminating obstructions, by cleansing, detoxification, and purifying the intestines, the blood, and the cells, we can overcome many of our physical ills or handicaps as well as getting a boost in energy.

Fasting not only removes obstructions and helps the body to heal itself; it is also rejuvenating and life-extending. These resulting benefits can have lasting affects in your mental and emotional health. Perhaps the most instructive testimony as to the acuteness of mental powers during fasting comes from Dr. Herbert Shelton,founder of the Natural Hygiene Society, at his sanitarium in Texas; he supervised the fasting of more than 40,000 people over a period of fifty years. His message is that the freer the body is of toxic materials flowing through the blood and lymphatic system, the clearer is the ability to think.

Nearly everyone who fasts discovers the same thing, that when they fast they actually have no hunger and more energy than they normally have. It is indeed liberating to find out that if we let go and trust that we will be taken care of. Fasting is the simplest, easiest and most effective way to find out that we do indeed have the power and freedom to heal and take control of our bodies.

Activity Level during Fasting:
It is good to at least have mild exercise and movements with short walks to keep the lymphatic fluid moving and to the keep the vascular system working. The amount of exercise you can do is very much dependent on your existing condition and how you are feeling that day. Basically one needs to be alert and listen to one’s body and not to overdo. Fasting is resting, not a marathon! If you experience energy loss, limit yourself to stretching exercises, light walking or deep breathing.

Aiding Elimination of Toxins during Fasting:

Spiritual
As the system detoxifies, many of these spiritual aspects of ourselves that have been waiting to come through for a long time are finally able to, and that person, hopefully in an environment that is calm and serene and peaceful and loving, will be able to express and deal with these spiritual phenomena such that it can have a very beneficial and positive effect.

We will never be healthy until we take responsibility for our own health. We need to stop blaming the outside for making us sick, whether it is corporations, a person, our immediate environment or a government, and to recognize instead that our sickness is a symptom telling us something is inside needs to be addressed. For sure there are outside influences that we can’t control, but there is much that we can control by taking responsibility for ourselves and working to change our eating habits.