Food & recipes

Why should you detox?

There’s so much more to a detox than just losing weight says Dao Earl, founder of Sura Detox, and a qualified nutritionist.

There’s so much more to a detox than just losing weight says Dao Earl, founder of Sura Detox, and a qualified nutritionist.

In the past five years detox retreats have boomed in the UK. They are now popular not only for being synonymous with weight loss, but also for their effectiveness in cleansing the body, bringing your energy back, and revitalising your cells. However, after my 20 years taking people through detox retreats, I can say there is an even deeper motive for their growing success – and it is far more emotional than physical.

We have had thousands of people come to stay with us for a week-long detox retreat, and whether they’re coming for weight loss, energy boosts or to restart their relationship with food, they are never disappointed. In addition to all that, though, people are also always surprised by the depths of emotion they feel while detoxing.

There are clear physiological explanations for this, to do with how clean blood can deliver a more effective payload to the brain, but it is also because of the deeply relaxed state we enter during detox. Without even having to process food, an unprecedented spaciousness arises, and old emotions can bubble up into that space.

In our busy everyday lives, we don’t have much time for emotional fluctuations. They are mostly suppressed with things like heavy foods, social etiquettes, or just the constant distractions of a never ending to-do list. This unexpressed emotional stress builds up in the system, leading to tension in muscles and stiffness in the joints, poor digestion, headaches, and inevitable cathartic explosions – all symptoms of the chronic congestion our lifestyle suffers from.

Much of our world’s depression, angst, sadness, and impatience would be solved with sufficient time to process our internal pressures – but our culture just doesn’t prioritize it.

But then on retreat without work calls, emails and family pressures it all starts to peel away, and deeper levels of your personality are revealed and explored. This can result in life-changing realisations about why we do some of the things we do, and the ‘unrepressed you’ can surface. And she may have very different options and motivations to the suppressed version.

Do I want to be in that relationship? Do I really want work for this company? Do I want to be eating foods that do that to me? When there is nothing that one has to do, nowhere one has to be, there is space for the realisation that you are allowed to feel what you are feeling. And actually, it is very good to be you.

A well supported retreat will not only encourage these aspects of the detox, but will have in-house emotional coaches to assist and explore this side of the journey with you. It is often the most surprising side of their experience.

It must be recognised that the retreat environment is a very safe little bubble, unlike the bombarding world outside and so we spend much time and effort equipping you with the resources to come back to your centre and make your choices from there. And I feel this accounts for much of the post-retreat glow that people experience. They are happier but not because they feel lighter; they feel lighter because they are happier.

So you might think your detox is about losing 10lbs, gaining an energy boost, rewriting your relationship with food, or grasping why you just can’t put down that bottle of wine – and you will get your money’s worth in these areas.

But for those who want to go deeper, there is the possibility to gain perspective on where your life is going, and to return home with the tools to get yourself back in the driving seat. I think the aim is also to be the author in your own life – and that is priceless.