Does Colonic Hydrotherapy Help You Lose Weight?

‘I need to lose weight!’ ‘My weight won’t budge!’ ‘How much will I lose with a Colonic?’ These are three very frequently asked questions.

It does stand to reason that if you have a congested bowel, then releasing the weight of the waste and eliminating the trapped gas will mean you lose a bit of weight. However, your body should be losing this waste as a natural process.

It’s not uncommon that due to the amount of gas released during a colonic, some folk have found they can do their belt up one extra notch before they leave the practice!

Colonic Hydrotherapy can support you with your weight loss journey for several reasons.

A congested digestive system means your food is not moving through efficiently. This means you end up absorbing things that should have been excreted.

Feeling full and bloated and even being constipated makes you feel sluggish. The sluggish feeling makes you feel tired and lethargic and not want to exercise. This then allows everything to slow down and fat levels to increase.

This creates a downward spiral of lack of motivation, and this is when we then start eating lots of the wrong foods, and weight creeps on. It is a rather nasty, vicious circle.

Following a Colonic Hydrotherapy treatment, once the congestion and gases have been gently removed from your bowel, this supports the digestion to work at its optimum level. The downward spiral can then start to be reversed.

When folk have a colonic, they report feeling lighter in both mind and body. They invariably go away from the treatment wanting to eat healthily and maintain this lovely easy, light feeling. During the treatment, your body will absorb some of the water, which can leave you feeling wonderfully refreshed and better hydrated.

So, a colonic can be a great starting point to help you break the chain of poor habits and give a fresh starting point to build on. During the appointment, we will also investigate what you are eating and look at your hydration routine to see if there are any areas we can harmonise to support you towards your goals further.

Sleep is a Powerful Healer

If you have ever worked through the night to meet a deadline or study for a test, you know the day after results are not pretty.

The body feels sluggish, the mind fogged or frenetic, we can be excessively hungry and moody. Recent research shows that a chronic lack of sleep is far more damaging than previously assumed, and a sleep deficit as small as an hour a night can increase the risk of a wide range of conditions.

If we do not get enough sleep, our immune system goes into overdrive and causes systemic inflammation, and this turns on dangerous genetic switches.

These are a few of the side effects of sleep deficiency.

Increases symptoms of Depression: - Lack of sleep disrupts neurotransmitters to the brain, which regulate mood.

Increased Risk of Heart disease: - Blood pressure increases with lack of sleep. Long term sleep deprivation increases stroke risk four times.

Weight Gain: - Metabolism and associated hormones are disrupted, which cause cravings and overeating.

Impaired Mental Function: - Lack of sleep impairs memory and the ability to process information. It impairs alertness and creates headaches.

Higher levels of Anxiety: - Lack of sleep raises the brain’s anticipatory reactions, increasing overall anxiety levels. There are increased levels of cortisol, a hormone that is associated with stress.

Increased risk of Diabetes: - Lack of sleep increases levels of cortisol and norepinephrine; both are associated with insulin resistance.

So how can you help yourself to get a better night?

Creating a good bedtime routine and a restful environment is a great place to start.

Having a sleep-friendly bedroom helps settle you down and moves you away from all your daily noise, preferably with no TV and leaving all your phones and iPad etc., downstairs.

A cool room typically between 60 and 65 degrees makes for the best sleep. Experiment with your room’s exact temperature to find what makes you comfortable. Lining your curtains will help keep the room dark and restful. You should aim for 7-9 hours of sleep a night.

Invest in a good bed and a supportive pillow, and comfortable bedding. Taking a hot bath an hour or so before bed helps relax aching muscles. Drink herbal teas and avoid caffeine and alcohol in the 3 hours before bedtime. Avoid going to bed on a full tummy of food.

An excellent daily exercise routine helps prepare you for a restful sleep. Practice some restful yoga poses to encourage the body to wind down.

Create a regular, going to bed and getting up routine. Try and keep this at the weekends to prevent the Monday morning sleep hangover.

Your body likes the regularity of habits. Changing it is disruptive.

Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout our lives.

Just think about how much babies struggle when they don’t get enough sleep.

Adults suffer the same way. Getting enough quality sleep at the right time can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life and safety. Sadly, this is an area in life that many folk disregard.

Allowing yourself the time to stop and prepare for sleep will let your next day to fly!

Fight & Flight or Rest & Digest?

The Parasympathetic (rest & digest) and Sympathetic (fight & flight) nervous responses are our body’s automated and involuntary body functions. Responsible for breathing, heartbeat, digestion and elimination, both systems act together to maintain the body’s natural balance (homeostasis), and we can play a pivotal role in supporting them. The food we eat and our lifestyle choices can have a significant impact on how these systems respond.

Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)

This is our stress response. It prepares you to take flight, fight or freeze.

Our heart beats faster, our breath becomes fast and shallow, and our alertness increases. There is an increase in blood flow to skeletal muscles. The brain activity changes from areas that give us clear thinking, calm, mindfulness activity to a state of stimulation, anxiety and agitation.

Our gut becomes inactive, we lose appetite, relaxation becomes difficult, and this has a knock-on effect with sleep disturbances, difficulty with elimination and a build-up of toxicity. It suppresses our immune system and reproductive functions.

Hormones, particularly adrenaline, rush through your body, making you feel anxious; this all uses masses of energy, creating exhaustion.

Despite the negatives, the SNS is necessary for our survival. This automatic response makes us move out the way of an oncoming vehicle or remove our hand from a heat source

that would otherwise burn us.

However, constant overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system is involved in many health problems; this can lead to anxiety disorders that can overwhelm us. Exhaustion then leads to burn out and a host of health complaints from heart disease, elevated blood pressure, diabetes, fatigue etc.

Taking high levels of stimulants like caffeine and sugars and excessive alcohol can also provoke a stress response.

Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)

This is our relaxation response, our brake pedal; it calms us down, preparing us to rest and digest and sleep.

Our heartbeat slows to a nice steady rhythmic pattern; we breathe in full and slow. We have increased blood flow to the gut, whilst lungs and brain return to working normally. Our gut is active; this helps us digest and absorb the nutrients from our food. It supports elimination, detoxification, immune system and reproductive function.

We receive a rush of happy hormones, and this lifts our mood helping us to relax further. This relaxation helps us to conserve energy. When we reach this level of calm, it allows the mind to free space for creativity, new ideas and reflection.

This is the side of the nervous system most of us find difficult to support. The main point is downtime and time away from work. Meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, time spent out in nature, massage, hot bath, proper nutrition, cultivating gratitude, all of these can be difficult to give time to in a demanding world that moves 24/7 and 365!

I need to add; some folk can be parasympathetic dominant; for example, is where there is not enough thyroid hormone which can present as depression, lethargy and lack of zest for life.

In order to live a happy, healthy life, we need a balance of the PNS & SNS. We can support this by eating healthy balanced food choices, along with a good balance of weekly exercise and allowing ourselves to get rest and downtime.

All of which we can choose to do to restore harmony to ourselves, or we can continue to burn the candle at both ends and hope for the best.