One of the questions I get every time we start seeing toxins being pulled out in a footbath is ‘Where do I get exposed to toxins?’
The answer is EVERYWHERE! There are six major detoxing pathways in the body. Let’s focus on our lungs today, and the air we breathe.
There are toxic chemicals in every breath of air we inhale. Off-gassing from plastic blinds, exhaust from cars, the chemicals in the “cleaners” used today, and the air pollutants that travel the globe. The coal-burning plants in China, the fires we experienced this fall – even the asbestos released into the air and inhaled by everyone who was alive when the twin towers collapsed almost 20 years ago.
Our lungs are our immune systems #1 defender against all of these, in addition to the things it was designed to deal with: bugs, parasites, viruses, molds, fungi, and bacteria. When the air we breathe is polluted, our health is under attack by NEW, often invisible enemies.
Visualize this: Take your car to a car wash, drive home and park it at your front door. After a few hours, go back outside and run your hand across the windshield.
The stuff that is already making your car dirty? That is what you’re breathing all the time. You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, but it’s called particulate matter, and it’s one of the categories of toxins that we’re exposed to, and much of it is the stuff that our immune system never had to protect us from before this ‘modern’ age.
We need look at our environment – and environmental toxins – in a different way, so we can look at the unexpected things in our daily lives that pose danger to our health.
- Plastic shades on lamps, plastic blinds on windows, plastic chairs that look like leather [besides all of the fibers that are actually petrochemicals – don’t get me started on those!] — all of these plastics leach phthalates.
- And this leaching doesn’t stop after a week or a month or a year of owning the chair or the blinds on our windows. It continues to “off-gas” bit by bit, eventually weakening the plastic so that one day it just kind of falls apart.
- If we were to evaluate our house dust, we would find all the toxic stuff that’s leaching into the air from the environment we live in. This is the air pollution we breathe in daily.
I don’t have a good answer. I will continue to search. And meanwhile, use more natural fibers and materials and less plastic when you update your surroundings. Be aware of the chemicals you bring into your home. At the very least, use good air filters and clean or change them on schedule. Be aware!