• How being a Highly Sensitive Person & Adolescent Childhood Experiences

    CAN PREVENT DETOXIFICATION

On this page we will explore how stress directly affects our capacity to detoxify efficiently. 

We will also explore why some people are more prone to stress than others, and even why some people are biologically ‘wired’ to pick-up on environmental stimuli and therefore be pre-disposed to stress.

We will explore what you can do, if you are one of these people, so you may have lived a life feeling over-whelmed most of the time.  By recognising that there are good reasons for having such a sensitive nervous system, and then by taking action steps to self-soothe, and re-wire your body for healing – you will help your body to detoxify more efficiently and heal moving forward.  

HSP’s – The Highly Sensitive Person

Let’s start by exploring what it means to be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and why the nervous system of an HSP is wired differently to a non-HSP (non-HSPs being the majority).  The information below is based on the work of Elaine Aron.  Elaine Aron is the PhD writer and researcher who pioneered the research into HSP’s spanning two decades of research by her mother before her.  

For the most comprehensive explanation of ‘what it means to be an HSP’ I highly recommend purchasing her book entitled; The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Survive and Thrive When The World Overwhelms You.  This book changed my life!  

“One in every five people is born with a heightened sensitivity; they are often gifted with great intelligence, intuition and imagination, but there are also drawbacks.  Frequently they come across as aloof, shy, or moody and suffer from low self-esteem because they find it hard to express themselves in a society dominated by excess and stress.” Elaine Aron.

Being an HSP does not fall under just one category though; there are in fact two sub-categories with additional nuances.  HSPs can be either introvert-HSP or extrovert-HSP.  And then you may be an HSP intuitive, or psychic, or empath, or clairvoyant, or have other intuitive gifts. 

I myself am an HSP introvert, with a number of intuitive gifts – who also likes people! Making social satisfaction almost impossible, since being with people is always highly stimulating, and then being with lots of people is often exhausting! Getting to know how you are wired goes a long way toward learning how to honour your gifts and take care of Self.  And if you’re a parent then one or more of your children is likely to be an HSP too. So whether or not you are an HSP then learning about HSP ‘Orchid children’ and how to raise them correctly will go a long way toward preserving their gifts, and remaining healthy.   

Where do you start?

There is a test you can take to find out where you sit on the HSP spectrum.  Either by purchasing Elaine’s book, or you can find the test online.  The test asks questions like .. 

  • Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams?
  • Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water?
  • Are you too shy or too sensitive according to others?
  • Do you feel overwhelmed by stimuli?   
  • Do other people’s moods affect you? 
  • Are you sensitive to pain?
  • Are you particularly sensitive to caffeine? 
  • Are you easily overwhelmed by bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics etc? 
  • Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?

The list goes on, but you get the picture .. 

Why are some people HSP and others not so HSP?

In most cases sensitivity is inherited.  But the fact is, when a child is under stress at home or at school they only need to be born with a slight tendency to be sensitive and he or she could ‘tip’ into withdrawing completely.  Meaning, there are probably no inherited traits that cannot be either enhanced (by stress and emotional trauma) or decreased (by self-soothing and vagal toning).

There are also degrees of sensitivity that are either exacerbated or result entirely from Adolescents Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

This is why we will turn to exploring the impact of ACE’s (Adolescents Childhood Experiences) once we have taken a good look at what it means to be an HSP and the impact of stressors upon the nervous, and therefore detoxification systems.  

Statistically 15-20% of people and higher mammals are sensitive. 15-20% of people and higher mammals are moderately-sensitive. And the remaining percentage of people and higher mammals are non-sensitive.  So why is this? 

Let’s look into our history to find some answers:  Most long-lasting Indo-European cultures have been governed by two classes; the Warrior King balanced by their Royal Priestly Advisors.  You can read more about this dynamic and class of people in Elaine’s book, but ultimately the Royal Advisors were the HSPs of past and present; wired to be capable of reading subtle clues and forecasting danger.  They have a greater level of awareness than the majority and are more conscientious than their bold Warrior King counterpart.  The HSP Royal Advisor picked up on and harvested subtle cues from within the air, in the weather, in the atmosphere within a room, and even in-between the lines of conversation. 

HSPs are all highly intuitive people, which means that they are picking up and working through information in a semi-conscious or unconscious way. 

The result is, they JUST KNOW stuff, without knowing how they know.  This type of nervous system can also read subtle clues leading to predictive thoughts.  The HSP JUST KNOWS how things got to be the way they are, and how they are going to turn out in the future.  And, it is for this reason that we can hypothesise that Nature wired the HSP nervous system to be this way, in order to read subtle messages, foresee, sense danger and then deliver predictions, in order to get the rest of the tribe out of danger. 

This sixth sense is discussed in more detail within my blog on interoception and chemo-sensing.  Click on the canary below for the full read .. 

The bottom line is, what is moderately arousing for most people tends to be highly arousing for HSPs. 

What is highly arousing for most people often causes HSPs to become very frazzled until they reach a shut-down point. 

The point at which a person reaches ‘shut-down’ is known as transmarginal inhibition – the term coined by a Russian psychologist around the turn of the last century, who believed the most basic inherited difference between people was ‘how soon’ they shut down.  An astute observation don’t you think!

He went on to state that those who shut down first, had a different type of nervous system and so this is where it gets interesting, because it is this observation that defines the subtle but key differences between people.  It is this observation that makes sense of ‘The Tipping Point’ and therefore the ‘shut down point’ between different higher-mammal nervous systems.  This makes the difference between ‘The Tipping Point’ and therefore the ‘shut-down point’ between our different detoxification systems.

Historically we didn’t have information in circulation to the same degree that we do today.  Everything was much slower, more grounded.  Life had its own natural pace and order in rhythm with lunar & solar cycles, in rhythm with feast & fasting farming cycles.  There were no cars, trains, internet. This meant that those wired with a super-sensitive highway type of nervous system, the HSPs, were not bombarded 24/7 with a continual orchestra of background noise, with overlays of stimulation in sights, sounds, smells present today. Here are some examples:

  • EMF 5G, 4G, Bluetooth
  • Radio waves
  • The hum of electricity
  • LED and Blue light from screens after sun-down
  • Noise and vibrations from cars
  • Synthetic smells, perfumes, air fresheners, aerosols, fire retardants
  • Carpets, vinyl, fabrics etc.
  • Chemicals, petrol, diesel, rubber,  
  • Vibrations from industrial building work if you live in town
  • Other people’s radios blaring
  • Air pollution from aeroplanes, helicopters, chemtrails
  • The list continues .. 

The body always remembers – the body keeps the score

So if the body remembers, and the body keeps the score – which it does, then HSPs must have a really high score within today’s industrial climate!

Let’s explore what happens when stress and emotional trauma happens because whether a person is HSP or not, the mechanism of action is the same.  It’s just more frequent for the HSP.  When emotional trauma is experienced a person either processes the trauma, or gets stuck in the fight-flight response.  Or there’s another option, they can go straight to the freeze response. 

Remember, this is regardless of whether or not the person remembers the trauma.  It might have been very early in life, for example before the age of four.  We are then faced with some form attachment trauma, usually meaning that we don’t properly bond with our mum, dad or a caregiver.  This is frightfully common too. To put it simply, the body remembers, so even if you don’t intellectually recall the scenario, your body keeps a score. It’s been said that time doesn’t heal, rather, it conceals. Meaning there’s a shift that happens from the exact time when that trauma happens, shunting biology into freeze and ‘shutting down’, pushing you closer to your transmarginal inhibition tipping-point.  

What is the definition of trauma?

The definition of ‘trauma’ is when an event happens that overwhelms our biology and when we’re not able to process the overwhelm at the time that it happens. So essentially, scrambled messages get pushed out of conscious view and compartmentalised into the unconscious part of our brains, and translated into the biology and nervous system.

What does this look like?

Biologically speaking, the downstream consequence might present as anything .. but on a systems-biology level there’s a neuroendocrine immune reset point from the date the trauma happened.

  • It changes the entire HPA, hypothalamic-pituitary-axis and the way that the HPA axis functions
  • It changes the gut bacteria
  • It reduces digestive enzymes
  • The body stops detoxifying

So does general stress in your life have this same impact?

For instance, when you are very busy just running around? 

Yes, it’s having the same impact. In fact, the cascading impact to trauma is profound and just as impactful on detoxification systems.  

Not all trauma is emotional trauma. Eating toxic foods such as refined sugars, refined flours and any food that your body does not recognise as food creates trauma.  So we are dealing with a chicken and egg scenario when it comes to trauma impacting our detoxification system, resulting in a higher toxic load, increasing cellular trauma and decreasing capacity for detoxification.

It’s very difficult to avoid stressors in our environment and it’s inevitable that we’re going to get exposed to toxins, so ideally, we need to be regulating our HPA axis and our nervous system on a daily basis.  No one’s exempt.

Realistically, everyone has some type of emotional trauma; from divorce or death or their early attachment issues and lifelong subjective stress.  HSPs with a low threshold and high perception of stress are more impacted by getting chronic complex illnesses too; such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, fibromyalgia etc.

What’s also significant and interesting, is that where you sit on the HSP spectrum has roots in your family history.  All trauma leaves a legacy, so the process of how you arrived at your level of sensitivity maybe the result of trauma experienced over more than one’s own lifetime.  In plain language, emotional trauma leaves a legacy and being an HSP is often transgenerational.

For example, we know that third-generation survivors of the Holocaust have the same physiological and psychological expression and even gene expression in their microbiome, as their grandparents. The trauma and resulting biological changes are passed down through the sperm line and imprinted within the gut. Which means that our ability to detox, and other health determinations resulting from trauma are epigenetically passed on from our parents and grandparents. 

And then, there’s attachment trauma.  Research shows that attachment trauma happens between the day of conception, and anytime up to the age of four. During this phase of growth, Baby’s mirror neurons and neural pathways develop in response to other people mirroring back to Baby. 

Mirror neurons:  If you have an empathic, caring, loving mother, you’ll develop these qualities too.  But if you do not, and instead have a mother who is emotionally detached or damaged, you probably will not develop these loving qualities.  Instead you may go on to develop attachment issues, resulting in an inability to self-soothe which further leads to difficulty regulating anxiety and depression due to feeling unsafe in the world.

These people go on to live in sympathetic over-drive and tend to get addicted to work and over-giving resulting in workaholism and not being able to relax.  So we no longer rest, digest, detox easily.  

Let’s now look at the mechanisms of how emotional trauma blocks detoxification and even how heavy metals themselves can promote anxiety and depression and mental health issues.  The chicken-egg vicious cycle that was mentioned earlier.

Never been well since …

From the day the trauma happens there’s a neuroendocrine immune system reset. This means that there is an increased response to all stressors from that moment due to a lowered threshold response to all stressors.

From that moment, low levels of stress now cause a heightened stress response. We also know that the entire genome is affected resulting in a shift in limbic kindling. It is due to this shift in limbic kindling that we see a clear correlation between stress and many disease presentations such as: Mental illnesses, diabetes, heart disease, and so on.  

Furthermore when that system gets reset, you are no longer able to heal, since you are no longer able to rest-digest or detoxify as well as you were previously. Your body has become a bucket, that has accumulated stress inducing molecules and toxins – because it is stuck in the fight-flight response.

The negative feedback loop:  The body doesn’t differentiate between emotional/physical/chemical stressors. This increased toxic-load now qualifies as an additional source of stress, directly impacting other systems including our hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and amygdala. This impact is experienced physically and chemically, feeding back into the stress response and reducing your capacity to detoxify even further. It really is a vicious loop.

Emotional Release Techniques – and detoxification: The Emotion Code is a process whereby toxic emotions are easily identified via kinesiology, before being removed with a process that involves a magnet rolled down the Governing-Vessel. All toxic emotions, whether inherited (transgenerational or familial) or adopted, reside within the biofield, but are experienced directly on a physical and biochemical level.  Once lodged within our biology, toxic emotions shift our genomic expression and cause disease. The Emotion Code is a system that I believe anyone can learn and everyone should learn, to use on yourself and loved ones.  But to start with, it’s best to work with an experienced qualified practitioner, or at least for the first couple of months / 6-8 sessions.

You can read more about my work with The Emotion Code and the service that I offer to emotionally detox HERE 

Now, I’ll share this interesting story that illustrates that power of an emotional detox, one that another practitioner has shared within the scope of their experience. There was a wholistic Dr, whose assistant had her amalgam fillings removed.  But the treatment was not set-up correctly and the removal of the mercury filling resulting in mercury poisoning.  It was said to be pretty bad.  The assistant lost her room-to-room memory, most likely the result of mercury vapours released from the filings and translocating across her blood brain barrier, causing neurological inflammation.

Of course, the team did everything possible to sort this out but apparently nothing was working. No mercury was coming out and symptoms remained critical. Finally, an emotional release technique was used. All of a sudden the assistant had a big emotional release – and results were seen immediately.  Lab tests for heavy metal loading and release were carried out, and the following day her results showed the highest level of mercury released in any lab test they had complete to date.  That was after one emotional release.  This is a true story, and speaks directly to the power of all emotional release work. 

When considering true wholistic recovery and health “You need to look at bacteria. You need to look at heavy metals. You need to look at emotional trauma. And the three things go together.” Klinghardt

The late-great Candace Pert wrote the landmark book Molecules of Emotion. Candace discovered that there are opiate receptors throughout our body, in every cell of our body, not just the brain. Furthermore, these receptors communicate with each other, both locally and distally. What this translates into is that the organs in our body are able to communicate with each other literally talk with one another. This is all described in detail within another of Candace’s books, Your Body Is Your Subconscious Mind.

Candace describes how the people in our environment and the environment itself affects us on both emotional and physiological levels. She spells out the interdependent nature of our senses, in that we are simply unable to separate function from emotion and cognition, since they are all interdependent.  Candace explains how our all of our organs and systems are communicating with each other, all of the time, via these opiate receptors.  She explains how our emotional memory is actually not stored in our brain at all! 

Our emotions aren’t just neuropeptides and they are not just hormones either.  And for those who are into the school of psychoneuroimmunology, our emotions are also not just our gut bacteria either. According to Candace Pert, emotions permeate throughout our biology and are found to reside throughout a complex communication network.  This is were we can begin to appreciate that it is the communication between systems that create and strengthens our electromagnetic Biofield. Furthermore, the bi-directional nature of this Biofield, means that by releasing toxic emotions lodged within the Biofield, we can heal our organs and other biological systems.   

Steps that you can take to emotionally detox

At DetoxNutrition Anna focuses on Detoxification + Restoration as a whole body system.  Anna believes that by engaging in detoxification on all levels; physical, biochemical, emotional, electrical & spiritual – rather than just on one level alone, we stand a far greater chance to succeed in healing without a crisis. 

We can focus on detoxification of the physical and structural body by removing toxic foods whilst engaging in naturopathic cleansing and strengthening practices. 

We can focus on detoxification of our organs and system by bridging nutrient-biochemical  pathways and get our metabolism working optimally again.  We then mobilise, bind and excrete excess hormones and endotoxins such as ammonia, peroxynitrite and other toxic byproducts which upset our metabolism. 

We can focus on detoxification from toxic EMFs by reducing our blue light exposure during the evening and night hours. We can adopt healthy sleep hygiene habits, and reduce electrical and EMF exposure in the bedroom.  We can limit the number of hours we spend in front of the screen and even remove it completely over the weekends – for instance. Furthermore, by introducing PEMF therapy, and Bioresonance therapy we can counter toxic EMF with healthy EMF, to support our natural EMF & Biofield.  We can also take walks in nature – for the ultimate healing and grounding experience. 

We can focus on Emotional Releasing and Detox journey with tools such as The Emotion Code, PSYCH-K® and The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). All three modalities are considered Quantum Healing Techniques as they all work to release trauma throughout all of time and space, starting from the human Biofield.

  1. The Emotion Code locates (through muscle-testing / kinesiology) the most relevant toxic emotion that is wanting and willing to be released in that moment. And then releases it using a magnet. It takes around three minutes to locate, un-pack and then release the emotion, it could not be simpler.  The beauty is that when the emotion is released, if the emotion passed down to any of your children or grandchildren – it will be released from them too.  Or, if it was inherited from either of your parents, and even further up the line through a transgenerational trauma pattern, it will be released from the entire familial line within those 3 minutes too.  It’s truly THAT powerful. 
  2. PSYCH-K® & brain gym exercises. PSYCH-K® has the power to ‘write-over’ any previous sub-conscious script, whilst removing the previous negative script from the sub-conscious mind within as little time as one short 2 to 45 minute P-K® balancing process. Once aligned to your new Goal or Belief, your life will be set on a new trajectory indefinitely. Results are usually felt within days.  More intensive P-K® balances offer resolution at the deepest level; the Core Belief Balance, the Relationship Balance and the Life-Bonding Balance each take between 1-2 hours to complete.  Once aligned it will not be possible for your life to be the same again.
  3. The Emotional Freedom Technique is easily learned and applied in real-now-time, it should be done daily, preferably at the time when the stressor is being experienced. As part of a wellness strategy, Anna teaches EFT (The Emotional Freedom Technique) to each and every client within their first four Nutrition and Lifestyle sessions. EFT is a powerful self-help that enables clients to take back their power when used daily.

Over the years Anna has found it to be true that clients who don’t do this type of work, or those who come with a pre-disposition toward patterns of Self-Sabotage, are far more likely to struggle with detoxification as well as have addiction issues.  They have the tendency to avoid self-responsibility, shifting their health toward victimhood and blame.

For this reason Anna has created a 4-Part Scripted Self-Sabotage Package, which is completed over 4 weeks, where you can work with a range of powerful EFT scripts – to help you identify, unpick and unravel the well trodden path of a typical Self-Saboteur.  Tapping out these trickster patterns, helps you to get clear, get real, get honest, and release toxic emotions that keep you stuck. 

Brain – reset rituals

So what else can you do, to empower yourself at home with daily brain reset rituals?

These are things that you need to schedule in to your diary on a daily basis. Experiences that are fun and not performance related so that you’re not being judged or judging yourself for doing it. So you can’t fail at it.

  • Deep diaphragmatic breathing
  • Left nostril breathing
  • Mindfulness – be aware of your stress level right now
  • Yoga
  • Meditation
  • Qi gong
  • Tai chi
  • Dancing
  • Sunbathing
  • Art Therapy 
  • Even a massage is a form of Somatic bodywork therapy!
  • Also place an emphasis on Sleep Hygiene: like go to bed at 9 pm. You’ll be more productive. You’ll sleep better. You’ll be detoxing better.

And if you don’t give yourself the time that you deserve, to do your daily reset rituals and commit to fun stuff then your self sabotage patterns may just creep back in, self-sabotaging your best intentions on a detox protocol too. 

But the good news is there’s a thing called neuroplasticity.  

All emotional release processes will help you to feel lighter since emotional releases impact the neuroendocrine immune system and your Biofield.

End note: The Adverse Childhood Event study which was a huge study done by the CDC and Kaiser Permanente, back starting in 1998, surveying 17,500 adults. They found that 67% of all adults said they’d had at least one adverse childhood event. And we’re talking about things like physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, physical or emotional neglect. Things like parents separating or divorce. How many of us have had some level of exposure to that? Domestic violence, mental illness in the family, substance abuse. And a lot of these types of things they were looking at they don’t really qualify for a PTSD, a post-traumatic stress disorder, diagnosis necessarily. It’s much more relational and attachment trauma and developmental trauma which is a different type of trauma. But it still has the same physiological impact on the body. So if you had a high level of adverse childhood events or ACEs you have an increased risk of seven out of the top 10 causes of death – and all of these disease presentation start with our capacity to detoxify. 

If you have six ACEs, you have a 20-year reduction in lifespan. If you had four ACEs, you have a 400% increased risk of things like depression, 2.5 times higher risk of things like chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder. Your diabetes risk is higher, hepatitis… Everything. Four hundred percent increased risk of Alzheimer’s. And also, what’s really interesting is the chronic fatigue group. If you have ACEs in childhood, you have a six-fold increased risk of chronic fatigue syndrome in adulthood. And if you have CFS your capacity to detoxify diminishes even further.