by Laurie Boris

Created on: April 13, 2009   Last Updated: June 29, 2009

Since the beginning of recorded history, healers have used the power of perspiration to treat illness and disease. And the "sweat lodge" has been a staple of many Native American and Northern European civilizations, as a ritual, to maintain good health, and to get rid of toxins the natural way.

But somewhere we've gone wrong. Open any of today's health magazines and you'll find at least a dozen ways to "detox" your body, from elaborate herbal remedies to costly and possibly dangerous purges and fasts to the latest celebrity diet guaranteed to flatten your belly in five days.

But you really don't need any of that. Your body is an efficient machine. It has always known how to get rid of toxins the natural way. If you eat a healthy diet, exercise and drink enough water, your organs will remove toxic offenders without expensive or questionable outside help. And the largest organ in your body - your skin - is one of the most efficient avenues to give toxins the boot. Just by the simple, natural and time-tested process of working up a good sweat.

Whether you get your glow on with exercise or in a sauna, you can help your body remove metabolic and environmental toxins. These can include natural wastes that build up in your muscles, or industrial chemicals that come in contact with your skin either as smog in your environment or from the cosmetics and body care products that you use every day. Saunas have proven to be especially effective at bringing up environmental toxins. And today's infrared saunas are purported to work at a cellular level to release toxins lodged deep within tissues, while you get to sit in a pleasantly cool environment. Some 9/11 first responders have said that even weeks after the event, infrared saunas brought out enough toxins from their bodies to soil previously white towels.

A good sweat can also restore your body's equilibrium, by using your skin's 2.6 million sweat glands to secrete excess salts, which keeps the proper balance of minerals like sodium, potassium and chloride in your bloodstream.

You can also kill off some nasty bugs. The temperatures needed to make you perspire, either in the sauna, while you exercise, or when sweating from a fever, are high enough to kill some viruses and bacteria.

Sweat also prevents your body from overheating. If you start getting steamy, say, during a rigorous tennis match, air currents moving over your sweaty skin help evaporate the liquid, which keeps your skin cool.

And there's a reason why many spa treatments - whether done in swanky getaways like Canyon Ranch or in your own home - rely on making you sweat. They can help clean out clogged pores, improve your skin's health and give you that natural, rosy glow.

So don't sweat it when you work up a sweat. You're doing your body a favor. You're getting rid of toxins the natural way.

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