The short answer is there's no definitive answer to this question. A viable counter question, however, is how long do you want it to take? Every person’s journey is unique.
Here are some aspects you'll need to take into consideration:
Your Personal Vision of Health and What You Want to Achieve
Are you in it to overcome XYZ health condition(s) and then:
- go back to your previous way of living,
- try to find a balanced maintenance lifestyle, or
- progressively take your health to the highest peak you possibly can and explore human potential?
Attitude
Are you doing this because you’re personally motivated, or are you solely doing it because someone else is pushing you to, or that you feel you've got no other choice?
Your Current State of Health and Genetic Strengths and Weaknesses
One of the primary goals of regenerative detoxification programs is to clean and restore the functional ability of all bodily tissues, focused especially on the kidneys, endocrine glands, gastrointestinal tract, and lymphatic system.
This, in and of itself, can be a lengthy process depending on:
- the state of your lymphatic system, mucus congestion, and sulfur compounds present in the body, and
- the degree of inherent weaknesses of tissues (genetically speaking).
Reduction of Stress, Adequate Rest, and Ample Undisturbed Sleep
The aforementioned factors play an important role in the beginning and throughout the healing process. And that's where a fast-paced, high-stress lifestyle together with the inability to fall asleep (and stay asleep) can be a hindrance to your progress. These are nonetheless obstacles that can be dealt with.
Dietary Discipline
For some, it’s easy to switch to and maintain the diet necessary to promote bodily house-cleaning and regeneration of tissues.
For others, it’s a question of proper dietary transitioning, as they'll otherwise repeatedly relapse back to a diet of lesser ideal foods after brief periods of eating more optimally.
How Soon the Proper Functional Ability of Detoxification Pathways and Lymphatic Organs is Restored
The sooner, during the detox process, you achieve:
- filtration of lymphatic sediment through the kidneys*
- adequate elimination of wastes through the skin** (via sweating, diaphoresis and fever)
- increased exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen from learning to breathe abdominally,
- and restoring proper bowel function allowing drainage of the central trunk of the body,
- the sooner you'll clear the body of the very residues and compounds inhibiting it from being able to thoroughly repair itself.
*Kidney filtration is inhibited by deterioration of the kidneys themselves, but also through inadequate output of acetylcholine and dopamine neurotransmitters from the adrenal glands (i.e. weak adrenal glands can prevent your kidneys from filtering properly). A practitioner should always keep in mind: [an unhealthy transverse colon can affect] > hypothalamus > pituitary gland > adrenal glands > kidneys.
**Inability to sweat normally usually is a sign of thyroid gland weakness.
[Surgically] Removed Organs/[Lymph] Glands
Removal of tissues that play a direct role in or influence the process of eliminating wastes from the body, will become an inhibiting factor.
It's more difficult to drain your head area lymphatically if you have no tonsils, a colon without an appendix, and so forth.
If one kidney has been removed, the respective side of the body will be handicapped in its ability to filter lymphatic wastes. The other kidney must now take the full burden.
Toxic Personal Care Products, Cleaning Detergents, and Pharmaceutical Medications
These compounds and chemical agents can inhibit your progress on one level or another. This is especially true of corticosteroid medications like prednisone.
Sometimes success requires you to progressively and safely taper off of the pharmaceutical medications you’re currently taking. This must be handled with the ongoing assistance of your medical physician.
Environment
Environmental factors can greatly inhibit or completely nullify any chance you making progress depending on how sensitive you are to toxic petrochemicals and the like.
The following are some of the possibilities worth considering:
- Indoor mold and moisture
- Elevated exposure to electromagnetic radiation
- Exposure to highly polluted and toxic air (i.e. lack of fresh air, poor air circulation, etc.)
- Exposure to bioaccumulative heavy metals (be mindful of mercury fillings)
- Inhaling toxic fumes (frying food and off-gassing materials like paints, glues, plastics, floor coverings, certain furniture, non-stick pans, etc.)
- Lack of adequate exposure to natural sunlight (which, for some people, can be compensated with artificial light therapy, if needed)
A practitioner should always keep this in mind in the unlikely situation that there's a lack of positive results despite significant lifestyle changes and following the protocol for a long time.
Emotional and Mental State, and External Support
Each of these components is equally important in its own right, especially when you're facing emotional or psychological difficulties, but getting no support from family or friends (or worse yet, they're opposed to the way you've decided to take matters into your own hands).
The Reality of Regenerative Detoxification
Detoxification, as we practice it, isn't simply a temporary approach to better health.
Rather, you can see it as a lifestyle re-adjustment to the degree that you’re willing to make changes.
It’s a change and riddance of old habits with the development of new, beneficial ones.
The above are but a handful of relevant variables. So, hopefully, you get the picture as to why the initial question will receive different answers depending on the person concerned.
If you're facing minor health issues (e.g. small aches and pains, minor periodic headaches, frequent bouts of fatigue, brain fog, sporadic occurrence of pimples, high blood pressure, etc.), you may achieve tremendous improvements anywhere between a few weeks to 6 months. But again, this can be influenced by everything mentioned earlier.
More severe and chronic health conditions (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, chronic fatigue, sharp decline of mental acuity, acne, low blood pressure, etc.) will, in most instances, take much longer to resolve as some of these issues are deeply rooted.
As you may have encountered, there exists a plethora of differing detox and cleansing programs pervading the market today (see FreeDieting.com for some examples).
You'll notice that many of these programs last anywhere between 1 day and 4 weeks at most.
Although such narrow time frames appeal to those looking for quick fixes, it has also given people a false and misleading idea of how much work and dedication is really involved in restoring the health and integrity of the human body, and how long such a process can take.
Reversing decades and generations of suboptimal lifestyle practices will take time. But every bit of effort given to this task, and the results achieved because of it, will be well worth it.
That said, regenerative detoxification can be a transformative journey and an eye-opening path to experience.
Begin slowly, if needed. Ease yourself in and become familiarized with this intriguing path and make it a fun journey along the way.