How To Identify Toxin Exposure And Easy Ways To Eliminate Toxins From Your Life

James Swanwick: I am James Swanwick. This is Swanwick Live. And today we're talking about toxins. And we have a special guest who is known as the Toxin Terminator. So if you have toxins in your life, you know that there are toxins in your home, you know you're probably eating or drinking or breathing in toxins. And maybe you're just curious, what are the toxins that I'm breathing in? And what are the toxins around my home and how do I get them out of me? Or how do I stop them getting into me? Then the toxic Terminator, Miss Aimee Carlson is going to give us her guidance and expertise today. Hello, Amy. Great to have you here!

Aimee Carlson: Thank you so much for having me on James. I love spreading the message and really helping people know what choices they have so that they can improve the quality of health they have, not only for right now but golly Jeepers, we want to age gracefully, right?

James Swanwick: Yeah, and I’m assuming then that means that if we've got toxins in our system, then we're not aging gracefully. We're probably aging faster than we want to.

Aimee Carlson: We sure are. And, you know, I look around and I just see how I think so much of our society has decided that this is normal on how we feel. We just have no idea how poorly we feel. We have no idea that it's actually possible for us to age without aches and pains. It's possible for us to age without disease. It's possible for us to age without being on carrying that little bag of medications around with us, right? You have grandparents that you watch, and they're just like, I mean, it's like their purse, you know?

James Swanwick: Yeah. And what are the five pillars where all of our lives where toxins inundating our bodies

Aimee Carlson: Sure you bet. So, well over the last seven years I've been living this toxin-free lifestyle. And I've had the honor to be able to interview and work with some of the leading industry specialists, some of the highest doctors, healers, practitioners, and as well as all my research I did in writing the book, The Toxin Terminator, and that confirm that really, we have five areas of sources that we have for the toxins to come into our lives within our homes. Now outside of our homes, you know, it's all over the place, but in our homes, we're looking at the air that we're breathing. We're looking at the water, not just that we're drinking and we're really good. We'll dig into that when we get into that pillar. We're talking about food, what type of toxins could we be getting into our food sources and absorption you know, our body absorbs what we put on it. So what is happening and being absorbed into the body. And then all of that is physical. But we got to deal with the mental aspect of it too. You know, we've got mental sources of toxins that I deem inside and outside, and we can talk about those.

James Swanwick: Yeah, great. So we've got air, water, food absorption, and mental. Is that correct?  All right. Let's get into it then. So let's, let's talk about air. Just before we do that, we're talking to Aimee Carlson, who is also known as the Toxin Terminator. She's a public speaker and a published best selling author and a podcaster. And you can find out more about Aimee at  aimeecarlson.com. So let's talk about the first pillar that is air.

Aimee Carlson: Sure. So the scientists now know that the air inside of our home is five times more polluted than what we have outside and we think, wow, you know, we get outside into nature and read that fresher, there's a reason for it. Because so many of us are living in those high-efficiency homes and everything is sealed uptight. So there's no breathing happening with our homes today. We keep everything sealed uptight. We've got those humidifiers running, which is just a petri dish for mold and bacteria and viruses to grow. And so the biggest factor inside of our air is fragrance. We come into fragrance through what do you think? What you know, we would have very good skin     

James Swanwick: Perfumes 

Aimee Carlson: Yeah.perfumes. Yeah. The biggest culprit for fragrance in our everyday use is what we clean. Did you know that?

James Swanwick: Well, yeah, so cleaning products.

Aimee Carlson: Yeah, it's crazy. And so I tell my audience all the time, a helpful tip or in this category is buy products that are fragrance-free and here are the reason why fragrances are a number one toxin. Because that word is literally hundreds of ingredients within that one word. And it has a proprietary trade secret that it does not have to disclose what all is included in there. So it can pull from over 3000 different chemicals to be included in that one word. Now most of them are just several hundred. We just don't know what it is that's inside that word. So we want to be purchasing items that are fragrance-free. You know a lot of people say they have allergies to fragrance, and I believe that they do, synthetic fragrances that are very damaging to our respiratory system and our neurological system.

James Swanwick: Yeah, so fragrance-free and I'm assuming that most cleaning products, marketing, and promoting the fact that they have fragrances right? They probably say lavender smelling kind of table counter cleaner or something or maybe in the toilet, in the bathroom. It's probably got the fragrance of daffodils or roses or something like that. Right?

Aimee Carlson: Yeah. You know, you walk into anybody's home virtually, and you will find that they have some sort of a spray in their bathroom because sometimes the fan is just not enough, right? And so we've got a spray to take care of that odor and all they're doing is masking the smell, and it can be causing issues for us for our respiratory and neurological. I suffered from headaches every single day of my adult life. And towards the end,  I had issues with migraines that I had multiple times a week where I actually lost the vision on my left eyesight and that was going on for several years for me in my adult life. And as soon as I get fragrance out of my home, I do not suffer from headaches and I do not have migraines anymore. So that was a big one for me.

James Swanwick: Is there something that you would use to replace a fragrance, table cloth cleaner, or bathroom spray or something like that? Is this something that you would use instead?

Aimee Carlson: There are all kinds of options for us to use that are safe, look for plant-based products that you would be able to use simple soap and water, of course, you know not synthetically fragrance vinegar and water hydrogen peroxide is a good additive to put in there. I personally use a lot of essential oils so I'll add in you know a lot of citrus essential oils or peppermint essential oil to help with the cleaning properties for what I make and I have products that I purchased that are a plant-based cleaner. So yeah, lot’s of options available.

James Swanwick: That was it, the first pillar air with different fragrances.

Aimee Carlson: It is. Yes.

James Swanwick: Great. I'm loving it. Alright, so we'll move on to water now.

Aimee Carlson: So water.  A lot of people think about wow,  I know I need to drink clean water right? You know that seems to become common knowledge, right?  But I always talk to people. What we're bathing in is actually way more important than what we're drinking, now I want you to do it all. I would like you to put a whole house filtration system in your home. But I understand there's a lot of people who are in an apartment or they're in temporary housing and they can't do that. So, Aqua sauna, for instance, she sells a shower head filter that is going to just screw on right ahead of the showerhead and that's going to filter all the water coming in for you to shower with. And showering is way more important than what we're drinking because we're standing in that hot water, opening the pores of the body and we're absorbing everything in and usually we're taking a shower for, I don't know, five minutes, at least some people longer. So this is being absorbed in the body. I had a friend of mine, she's actually featured in my book. Her name is Bobby Shaban who had a Meniere’s disease, which is a chronic disease, and changing and putting a showerhead filter on her water system actually got rid of 80% of her symptoms.

James Swanwick: Wow, it's incredible.

Aimee Carlson: Yes. Simple changes.

James Swanwick: Would it make any difference if people were having cold showers because now the pores are opening up as much

Aimee Carlson: Your body absorbs what we put on it. So whatever we're putting on our body can actually be found and detected inside the blood within 30 seconds to 2 minutes depending on what it is. So even water is still going to be cold water going to be absorbed into our skin,into the body. And with all the heavy metals and the chlorine and the fluoride and the chloramine and the pesticides and herbicides and fungicides that are found in the water, that's just a no go for me in my home.

James Swanwick: Okay, great. So with water, we're talking about what we're putting on our body. And you do say  that is more important than what we're drinking. Certainly in our home we have a water filtration system for drinking water, but you would suggest that is not as important as the showerhead filter.

Aimee Carlson: Right. Ultimately, again, get a whole house filtration system if you can't do the whole house filtration system, then get the shower and then also then add in the under sink mount system. If you do that, there's even pictures that you can buy. There's Berkey Water Filtration devices that just sit on the countertop you can fill and they have charcoal devices in there that clear out all of the toxins from the water so lots of options for us.

James Swanwick: Great.  Just on water as well let's just say we're driving along we pull into the gas station and we go into the local 711 to get some water and the options we have as you know, what you might see in a gas station. Is there a brand of water that is preferable to another brand of water in your experience?

Aimee Carlson: Not really. I  just  try to do my very best and I understand there's always going to be circumstances that come up, but I do my very best not to drink out of plastic. Number one, I want to save the environment. Let's not use the plastic. That's number one. Number two, we don't know those cases of water could have been sitting outside in the heat when they are heated up. Then the toxins are leached into the water we just don't know what we're getting so not I there's really no preference in brand with water just above of all possible cost try to avoid buying it out of the plastic just if not for the toxins coming into your body for our environment.

James Swanwick: Okay, great. Now we're talking to Aimee Carlson, also known as the Toxin Terminator. Her podcast is the toxin Terminator. Okay, so we've covered air, we've covered water. Let's deal with food now.

Aimee Carlson: Absolutely. So lots and lots and lots of things are in our food that I think the big thing I want to talk about is pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. So, we find this in all of our food sources because so much of our soil has just been contaminated and we can even find some in our organic foods. However, organic is still the best option to do is purchasing all our produce in the organics. Now I know, again, a lot of you are gonna say but Aimee I just can't afford to buy everything organic. And what I would say to you is what do you eat the most stuff? Are you having blueberries on your granola every morning? Are you eating a banana every day? Then make sure those fruits and vegetables are organic. If you don't have bananas but maybe once a month, maybe not as important right? 

James Swanwick: Yeah, my partner and I, we shop at an organic market every Sunday morning and we only eat organics and I get mocked and ridiculed by friends going on to take an extra hundred dollars with you or like either, they charge you 100 bucks to walk into the organic markets. I kind of look at it this way and it's like I'm either going to pay for it now, I'm going to pay for it later with health issues. The other way I've kind of rewired my brain around it now is I look at it as it's not that organic food is expensive, organic food just costs what it costs. And everything else that being non-organic food is just cheap and nasty. That's kind of like the way that I’ve reframed my brain. So I just look at it as like organic food is just what food costs, that's just the standard. And then any food that isn't that is cheap and nasty. I mean, it might not be it theoretically speaking, it might not all be nasty stuff, but that's just the kind of way I play a little mind trick in my game to try and satisfy myself or reconcile myself with the fact that  I'm paying a premium for organic food compared to what most people pay for food.

Aimee Carlson: Here's another way to look at it too. And I hate any way that we can look at it to understand it.  I love what you say we need to pay for or we pay for it later. That is absolutely 100% true. But the other way to look at it too is that these farmers are actually taking care of our food and making sure that they are going to have good things coming into our bodies. And that costs more. Being able to just go on to those fields and spray them with whatever is cheaper you know to do. So, we're supporting families, we're supporting good strong businesses. Grow your own garden, golly, Jeepers, in my area where we're at, I can hardly find fresh produce. You know, we're starting to run short.

James Swanwick: Yeah, we've actually started growing our own produce now. We do kale and spinach and bok choy, and dandelion and tomatoes, and a few other things. 
That's an investment as well in the beginning because you got to buy soil and pots and you have to take care of it. So as a time investment into financial investment, but in the long run, it does pay off and it becomes a lot more cost-effective than buying your produce every week if you can just do both.

Aimee Carlson: Absolutely. And you know, and then that we talked about the mental aspect of that, I mean, what is more nurturing and grounding to our bodies and go get our hands in the soil and get dirty and how good that feels when you can go out and prepare your salad yourself and go harvest it right off of your deck or your backyard or wherever it is that you have your garden. That just feels good.

James Swanwick: Let's move on to the fourth pillar, which is absorption.

Aimee Carlson: So a couple of different things I like to talk about in absorption.  Number one, we have parabens. Now, men are affected by this as well because you guys are using shampoos and deodorants and lotions and aftershave and all of those things that you guys use and toothpaste.  Most of you guys are brushing your teeth as well, but women are highly affected by this one, because we, as an average, use 14 different products in just getting ready in the morning. That gives us an exposure of well over 200 chemicals, just as we get ready in the morning. So I'm parabens are endocrine-disrupting, these are affecting our hormones. And the studies have shown that they find parabens in every single blood sample that they test and they've also found parabens in every single breast tumor that they have tested. So this is not something that we want to be absorbed in our body and as women, you might have seen them on your shelves as well. We're starting to see more and more products available out there that say paraben-free, and that's a good thing. The consumers are starting to demand it, and companies are starting to listen.

James Swanwick: I've often said to people, most moisturizers, in my opinion, are just paraben filled creams. And I see these commercials on TV with these celebrities promoting shampoos like L'Oreal and Neutrogena or and all this kind of stuff. I have a look at the ingredients and I'm like shaking my head and I go man, this is just a chemical plant. And a friend of mine is a big health leader Ben Greenfield always said to me, never ever put in your mouth what you wouldn't put on your body. And so the kind of always stuck with me and he said put extra virgin olive oil on your face as a moisturizer. So I'd started to do that. I also put a little bit of coconut oil on my tongue to replace. I now use a brand from a friend of mine named Andy Hnilo. He has a company called Alitura Naturals.  And Alitura their moisturizer has honey bee wax and olive oil and things like that. It's an all-natural product. And I look at it and I go, Oh, I could eat. I could actually drink, it might be okay. Because I'm assuming that once you rub something on your skin, it absorbs into the body. And so you're taking on whatever properties in it.

Aimee Carlson: Absolutely. And that's what I said. There was a test too, actually done by the Environmental Working Group. Now you're in Australia, correct?

James Swanwick: Currently, yeah.

Aimee Carlson: So I'm not sure if you guys have access to ewg.org. It's an Environmental Working Group. They did a study where they took samples of, I believe it was 200 samples of blood tested, they tested positive for well over 40 some chemicals inside of it. And these were umbilical cord samples. These were embryos, they hadn't even been born yet. These are babies in utero. And so what we absorbed into the body is staying in our bodies, and it's being passed down to our children. So it's really, really important to have clean, safe products. And so many of these companies are doing this, what we call greenwashing. And they're using names, things like natural, safe, plant, and there's nothing plant-based about them at all. And they're getting away with that. And so we almost have to become a chemist and a scientist to know how to read those labels or align ourselves with the company that we know love and trust that  we can get safe products from.

James Swanwick: So yeah, if in doubt, look at the ingredients, and If there's anything that you find challenging to spell, or remember or pronounce the name of, chances are it probably has something that you shouldn't put on your body. I use Tom's deodorant as well, which is I think almost all or if not entirely natural. And Dr. Bronner's shampoo and body lotion. Have you heard of those two brands?

Aimee Carlson: Yeah, Tom's can still have some ingredients that I don't allow into my home. Again, it's all personal preference. There's an app,  ewg.org has an app called healthy living. And so you can scan your product and it'll give you a safety rating. So to go from 1 to 10. 1 being the safest 10 being a danger and they'll tell you why. And Dr. Bronner's, many of Dr. Bronner's products are very, very good. And there's something like an everyday base for a cleaner that I turned the label around and it had sodium lauryl sulfate in it. Now, sodium lauryl sulfate is kind of a controversial one. Some people say it's safe. I say it's not. And so you get to decide sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant. It is man-made. It is what creates the bubbles and suds in a product. And there are other plant-derived ones that are better than sodium lauryl sulfate and they say it's okay because it gets rinsed off the skin. I say it's not because it's going to get absorbed into the body. So you get to decide on that, but there's a lot of Dr. Bronner's stuff that is good. Again, we just had to learn to read the labels.

James Swanwick: Yeah. Great. Thank you. And you said the app from a ewg.org. I'm looking here and I've got EWG’s, food schools and EWG’s healthy living. Is that one of those?

Aimee Carlson: Yep, the healthy living right there at the top. That's the one you want.

James Swanwick: Okay, great. Thank you.

Aimee Carlson: Yeah. It gives you exactly what the rating is. And it'll tell you exactly why. And so the more you use that app, the more you're going to get in tune to Oh, yeah, I don't want that anymore. So it'll help you train yourself on what to be looking for. The EWG also has within its website, they have a place where you can test your water. So if you're on city water, you can type in your zip code, and you'll be able to get your cities on to testing for the water and what's in it.

James Swanwick: Okay, and then the last one pillar we wanted to talk about was mental. We've talked about air, water, food, and absorption. So now let's talk about mental health.

Aimee Carlson: Absolutely. So mental I like to go inside and outside. So outside is stress, right? We have lots of stress out there in the world and our jobs and  whatever it is, that's not going away. It's always gonna be there. So we have to learn how we can react to it and respond to that stress. And so I give tips on how to do that. And then also, on the outside is  like, I kind of call it an energy circle that I surround myself with. So, I like to look at it at about three different energy circles that I have around me. So if it's the outer one, you're pretty much an acquaintance and you're not really affecting my everyday life. So if you've got a lot of negative attitudes, negative energy, it's okay, I'm not really associated with you too much, then you come into another ring. And I might have more socialization with you, so I'm going to be a little bit more careful about who you are. And then there's my inner ring. These are the people I'm with daily and so I'm really protecting that energy and who they are, and whether they're allowed into that inner circle, with that energy ring because that's important to me. We become just like the five people that we surround ourselves with. And I believe that 100% and we have to protect that.

James Swanwick: Yeah. So  just to summarize the mental pillar, what should we avoid? And what should we run towards?

Aimee Carlson: So that’s the outer and on the inner. I'm talking about our words, thoughts and actions, we have a choice over what we're going to think which is going to form our words, which is going to form our actions. And so we have to make, we have to learn how to stop that process. If we're in this negative cycle and choose to look into things that are positive. We can do that through things like journaling, I do it through prayer. I'm a Christian woman. So I know that when I'm in a mode of feeling that everything is overwhelming, I'm trying to control people, places and things. And I've got no business trying to do that, because I don't have any control over that. And I need to give back to the guy upstairs that does have that control. Journaling is great. Meditation is wonderful. Getting out into nature. Get those feet on the ground, get the shoes and socks off and just touch that ground and feel the energy of nature. When you go outside, utilize all your senses. What are you seeing, what are you smelling? Sometimes we can taste things, what we are hearing, what we are touching, get those senses involved, and really be able to calm yourself down. And then the last thing is I'm very, very intentional. I do not watch the news. I do not scroll social media. I don't have any kind of notification set on my phone. I'm very intentional with my time and what I allow to see and hear so that I can keep in the right mindset.

James Swanwick: Yeah, I think the earth has an energetic pulse to it called the Schumann resonance, which is 7.83 hertz, I think it is. The earth actually behaves like a gigantic electric circuit. And so at least once a day, I will take my shoes and socks off and just put my feet on the grass and lay down on the grass if the weather is permitting, obviously. And that is actually a form of meditation for me, even if I'm not sitting there doing meditation.

Aimee Carlson: That’s wonderful. We're energy, the higher our energy level, the better we're going to feel. And the more productive we're gonna be, the more cognitive thoughts we have. It's all we want to have that high energy level. The lower our energy level goes, the sicker we become until finally we know, we're at death. So anything that we can do to help increase that energy level is fantastic.

James Swanwick: You mentioned not consuming news. So if you could just clarify or elaborate on that a little bit, if you would like, what news do you consume? How do you know what's going on in the world? What do you absolutely block off? How do you know, stay aware of certain things, but unaware of other things?

Aimee Carlson: It's a great question because I get it a lot. I don't watch any of it. I don't listen to any of it. You know, people tell you what's happening and what's going on. I owned businesses for many, many years. And I grew up in that business with the mentality that you had to know exactly what your competitor was doing. And when I took over the business, I felt like I didn't want to expand so much of my thoughts and energies on what someone else is doing. But so much as to what I absolutely have control over. In watching the news, I don't have control over any of that. I don't, not one I ought to have. What I have control over is me, and what I choose to do, what I choose to think, how I choose to live my life, and I can make informed decisions, I can go out there and be a part of the process. And I can make a difference in my world, in my community, by what I choose to do. And that's what I focus on is what I have control over, which is me. And that's it. 

I ran my businesses very successfully by doing that same thing I can. I want to have the best teams I can possibly create. We're going to create the best customer experience that we can have. We're focusing on what we can do, and not what everybody else is doing, because what they're doing doesn't really matter to me.

James Swanwick: Right. So we've got the five pillars: air,  water, food absorption, and mental. And I'm wearing a pair of blue light blocking glasses from our company Swanwick. And I’m wearing Swannies at the moment, and so I'm blocking a lot of the artificial blue light that's coming off from screens. Are there any other things like that, that you can suggest other than what we spoke about?

Aimee Carlson: Oh, there absolutely is. In fact, they sent me a link because I'm wearing blue light protection glasses as well as I'm on the computer a lot. And I'm like, I want to try the Swanwick ones out. You know, see how they are EMF.  We have all kinds of electronic magnetic fields that we're exposed to. There's actually circuit breakers that you can put on your house, apartment,  wherever you are living that can block those EMF frequencies and they can measure the frequencies that are inside your home. I just posted something up on my group, I'm doing more exploration on that. Oh my goodness, you could just disconnect the WiFi, at least do it while you're sleeping. You know, if you can't disconnect from it, I understand, but at least shut that off while you're sleeping at night and put your WiFi router at a far distance from where you are and where you congregate within your home. The more distance you have between the last influence is going to have on you.

James Swanwick: Wonderful. Well, Aimee Carlson, thank you so much. So appreciate you giving us your guidance here on Swanwick Live. If you are listening and watching you can learn more and reach out to Aimee at Aimeecarlson.com. The podcast as well, which is the Toxin Terminator. You can follow that. You got a pretty cool little icon there you dressed up in like a protective coat with goggles and everything looks pretty, pretty nice hazmat

And you've been helping people restore and renew their health by removing toxins from their homes and their lives. Anywhere else where people should reach out to you?

Aimee Carlson: I've got a Facebook group called The Toxin-Free Lifestyle. I pour into that each and every day. That's kind of where I spread my love to. You can get the book, you can listen to the podcast through that website. I've got a summit coming up on August 17. It'll be going live so watching the Facebook page will really speak a lot about it there.  I'm always happy to connect with people. I'm always happy to answer the question. And I do have a free toxic risk assessment that you can get to right through my website. So if you feel like there might be things in your home, and you're just not sure, it's just 20 questions that take you less than five minutes to answer. And it's free to you. And I'm happy to jump on a free call with you as well and help answer your questions.

James Swanwick: Wonderful. Well, Aimee Carlson, the Toxin Terminator, thank you so much for your guidance on today's call. We appreciate you so much.

Aimee Carlson: James. I'm appreciative of being able to share my message with you all. Thank you so much.