Over the last year and a half, I have read many posts on the MC forum about individuals not doing the daily salt water flush when on the Master Cleanse.  Some people will just do it on weekends, others every other day, and still others not at all, preferring to substitute the lax tea in the morning.   We all start the master cleanse with good intentions, drinking our smooth move the evening before we start and waking the next morning to consume our first quart of salt water.  Little do many first time cleansers realize, getting that quart of salt water down is quite the task.  You read stories of people gagging on the taste, throwing up, taking upwards of an hour to get the entire thing down, etc.

The fact is, salt water cleansing purifies the digestive system and draws impurities out of the organs inside the body.  From what I've researched, the ideal time of the morning to do the SWF is between 5 am and 7 am, due to the fact that that is when the organs of the body have open channels.  It is important to understand that there are two parts to this cleanse. Part one is the detox: mobilizing the gunk from the part of the body where it's stored. Part two is elimination: ensuring the gunk is washed out of the body quickly and regularly so that the toxins are not reabsorbed making you feel sick or miserable. The salt water flush is a powerful part of that elimination process.  Many people worry about ingesting that amount of salt on a daily basis while cleansing.  However, the salted water is not absorbed by your digestive system at all. It passes all the way through your colon, and out through your anus. The reason it's not absorbed has to do with gravity. The enormous amount of salt practically pushes the water through your entire body.

Many people have difficulty getting the entire quart of salt water down each morning.  If you find yourself with a full stomach, even after the first few gulps, the following exercises will help. The idea is to get the water out of your stomach and into your intestines.

•  Exercise 1 - Rub your stomach with the palm of right your hand clockwise 21 times and counter clockwise 13 times.
• Exercise 2 - Raise your arms over your head (still standing) and sway them left to right.
•   Exercise 3 - Spread your feet shoulder width apart and spin your body at the waist from left to right. Let your arms swing with your body. Feel the stretch in your lower back and abdomen.

One thing is for certain, the salt water flush is an integral part of the master cleanse and should not be discarded lightly.  Try the above suggestions or perhaps drinking the mixture with a straw, or the modified version that I do, eight ounces of salt water followed by 24 ounces of pure water as a chaser.  As a final note, remember that the salt water flush, like an enema and colonic will flush away good bacteria from your GI tract. To replace these good bacteria, you need to supplement with a probiotic at the end of your master cleanse.