At the start of a new year, Koreans often fast as a way of cleansing and detoxing their bodies, flushing away the toxins built up over the past 12 months.

It’s half past noon and diners are cramming into the fast food chains on the top floor of a busy 10-story commercial complex in Ilsan on the northern outskirts of Seoul.

But down the corridor inside “Uri Hanbang Center,” one of many fasting clinics in Korea, no one’s eating lunch.

Instead, Kim Yu-na, a 29-year-old customer service staff at a local telecommunication company, lies on the matted floor of the center’s living room in her sweatshirt and pajama pants bathed in the pungent scent of burning incense.

A small pot of burning mugwort is sat on top of her stomach, a process known as moxibustion, a common treatment in Chinese medicine.

Kim joined a 10-day fasting program at the center recently to help strengthen her metabolism, and the mugwort is a key part of the therapy.

The herb is said to make women more fertile and boost men’s sex drive after it seeps through the skin of a person’s belly and into the body’s vital organs, according to the center’s director Park Dae-cheol, who oversees about 10,000 members nationwide.

Aside from the moxibustion treatment, visitors at Uri undergo a number of programs designed to help them reduce cravings for food and relax their stressed-out bodies.

The clinic has a number of treatments that it has developed itself in the tradition of Oriental medicine.

For example, one therapy involves placing a poultice made of soybean paste on a person’s abdomen to help the body release flatulence from the digestive system. It also helps focus heat on the lower part of the body, which, in Oriental medicine, helps treat headaches.

Another therapy is known as “oral meditation” and it is supposed to strengthen a person’s weak internal organs through the use of sound.

People trying out the treatment are shut in a cave-like space in the clinic and asked to repeat words on a list with their mouths fully closed.

News of this type of traditional therapy has spread beyond Korea’s borders. Park said Japanese tourists and businessmen from the Middle East are among those making appointments for sessions at the center.

In addition to the poultices and smoldering herbs, fasting is an age-old habit in Korea, and one that appears to have some health benefits. It has a long tradition in religious practice all over the world and in Korea, too.

Buddhists have practiced abstinence for years and it was later adopted by local Christians who set up retreats in rural areas where believers could congregate and eat frugally for a period of time.

A more extreme version is when local politicians or other prominent citizens put themselves on hunger strike as a militant form of protest.

But fasting isn’t necessarily a spiritual endeavor in Korea. At certain times of the year, and especially at the start of a new year, Koreans use fasting to mark a new transition in life. It’s seen as a chance to flush away toxins built up over the past 12 months and start afresh.

“Fasting is clearly a form of meditation,” says Park, who has run his clinic for 20 years.

“Many people who have tried fasting admit that the level of comfort they achieve through abstaining from food is often more satisfying than the pleasure of eating,” he says.

It’s no surprise that in Korea, where the health industry for stress management and anti-aging creams and processes is on the rise, detox diets that involve fasting are attracting attention.

Fasting advocates the belief that chemical contaminants accumulated through bad eating habits and the consumption of alcohol, drugs and tobacco have to be dispersed in order for the body to rejuvenate itself.

The idea is apparently interesting patients with chronic illnesses who are seeking an alternative to standard medical treatment here.

Kim, the 29 year old under treatment at the Uri Hanbang Center, had been under medication for manic depression for three months. Her problems were alcohol and stress: she was working through an average of three to five bottles of soju at least five times a week.

Last month, she asked her bosses for three months of sick leave and checked into the clinic.

For the first week, she was given nothing but water. On her seventh day, they gave her a half cup of watermelon juice and vegetable extracts followed by a warm mixture of brown rice and crushed beans.

Kim will stay in the clinic for about 20 days.

“I turned off my mobile phone, canceled all my year-end arrangements and told my close friends that I was going to be traveling for a while,” she says. “It’s been the right choice. My head feels clearer. I don’t feel as anxious as before. I actually feel that I’m a brighter person now.”

Before Kim checked in, she was asked to leave all her medications at home. All patients are asked to do this including those with high-risk diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. She says she was worried at first, but after a week, she started sleeping better at night.

While fasting is embraced in Chinese medicine as a way to cleanse your digestive system, Western medicine has been more critical about it in the last few decades. Doctors have argued that fasting elevates blood sugars and takes extra protein from muscle because the natural process of glucose production slows down in people who don’t eat.