Your body is detoxing every minute without you even realizing it. But that doesn’t mean you should not pay attention.
Your body detoxifies toxins through your liver, kidney, lungs, and skin. Each organ plays a specific role. However, the organ that gets the most attention and does the heaviest lifting is the liver.
But the liver can’t do it all.
An overwhelmed liver becomes sluggish and won’t be able to eliminate all the toxins in your body. Toxins that aren’t eliminated accumulate in your fat tissues and nerve cells and, later, can contribute to degenerative conditions.
It’s important to do all you can to make it easier on your liver.
Here are 5 routines you can follow every day to lessen the load on your liver so that you can detoxify better.
Early Morning
Meditate for 10-20 minutes
Meditation helps relieve stress.
When you are stressed, your body releases stress hormones. An overload of stress hormones creates more toxins and slows down your liver’s detoxification process. The net result is that stress adds to your toxic load.
Meditation lowers your reaction to stress, so you become more resilient and produce less stress hormones.
Meditation can also increase your glutathione levels by as much as 20%. Glutathione is the master antioxidant in the body that works with your liver to remove toxins from your body.
Practice Oil Pulling
Oil pulling is a Ayurvedic practice that involves swishing 1-3 teaspoons of coconut or sesame oil in your mouth for 10-20 mins and then spitting it out.
These oils are anti-microbial, and studies have shown this practice is effective in improving oral health, with reduced plaque and gingivitis.
It also provides a more systemic detox through the tongue. Ayurvedic traditions hold that each area of the tongue is correlated to an organ of the body. Toxins and bacteria can therefore be pulled from the body and expelled through the tongue and into the oil.
The practice is best performed in the morning on an empty stomach and can be repeated throughout the day before eating.
Mid-morning through Evening
Sip Bone Broth
Bone broth provides water and electrolyte minerals for proper hydration.
Even better, bone broth contains glycine, collagen and gelatin.
Glycine helps you sleep, heals the gut and helps detoxify. Glycine is the building block of glutathione, the master antioxidant.
Collagen and gelatin protect and soothe the gut lining to aid in gut healing. A healthy gut means you are able to digest your food, absorb the nutrients and eliminate the waste efficiently.
Sip bone broth like tea during your day or/and incorporate it in your foods by using broth instead of water in recipes for things like grains, beans, and soups.
Late Evening
Dry Brush Your Skin
The skin and lymphatic system are major parts of your detoxification system. Dry brushing also increases blood circulation and increases lymphatic drainage.
Use a natural bristle brush and brush your skin in the direction of the heart. Start at your feet using upward strokes, move up legs, torso and lower back. Then move to fingers and arms.
You can do this before bed or before you get in the shower.
Alternate Between A Hot & Cold Shower
Detoxification is filtering your blood through your liver. Movement is one way to get the blood flowing, alternating between cold and hot water during your shower is another.
The process stimulates circulation by forcing the body to heat itself and cool itself.
Best practice is to alternate between hot and cold water for 15-20 minutes, gradually bringing water temperature up and down in 3–5-minute intervals and finishing with cold. Ideally you want to be under hot and cold for 1 minute.
If you don’t have the 20 minutes to spare, you can finish off your shower with a 1-minute cold splash.
These practices should be performed in addition to a dedicated detox or cleanse at least once a year to ensure your liver stays fit and healthy. If you are thinking of a liver detox, remember to do it under the guidance of a health practitioner such as a health coach, nutritionist, or doctor.
Detoxification is a serious thing. If you fast without ample nutrients, you will hinder your liver’s ability to detoxify and find yourself dealing with a “healing crisis”, where you end up feeling worse than when you started.
Maria Quintana-Pilling is a functional nutrition & lifestyle practitioner who helps women over 40 understand that they have the power to change their diet & lifestyle so they can live pain-free, be productive, and have enough energy to do what they love. Learn more about her work at https://www.urbanspicenutrition.com/
