The liver. It's the bodies second largest organ after the skin. It's job? detoxification.

Many people think they are only detoxing when they actually go on a detox. Not true, detoxing takes place everyday, all day inside the body. Detoxification is so important, it's basically a transformational process where any substance that is seen harmful to you is changed by the liver into a less harmful form. However those everyday lifestyle choices we make effect the efficiency of how well it's able to carry out it's job. 

1.) Alcohol

The body can't excrete alcohol. It's converted into something called acetaldehyde which is a nasty substance that give us those hangovers the next day. If the liver didn't carry out this job the alcohol would sit in our blood which could lead to serious problems. The issue here is when alcohol is consumed regularly. Then the liver can get very overworked dealing with purely alcohol as its priority. This means the other liver loaders that need to be changed so they can be excreted are ignored so are recycled. 

2.) Caffeine

Coffee. We love it. Caffeine stimulates the production of adrenalin. This means blood sugar rises to provide more energy and your blood pressure rises to provide more oxygen to the muscles preparing you for action. The blood is diverted away from your digestion system. If your suffering from anxiety caffeine needs to be the first thing to go or really seriously look on cutting down as puts a lot of stress on the body. 

3.) Sugar

Large doses of the sugar fructose can overwhelm the liver.  Fructose is the carbohydrate naturally found in fruits, honey and corn. Trouble is it is being added to so much processed foods and our bodies are not designed to cope with so much of it. The only organ in your body that can break down fructose is your liver. It's already so overworked and promotes fat storage.  

4.) Synthetic substances

I'm talking pesticides, medication and the products we put on our skin. Nicotine patches for example, you only have to look at these to see how quickly things absorb through our skin into our bloodstream. 

When it comes to pesticides in some ways we are guinea pigs, never before has a group of people been exposed to pesticides for their entire lives. I want to encourage you to choose organic where you can. Not everything you buy has to be organic. Check out my How to meet organic halfway: the clean 15 and dirty dozen. Why not print out my free download or keep it saved on your phone when you're next shopping. 

Some signs that your liver may need help could be that you prefer to start your day with a coffee rather than food when your first get up in the morning. You overheat very easily. You're bloating easily. You drink alcohol daily. You are waking up hot at night and you have a short fuse. 

5 tips to help the liver. 

Commit to only drinking alcohol at the weekend, not during the week. 

Replace that coffee with a white/green tea. Many of us buy that coffee because we have a morning ritual of carrying that paper cup to work and believing we can't perform efficiently without it. Let's take a lesson from Buddhism and start to identify the emotion you feel when you think you need that coffee. Acknowledge the emotion and feel it. If it's stress, coffee is the last thing you need and a herbal tea will benefit you much more. 

St Mary Thistle is a great herb to support the liver if alcohol plays a big part in your life. Drink a green juice in the morning. 

Cut down on your fruit if you are eating more than two pieces. 

If there are health & lifestyle changes you know you need to shift but can't make the changes alone then get in touch with me here to hear about how one of my programmes could benefit you.