How to detox your liver

Did you know that your liver plays an important role in regulating your hormones?

For women, this is extremely important! Your liver might be under strain if you have bloating, belching, alcohol and coffee intolerance, sleep disturbances, hot flashes, body odour, depression, skin rashes, weight gain, nausea, headaches, heartburn, mood swings, menopausal issues, waking between 1am - 3am... Do not take these symptoms lightly!

Your liver is an organ that sits just under your lower ribcage on the right hand side of your body. It's function is involved in many processes in your body, mainly detoxification of the blood, protein synthesis, hormone regulation, metabolism, storing minerals, cholesterol production and parasite protection.

Looking after your liver might require a few lifestyle changes. Be gentle with yourself as you move towards better health. Your body will remind you often of all the things you've been doing up till now by giving you hints that you still need them - chocolate, coffee, alcohol, smoking... Tell your body it's ok, you've got this, it's time to do life a little bit differently.

Tips for loving your liver:

- Do regular low impact exercise often so as not to strain the ligaments and tendons as they will need more blood flow to heal, diverting blood flow from your heart.

- Eats lots of green leafy vegetables drizzled with lemon juice to help break down fats.

- Eat berries and fresh fruit as antioxidants.

- Drink lots of good quality water to help with detoxification.

- Take 2-3 tablespoon of insoluble fibre like psyllium husk in water each day to help clean the bowels as part of the body's detoxification.

- Manage your stress levels with regular meditation and breathing exercises. The main TCM emotion of the liver organ, is anger, which can cause imbalances throughout your body.

- Use the heel of your right foot to massage between the bones of the big toe and second toe of your left foot. This stimulates Liver 3 acupoint to balance liver stagnation and increase the flow of Chi for healing the whole body.

- Do I need to mention cutting down/out chocolate, coffee, alcohol, refined sugar???

Wishing you strong Chi :)