Ever so often a health craze hits that stirs things up in the healthcare community. Right now, that craze is liver detoxing. Some healthcare professional’s say it’s a necessity, others have reported that it could actually be dangerous. At Seva Life, we’re here to offer the information you need to make an informed decision. There are definite benefits of detoxing your liver, but there are also things you should avoid. We’ll go through them all.
Why Detox?
Detoxing is a method of cleansing your body of the toxins created from foods and stress that build up in your cells. Your body is designed to cleanse itself of those unwanted toxins, but it only works when your body is healthy and functioning properly. A whole body detox like the one Seva Life created supports your entire body, including your organs, to encourage your own natural detoxification process. Think of detoxing as a way of jump starting your body’s natural functionality so it can maintain its pre-programmed defenses.
If you’re suffering from any of these symptoms, you can definitely benefit from detoxing:
- Fatigue that won’t go away
- Feeling generally unwell
- Nauseous at random times
- Itch all over for no apparentreason
- Swelling, especially your ankles
These could be signs that your liver isn’t functioning properly. Your liver is an essential part of your digestive system. It helps your body digest food, store energy, and remove poisons. It’s also responsible for breaking down environmental chemicals and toxins as well as empowering your body to remove them altogether.
If your liver receives the support that it needs, it can efficiently renew and regenerate itself so it can continue to function as your body’s garbage disposal.
Detoxing Benefits
In contrast to many ways an unhealthy liver makes you feel, when your liver is healthy, you’ll:
- Feel energized
- Not have dark under-eye circles
- Not experience a bloated abdomen
- Smile More
4 Ways to Keep Your Liver Healthy
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Limit Alcohol Intake
While low-to-moderate alcohol consumption may benefit your health, excessive drinking can lead to severe health problems.
Alcohol is metabolized in your liver. A healthy liver is able to break down the alcohol so your body can eliminate it, but a liver that has been damaged due to heavy alcohol use or otherwise known as Alcoholic Fatty Liver disease, isn’t able to rid itself of all those toxins. In addition, the actual process of breaking down the alcohol generates harmful substances that can damage liver cells, promote inflammation, and weaken your body’s natural defenses. The more you drink, the more damaged your liver becomes.
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Get Better Sleep
Good sleep is precious. It’s the time when your body is able to rejuvenate from the hustle, bustle, and stress of the day’s activities. You might think that when you’re asleep, your whole body is resting, but that’s only half true. While your body does rest itself, your cells are at work to replenish, repair, and rebuild themselves. A total restoration is in progress, that’s why your body needs 7-9 hours of sleep to do what it needs to do.
During this time, your body is using excess fat as the fuel to keep these activities going. If your sleep is interrupted or you don’t sleep soundly, your body isn’t able to complete the restorative process. Poor sleep, disturbed sleep, or not enough sleep can lead to stress, anxiety, toxin build up, excess fat storage, obesity, and a host of other long-term health consequences.
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Drink Plenty of Water
Your body is made up mostly of water. Your cells and organs need water to function properly. And most importantly, water acts as a natural detoxing agent by ushering waste products out of your body. Water is your body’s transport system and if there’s not enough of it, everything suffers: joints, digestion, and even your body’s core temperature.
Depending on where you live, your activity level, and your diet, here are the recommended daily water intake amounts. For men: 125 ounces and for women: 91 ounces.
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Reduce Sugar and Processed Foods
The high consumption of both sugar, also known as the other “crack” and processed foods is at the root of most health issues today. Both have been linked to obesity and other chronic diseases.
Your body has a hard time digesting, breaking down, and ridding itself of many processed food substances. Plus, with the onslaught of diseases and chronic health conditions brought on by consuming high levels of sugary foods, your body’s ability to naturally detoxify itself becomes compromised.
The best path is to chose to live a healthier, lifestyle overall which includes eating a balanced diet, making small changes over time, and participating in a regular exercise program that raises your heart rate.
In conclusion, there really isn’t one, specific thing, diet, or path to take to cleanse or detoxify your liver, it’s a combination of doing the right things in the right way. Your liver plays a key role in removing harmful or chemical substances from your body, but in order to do this properly, it has to function properly and be healthy. Keeping your liver healthy by avoiding foods, substances, and activities that can overload it and cause it to not function as it should is the key to keeping your liver healthy.
