Healing Arts NYC - Manhattan's Premier Integrative Health and Wellness Center - Dr. Alicia Armitstead
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Spring Detox - Detoxing the Body for Better Health
"The liver is the primary detox organ. If the liver is not functioning properly, it can affect many other areas of our body. If your liver is not performing at its best, you could have gas or bloating, constipation, heartburn, acid reflux, yellowish tint to skin and eyes, high blood pressure, difficulty losing weight, cognitive challenges, dark urine, and chronic fatigue."
-Dr. Alicia Armitstead
Support for the Liver
For springtime, it’s out with the old and in with the new, and the same goes for toxins built up in your body - better out than in. Just like good housekeeping, there is good body-keeping! Cleansing six times a year is helpful and even more supportive when done as the seasons change. Just like the temperature, the foods we eat during each season should change. Eating in-season, local, organic produce will give you the most nutrient-dense food.
If you keep the body cleansed, a toxin will come in and go out without causing harm. Your natural detox pathways are healthy lymphatic, liver, bowels, and circulation systems. Toxicity is released at the cellular level into the lymph. The lymph drains it into the blood. The blood passes through the liver, where toxins are broken down and then dumped into the bowels to be excreted. This is your body’s natural detox pathway, and if these four systems are not working well, toxins will build up in the body and could cause insomnia, digestive issues, eczema, brain fog, or high blood pressure, just to name a few.
The liver is the primary detox organ. Besides detoxing, it also produces bile, essential for digesting fats and having good bowel movements. The liver makes cholesterol, which is the precursor to all hormones. It also breaks down hormones. Excess fat can be due to too much estrogen in your body due to the liver not breaking it down. The liver also acts as a storage facility for our vitamins and minerals. If the liver is not functioning properly, it can affect many other areas of our body. If your liver is not performing at its best, you could have gas or bloating, constipation, heartburn, acid reflux, yellowish tint to skin and eyes, high blood pressure, difficulty losing weight, cognitive challenges, dark urine, and chronic fatigue.
There are certain foods and supplements we can focus on to help cleanse your liver. My favorite food to support the liver is beets. Other foods that are good for the liver are carrots, spinach, cabbage, turmeric, apples, dandelion root, broccoli, asparagus, green tea, and olive oil.
Many diets, supplements, and programs are available to cleanse your liver - and we encourage you to find the one that is best for you by muscle testing. One of my favorite supplements to support the liver is LivCo because it contains milk thistle for liver support, Schisandra, and rosemary. Together, these three herbs are wonderful for cleansing the liver.
About LivCo
LivCo® provides herbs for liver health and contains Schisandra, Rosemary and Milk Thistle to provide liver cleansing support.
These herbs have been traditionally used in herbal preparations to:
- Aid in the elimination of naturally occurring toxins and support healthy general detoxification
- Support healthy liver function
- Support and maintain cellular health
Here are some general tips for optimal liver support and cleansing:
- Hydrate - drink 64 ounces of water or more a day
- Start each morning with 32 ounces of water or 16 ounces of water with 1/2 lemon squeezed in. Wait 20 minutes before you eat or drink anything.
- Eat clean and organic food
- Exercise regularly
- Eat only good fats like extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil and avocados
- Eat veggies, preferably organic. A good rule of thumb is to eat many colors to get the most micronutrients.
- Get the proper amount of sleep
- Avoid alcohol and tobacco products
- Avoid processed foods and whole grains
Circulation Support
Besides supporting the liver, we also want to help circulation. The better the blood flow, the better the toxins can reach the liver and move out of the body. The last thing you want is toxins getting stuck in the bloodstream that keep circulating throughout the body.
My favorite way to help increase blood flow is massage. Nothing beats working a part of the body to get more blood flow. Of course, going for a massage is great, but even at home, you can massage any part of the extremities yourself. A nice foot rub as part of your nighttime routine is excellent, and if you add essential oils to your massage, it can be much more therapeutic. I recommend rosemary, eucalyptus, and peppermint oils to increase circulation. Massaging with these oils will help warm the tissue and keep the skin soft, which will help promote circulation. Rub rosemary oil on varicose veins, too, because rosemary is very effective not only for improving blood circulation and treating dilated and inflamed veins. Also, the best thing for a bruise is to massage it with rosemary oil. Even though it is painful, it works like magic because it gets the spilled blood to move out.
Ending showers or baths with cold water is not as enjoyable as a massage, but it really does help stimulate blood flow. To start, go as cold as you can stand for 30 seconds or longer while taking deep breaths. It’s so stimulating to the body that it improves circulation, mood, and immunity while reducing inflammation and pain.
To help the body detox, we want to get the blood flow going and the lymph flow going. If the lymphatic system is slow, toxins will build up at the cellular level, and we don’t want toxins in the cells. One of our favorite ways to detox is lymphatic drainage therapy, which uses a particular machine to help move the lymph. A session is pleasant and relaxing, and drinking lots of water afterward helps flush out the toxins from the therapy.
A great way to move the lymphatic system at home is by dry brushing or rebounding. All forms of exercise work on the principle of opposing gravity. Rebounding utilizes the forces of gravity and the forces of acceleration and deceleration. When you land on a rebounder, every cell in the body has to adjust to the increased deceleration. When the springs take over and push the body up into the air, the body has to adapt to a weightless condition for only a moment. Having the body adjust to an environment it is not used to, which is deceleration at the bottom of the bounce, promotes lymph flow.
Another way to help remove toxins from the body is by taking a detox foot bath. A detox foot bath is a specific machine that helps pull toxins out of the body through the feet by putting ions in the water your feet are soaking in. These ions have a negative charge. The negative charge attracts the positively charged toxins in your body. The ions in the foot bath water hold a charge that enables them to bind to any heavy metals and toxins in your body, similar to how a magnet works. This allows the toxins to be pulled out through the bottoms of your feet.
Most people find that when they help the body detox, whether through a lymphatic drainage session, eating healthier, or a series of foot detox baths, they have much more energy, improved digestion, more mental clarity, and cognitive functioning, a boost to the immune system, and more balanced blood sugar levels.
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Healing Arts does not provide medical services. Suggested nutritional programs are not intended as a treatment for any disease. Our advice is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Healing Arts 2021. All rights reserved. Art Licensed by Shutterstock©