When you know how to detox the liver, you have a chance to change your life for the better, and avoid liver disease. Liver detox is not that difficult and doesn't even require some complex formulation of herbs from someone claiming you should buy their product or suffer death.
There are many ways to detox your liver naturally. Here we cover 12 ways to help you cleanse this vital organ of yours.
About Your Liver
You probably don’t think that much about your liver. Most of us don’t. Except maybe when contemplating that third shot of tequila. (Hopefully, you’ve outgrown this phase) Because the health of your liver is essential to your general health and weight.
Detox Your Liver – Fact
The liver is the body's main detoxifying organ. It is also the most over-worked. Consider your liver the housekeeper of your body.
How The Liver Functions
In simple terms, the liver is like the equivalent of an oil filter in your car – It filters your blood, breaking down and removing toxic substances that could otherwise harm your cells. Everything you ingest gets filtered through your liver.
Liver function has an important role in digestion, metabolism, and other bodily functions. It's also responsible for removing toxins from the body.
The function of the liver is to turn these toxins into harmless water-soluble compounds so they can be easily excreted from the body in urine or bile.
Healthy liver function utilizes the nutrients (the good stuff) to optimize your health and get rid of toxins (bad stuff) that cause health symptoms.
When you live a not-so-healthy lifestyle, toxic compounds start building up, and they begin to find their way into your organs, skin, fatty tissues, and blood — and that's when you may begin to notice symptoms due to poor liver function. Toxic build-up is what triggers inflammation which is at the root of most diseases.
What Exactly are Toxins?
Toxins affect liver health and can refer to a few things. The word can apply to environmental toxins like pesticides, chemical fertilizers in food, preservatives or additives in food, or genetically engineered foods.
It can also refer to a sticky waste by-product of digestion that builds up in the digestive tract when your digestion is weak or overloaded with the wrong foods. In Ayurveda, this is referred to as Ama.
Toxins can also refer to arsenic, lead, asbestos, heavy metals, chemicals in detergents and household cleaners, poisons, air, and water pollution, chemicals, and synthetics in clothing, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and recreational drugs.
What are Signs of an Unhealthy Liver?
Common symptoms of a toxic liver:
- Bad breath
- Allergies
- Weight gain and difficulty losing weight
- Fluid retention/bloating
- Food cravings
- Headaches
- Difficulty concentrating
- Heartburn
- Joint and muscle pain
- Sleep problems
- Skin problems
- Fatigue
- Hepatitis B
- Anger, irritability, and other emotional issues
- Fatty liver disease
There is rarely a disease in the body that does not start in the liver. To have a clean liver is like having a clean start in life.
Even if you follow a healthy diet most of the time, it may not be enough to rid your liver of toxic buildup.
A liver cleansing diet takes it a step further by helping eliminate the stored toxins, therefore, allowing your liver to reboot and rejuvenate to keep your liver healthy.
If you can commit 10-14 days to follow these simple habits and you can expect to see some amazing results. There are many benefits of a liver cleanse.
Benefits of a Liver Cleanse:
- Weight loss
- More energy
- Allergy relief
- Better digestion and elimination
- Improved concentration and mental clarity
- Less joint and muscle pain
- Improved blood circulation
- Less fluid retention
- Increased sense of peace and relaxation
- Improved sleep
- Glowing skin
- Brighter eyes
How To Detox the Liver – 12 Simple Steps To Better Health
Let’s look at 12 simple habits you can take right away to detox the liver so you can look and feel your best. Each of the following is equally important to your cleanse.
1. Morning Lemon Water
Drink warm lemon water first thing every morning to kick start your metabolism, flush your digestive system and alkalize your body and lose weight.
2. Daily Milk Thistle / Peppermint tea
Each morning of your cleanse you will make one mason jar of Milk Thistle tea. You are going to be like the hip herbalists and drink this beverage each day of your liver detox.
One mason jar of tea per day is your dose.
Milk Thistle contains Silymarin and studies show it supports the walls of the liver cells, preventing toxins from penetrating them. It also stimulates the regeneration of these cells, so it restores liver health and therefore overall health. The peppermint increases the effectiveness of milk thistle and improves its taste.
Making the tea:
You can help the liver by making a healthy detox tea.
Use: 1 Tbs of milk thistle seeds – 1 Tbs of peppermint leaves – Add 3 cups of water – Steep for 20 minutes and strain.
3. Water
Besides the morning lemon water and Milk Thistle seed tea, drink water throughout the day. Sipping plain hot water every 10-15 minutes can help to flush and rehydrate your body deeply. Drinking water is excellent for liver health.
If you have a personal thermos, this is ideal. Just get used to carrying these items with you on days when you leave the house. Make it a habit to help the liver and improve your health.
4. Get 8 hours of sleep
Know how to get a good night of sleep! It is extremely important to be sleeping by 11 pm each night if you want to support your liver and live a healthy lifestyle.
Your liver does its cleaning between 10 pm and 2 am each night. If you are still awake, (and god forbid drinking alcohol and eating pizza), it cannot properly remove toxins from your system.
5. Avoid eating deep-fried anything – Eat Alive Foods
Learn how to plan a healthy diet. A poor diet of processed, fried foods causes fatty liver disease. – It can only take so much of this. When the liver is fat, it cannot function and gets one step closer to liver damage.
6. Say “NO” to processed foods
Anything in a package or a jar is usually processed food. Processed foods are typically high in sugars, low in fiber and whole grains, processed with sodium, and high in fat or include trans fat and lots of saturated fat.
Also, any foods that contain chemicals and/or additives are considered toxins to the liver.
Here are some common processed foods:
- Salad dressing
- Breakfast cereal
- Canned soup
- Pasta sauce
- Ketchup
- Flavored yogurt
- Cheese
- Granola & energy bars
- Chips, and crackers
- Bread and cakes
- Savory snacks like crisps, sausage rolls, pies, and pasties
- All meat that has been salted, smoked, dried, or canned
- Any microwave or ready meals
- Avoid anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup
Make it a habit to read labels!
7. Eat fresh fruits and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are liver-friendly and will not only help you in the cleansing process, but your lungs, heart, and other organs will reap the benefits as well.
8.Vitamin C
Eat plenty of citrus fruits and take vitamin C. Vitamin C helps to promote a healthy liver and also neutralizes the toxins released by the liver.
One product that I've used since 2019 to get a high-dose non-GMO Vitamin C, (4,000 MG) and has had great results and glowing reviews is a product called Sufficient-C
see: Why Vitamin C Is So Important, But Never Prescribed.
9. Let go of anger
Anger is a heated emotion that is very much related and harmful to your liver. You may not have anger issues, but if you do managing your emotions in a healthy way is vital to a healthy liver.
10. Don’t drink alcohol
Nothing good ever comes from drinking too much alcohol. Liver damage is a high price to pay for excessive alcohol consumption. Take a break from alcohol and the behaviors that are damaging your health.
11. Move your body for at least 30 minutes every day
Follow the medical advice of health care professionals and exercise daily. Your body requires you to move to keep everything functioning properly. Your lymphatic system works much better at flushing waste when you move your muscles.
12. Eat organic whenever you can
Eating organic helps to reduce your body’s toxic burden. Pesticides and herbicides are toxic and expose you to dangerous poisons. Eating organic can reduce pesticide buildup.
What is the Best Drink to Flush Your Liver?
Liver flushing is a holistic detoxification treatment that has been used for centuries to help the liver heal. There are many different options on this, but one that you likely have in your kitchen cupboard right now is green tea.
Green tea has a lot of antioxidants and other healthy nutrients that can help improve your health in a variety of ways. Not only will it help with your liver, but also with digestion, weight loss, and improved skin health.
Liver Disease
There are a variety of liver diseases caused by an unhealthy liver. For example liver inflammation, scarring of the liver, infection of the liver, gallstones, cancer, blood flow problems. Symptoms of liver disease generally do not occur until the liver disease is advanced.
Some symptoms of liver disease include jaundice, nausea, vomiting, easy bruising, bleeding, excessive fatigue, weakness, weight loss, shortness of breath, leg swelling, impotence, and confusion.
There are ways to prevent poor liver function and liver disease. Diet and Lifestyle changes can keep your liver healthy. This is especially important if you're at high risk for liver disease because of heavy alcohol use or a family history of liver disease.
What is the Best Way to Detox Your Liver Naturally?
A liver cleanse doesn't have to be difficult and grueling — Using a whole foods approach, some common sense and a commitment to good habits will get the job done.
And, of course, a liver cleanse doesn't have to be expensive. You can get cost-effective benefits by spending a little more on organic groceries and cooking meals from scratch.
Is Your Liver Crying Out for Help
Your Liver is Your Body's Primary Organ of Detoxification. When It's Not Well, Neither Are You...
Great article!Anyone interested in this stuff should definitely check out the book Everyday Roots. It teaches you how to replace all of the harmful chemical products in your life with organic ones. It’s completely changed my life and how I feel every day 🙂
Thanks for connecting Jaime, I agree! I’ve reviewed Everyday Roots here! https://motherofhealth.com/everyday-roots-honest-review
I couldn’t agree more! My friend was overweight and an alcoholic, she the ended up quitting alcohol and was unfortunately forced into a complete liver detox, as her health was deteriorating. She managed to get a grasp on her habits and her eating and she has been clean and sober now for over 10 years and she regularly does liver detox’s just to help her liver recuperate from all the years of abuse. She swears by her organic lifestyle and her lemon water in the morning, so she definitely implements some of these methods. Great article.
Hi Carly, So happy your friend decided to change her life! Thanks for sharing. 🙂 xo
I really enjoyed this post and especially liked the diagram. I like the way you’ve set it out and the 11 habits are easy to read – and hopefully easy to implement!
I didn’t know the liver did its cleansing between 10pm and 2am? So if you always went to bed in the early hours I guess this really exacerbates any problems?
Thanks for the useful info 🙂
Louise
Hello Louise, Yes, the liver is active between 10pm – 2 am and if you’re still up and awake during those hours, it never gets to it’s job and could create health problems.
Thanks Jackie,
This is a great list of healthy habits. I particularly like the let anger go habit. I don’t think a lot of people put enough emphasis on how our emotions can effect our physical body.
When you say 45 mins of moving, does it matter what type of movement? Should it be vigorous exercise?
Hi Chris! Thanks for connecting and commenting. No, the exercise doesn’t have to be vigorous. It can be walking, lifting weights, or more stretching type like yoga. Every body has different needs depending on their body type. I try to mix it up. Two days a week, walking… two days a week weight-lifting… yoga on the weekend. The important things is to find something you like and do it often for life.
These are very helpful indeed. I used to be a big drinker back in my 20s and my doctor recommended me to do a liver detox after I got diagnosed with a fatty liver. At first, you really wouldn’t notice the symptoms until the time you feel like you’re already too tired first thing in the morning and can’t seem to lose weight no matter what. We may not realize it but the liver does have a huge job in the entirety of our system and all we have to do is to take really good care of it.
Hi! You are spot on! 🙂 Thanks for connecting!
hey Jackie!
Nice article out there. Never thought of doing liver detox but after reading your article I’ll be definitely doing it asap.
About Daily Milk Thistle / Peppermint tea, is it okay to have green tea instead?
and instead of consuming vitamin c tablets, are there any foods that contain high vitamin c content?
Hi Edgar,
Green tea has it’s own health benefits, but Milk Thistle/Peppermint tea is specific to cleansing the liver because of the Silymarin in Milk Thistle. Yes, there are lots of foods high in vitamin C like oranges, red peppers, kale, broccoli, strawberries, grapefruit, etc., I suggest 1000 mg/day. If you think you can get this from these foods, great! If not, I suggest you supplement. Thanks for connecting!
Hello Jackie,
I was surprised to see that I could check off almost everything in the list of symptoms of a toxic liver!!!!
I am a diabetic and visit my doctor every 3 months. Every 3 months I have blood panels taken and one of the things that get checked is my kidneys, but never the liver (to my knowledge anyway). Next time I see my doctor I am going to ask why there is no check for the status of my liver functions.
Your 12 steps looked pretty good to me and I am going to try to put them in effect. But, I think it was in step 6 where you listed several foods to stay away from (Salad dressing, breakfast cereal, canned soup, pasta sauce, ketchup, flavored yogurt, granola & energy bars, chips, and crackers). That is going to be extremely difficult to do because except for the granola and energy bars, I use all of these foods!!! Are you saying not to eat these foods at all or just not as often? Are there any replacements for them that you can recommend?
This is really good information and I’ve never given any thought to how the foods I eat can affect my liver. Thanks for much for this. I put this article in my favorites so I can refer back to it.
As a diabetic I find it difficult to loose weight, can you recommend anything that would help with that and would be appropriate to do with this problem My A1C is good at 5.2.
Thanks for sharing.
Verna
Hello Verna,
Yes, I’m saying that if you want to cleanse your liver, you must stop eating processed foods. If your diet is mostly processed foods, that explains why you relate to the symptoms of a toxic liver. Please download my Complete 10 Day Superfood Liver Detox Program (opt-in required) in sidebar above. Thank you so much for connecting and please let me know if I can help or answer any questions.
Most liver problems are due to excessive alcohol consumption. Surprisingly, the arteries of alcoholics are relatively ok because the liver sucks up glucose to metabolize the alcohol. The byproduct is fat that is deposited in the liver. That’s why alcoholic get fatty liver disease.
Your recommendation on fruits may not apply to everyone, however, because there is a rare fructose intolerance that also causes fatty liver disease. It’s a small segment of the population.
What kind of fruit would you prefer targetting on a liver cleanse? I’m guessing take away the sweet ones?
Sure Zaid!… I typically include apples, grapefruit, beets, carrots and all kinds of leafy green vegetables.
I’m a bit concerned after readying this, as I work the night shift, going in at 9pm and getting out around 10am. I have done this for 25yrs! I’m sure my Liver needs a detox! But my Liver dies not shut down during the hrs of 10p till 2am… Is there something I can do to help myself? It might explain how unhealthy I am, with added weight, Graves disease, an Autoimmune disorder, high blood pressure. I need help!
Hello Shirley, Yes, working the night shift takes a toll on your health because it goes against the grain of nature’s rhythm. Ayurveda teaches that staying awake through the night increases dryness in the body. It also puts significant strain on your nervous system.
Here are some things you can do:
Make sure you are taking adaptogenic herbs like Ashwaghanda.
You can also give yourself a daily abhyanga and make sure to pay special attention to your head and feet.
Rest well on weekends.
Get regular massages
Do simple yoga poses on a daily basis
Eat your main meal before you go to work, rather than in the middle of the night
Avoid oily foods or anything that causes bloating
Don’t drink caffeine
Try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables
Do a liver cleanse
The best option for your health and well-being would be to find a day job!
Be well, Jackie
Alcohol in moderation is good for health. No reason to be a teetotaler.
Yes, I agree. Just not during a liver cleanse! 🙂
Lawrence
Hello, I have been and alcoholic addict for some good years but of recent i have decided to say No to alcohol for now month so I’m still finding out what exact method i should use to cleanse my liver should i go home remedy or Hospital thank you so much for your article
Hi Lawrence,
I’m happy you’ve decided to say No and work on your health. Our Liver Cleanse is done by making simple shifts using whole foods for symptoms like fatigue, irritable or sad mood, bloating, chronic weight gain/difficulty losing weight, lack of energy, and cravings for sugar, and caffeine. Once you complete the cleanse program, you will find making healthier choices easier and more enjoyable. Please let me know if you have further questions.
Thank you,
Jackie
thank you for the information shared, i suspect that i could be having liver problems, i have experiencing pain on the right side just below my ribcage and it spreads to the back affecting my lower back, would you recommend that i start with the liver detox or see the doctor for now. I am also taking high blood pressure medication for almost 10 years , not sure if they can cause liver problems, i also do drink but not that bad, someone advised that i should drink hoppy beer than ordinary beer , please advice
If you are experiencing pain, yes, I suggest you definitely see your doctor first before embarking on a liver detox.
Wonderful web site. A lot of useful information here.
I’m sending it to several friends.
And certainly, thanks on your sweat!
Thank you very much!! We appreciate you!
I had fatty liver on the right side of the liver and 5 liver surgeries and the problem keeps appearing . I did a 10 days detox clense plan recently and i was cancer free for a year and a half . I am starting back on detox plan again and see if i can be cancer free again .
It is entirely possible to recover from chronic illnesses, regulate your immune system, turn on cancer-suppressor genes, improve detoxification and protect and prevent chronic ailments. All you need are the appropriate methods. Keep going!
Good day
Im from the Caribbean I make my own bread it’s not store bought, the granola I used is what I put together dried fruit nuts and gains is that okay, also is the lemon water and tea suitable for kids over 10…
Thanks much
Hi Jay, Doing a cleanse is not only about ingredients, it’s about how easy the food is to digest. Your bread and granola is definitely better than store bought, but the gluten and heaviness of the bread can slow digestion. For the purposes of detoxing, can you eliminate both for just 10 days? If you can, you will see better results. Yes, the tea is suitable for kids over 10. Hope this helps some.