A girl and her liver. A blog about everything your liver does for you.

           To put the liver into perspective I will start by saying that the liver does 500 jobs to keep the body healthy. Every other organ does 1 job. The key jobs are metabolic, “Anything that is eaten or consumed, whether it’s food, alcohol, medicine or toxins, gets filtered by the liver. Once we ingest food, it is digested by the stomach and intestine, gets absorbed into the blood, and goes to the liver,” says Hellan Kwon, M.D.  The liver is smart. It knows when to detoxify when to usher the toxins out of the body through urine or stool, when to store the nutrients and when to release them back into the blood.

       

        The body focuses its attention on certain organs at certain times to perform optimally. The liver is at the forefront of the body's attention during the hours of 11-2, during both day and night hours. The liver performs two separate major tasks during the day and night. Think of the liver as the body’s janitor, but there are two different shifts and two different janitors. The day janitor is here to help you digest everything you eat. The night janitor is here to restore and maintain. This is really the reason why eating your biggest meal at lunch is so good for you, because the body is set up to process that fuel and convert it properly into stored energy. And also why going to sleep early is so beneficial for optimal health and healing. It's when your body's healing capability is really at its peak, detoxing the body of excess hormones, toxic buildup, and any extra gunk. So going to bed late literally makes you miss out on your beauty sleep since your skin is one of the major sights that livers impairment will show itself.  

        Let us go back to the janitor metaphor if you eat a big meal late at night and maybe drink some alcohol, the nighttime janitor is going to come as scheduled, but they are paid for certain tasks (clearing the body of toxins, clearing the blood to prevent disease, and generally restoring anything out of order,) not digesting a huge meal and processing alcohol or any fun party drugs(no judgment here at all! I'm just giving you the low down on what your body is built for and how it handles these life choices) 

        Now that you get the basic function and services of the liver, I will explain why stress specifically impacts the liver, and why that particularly affects women in detrimental ways. Acidic substances (sugar, meat, coffee, cigarette, and alcohol are the hardest for the liver to process, they slow down the entire functioning of the liver. Already, just from daily intake, most of us are probably bringing acidic substances into the body. Then stress comes into play. Our bodies developed the survival hormones or stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline that pump through the body when triggered by stress or fear. Originally this was “ Ah, a tiger is chasing me” but now it's “Ah, my boss sucks, I have so many bills to pay and no money, my dating life is bleak as hell/ my husband doesn’t help me with anything and do I even love him? etc.” Stress hormones used to be released and then would quickly die down, returning the body to a state of rest and digest. Going from “Oh great, I was able to run to my tribe and we all killed the lion together, I can see the re is no more threat” to “Literally I'm so constantly stressed that my even my dreams are stressful or hey, I don’t even sleep at night” because of the constant low level of stress a lot of us are releasing a slow constant drip of Coristol into the body. Cortisol and adrenaline are highly acidic hormones, - ever notice that your stress sweat can smell like acid onions?- Modern life has us flooding the body with levels of acidity that the liver just can’t process. 

        Women’s hormonal natural fluctuations are already an extra job for the liver that men don’t have, making sure that once the hormone has risen and fallen it is getting properly cleared out for the next round of hormones, but the impact of so much stress often leaves the liver unable to do this, and THIS IS WHERE SO MANY PMS SYMPTOMS ORIGINATE. So for real for real, lowering your stress levels will actually make your periods less shitty. Take that bath, get to bed early, take a solo silent walk, massage yourself or get a massage, masturbate and put on a face mask. Do whatever you do to destress and let yourself make that a priority. It's for your health and happiness! Cheers to a new year filled with me-time.