When your body detoxifies, it eliminates toxins by moving them out of your cells, into your blood, through your liver, into your bile, which then carries toxins into the gut for elimination in your stool.  As long as toxins flow in the right direction, they can be eliminated.

You might think of this as streams flowing into rivers, flowing into the ocean.  As long as the path is open and not blocked by logs or rocks, everything flows smoothly.  When there is a block in this flow, the water backs up and can overflow, flooding the surrounding area and causing damage.

Similar bottlenecks can occur in your detoxification pathway when your liver is congested or bile flow becomes stagnant.  Like a river unable to flow past the bottleneck, the fluids carrying the toxins out of your body are not able to flow out of your liver into your intestines for elimination.  When that pathway is blocked, the toxins are forced to flow back into your bloodstream and need to be eliminated through other detoxification pathways – your skin and your kidneys.

When toxins are eliminated through the skin, they present as blemishes, scabs, rashes or feel dry and itchy.  Brown spots on your skin, known as liver spots, are aptly named . When your liver is unable to process toxins, they are released through the skin, your largest organ.

Another exit pathway for toxins that cannot be processed through the liver, is your kidneys, located on your low back.  When your kidneys overwork, you experience symptoms like low back pain, the need to urinate more frequently, puffiness around your eyes or swollen feet and ankles.

If your skin and kidneys are not able to pick up the slack for your liver, your body will store toxins in fat to try to protect against them landing in critical organs like your brain.  This is as liver congestion is correlated with weight gain, fatigue and brain fog. The body will do anything it can, include adding extra weight to your frame, to move toxins out of your blood stream.

Essential Oils for Detox Directionality

Essential oils help keep plants healthy by moving vital fluids and energy.  They perform similar functions in your body, helping to move energy and prevent stagnation.  When your liver becomes stagnant, from physical toxins, stress or anxiety, it impedes detoxification.  Essential oils are a powerful tool to help shift stagnation and improve flow of energy and toxins through the liver and the gall bladder.

Essential oils can help shift your body into alignment so toxins do not backlog back into your bloodstream, but flow out of your body. More specifically, topically applying essential oils to specific points on your skin can activate energy flow directly and quickly, stimulating your liver and gall bladder to help toxins flow out of the body instead of back into the bloodstream.

The super small size of essential oil molecules allows them to be easily assimilated into the organs, to help promote directional flow of bile and toxins.

5 Essential Oils to Support Detox Directionality

Essential Oils can be used to rapidly stimulate this directional communication between your brain, liver, gall bladder and gut for proper elimination.  Keeping your detox flowing in the right direction can help you avoid common ‘detox’ and ‘die-off’ symptoms.

1. Liver™ 

Helps to  balance and energize your liver so it can perform its numerous functions with optimal vitality.  The liver eliminates toxins and their metabolites into the bile, and out of the body via the stool.

If your liver is overwhelmed, it cannot keep up with the toxic load,  toxins do not move into the bile and leave the body. Instead they get flushed back into your blood stream, contributing to systemic toxicity and inflammation.

Formulated with oils that help stimulate, strengthen, and tone the liver, including German Chamomile, which stimulates bile secretions and supports liver detox.

Apply Liver™ directly over the liver (right side beneath the breast) 2-3 times daily.  You can also combine Liver™ blend with castor oil – just add 3 drops of Liver™ to 1 tsp of castor oil and rub it over the liver before bed.  Castor oil is notoriously messy, so you can either: (1) cover it with a piece of flannel and plastic wrap and apply heat from a hot water bottle (avoid the electricity of heating pads) for 20-30 minutes,  (2) wear a ratty t-shirt and let your body eat work it’s magic (3) climb into an Epsom salt bath with the castor oil and Liver™ oil and benefit from layering 3 healing strategies at the same time.  Read More about Detoxifying your Liver HERE.

2.  Gall Bladder™

The gallbladder is responsible for storing, releasing, and concentrating bile which helps carry toxins and old hormones out of the body. When our bile becomes too viscous, it doesn’t flow as well and toxins don’t move out of the system and often get reabsorbed.

Supporting healthy bile flow helps support digestive function and balance your gut flora, as bile acids are antimicrobial. If bile is not properly flowing, toxins are not eliminated from the body.

Essential oils can turn on bile flow so it is not blocked.  To support the optimal flow and directionality of bile and allow toxins to flow out of the body, apply 2-3 drops of Gall Bladder™ underneath the ribs at the gall bladder (right side, underneath the ribs.  If you lean forward, it is easier to apply under the ribs).

Essential oils such as clove, contained in Parasympathetic® blend also stimulates bile flow and is antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory.

3.  Parasympathetic®

There are 2 states of the nervous system:  The Fight or Flight Sympathetic State and the Rest and Digest Parasympathetic State.  In order for the body to detoxify and heal, it needs to be in the rest and digest parasympathetic state.  You literally cannot detoxify when you are under stress.

When your nervous system is in the “fight-or-flight” mode, you cannot detoxify successfully.   To help activate your Parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” nervous system balance and open up your detoxification pathways, apply the Parasympathetic® blend to the vagal nerve (behind the earlobe on the mastoid bone)

Stimulating the parasympathetic response also helps to stimulate the optimal digestive cascade, including your ability to eliminate toxins. When the flow of bile is stagnant or slowed, your gut shifts towards a state of dysbiosis, where unfriendly flora dominate, and constipation is common. The toxins from pathogenic bacteria then block detoxification pathways in the liver as well. Parasympathetic® blend helps to promote optimal  digestion, absorption and assimilation and elimination.  What’s more, healthy gut bacteria can help to break down toxins. Supporting the parasympathetic state and optimal gut function can boost your resilience to toxins and keep the directionality of your detox flowing.

Parasympathetic® blend also helps you support your liver’s ability to transform toxic molecules into less toxic ones and help your body eliminate them.  Research shows that the limonene found in citrus essential oils, like Lime in the Parasympathetic® blend, can stimulate the production of glutathione, a key component of healthy detoxification.

Finally, Parasympathetic® helps to calm inflammation by releasing the anti-inflammatory neurotransmitter Acetylcholine.  Chronic inflammation impedes detoxification, so stimulating your vagus nerve with Parasympathetic® to can help reduce inflammation and support optimal directionality of detoxification.

4.  Liver Support to Detoxify Emotions  

The detoxification process occurs on a physical, spiritual and emotional level and can help uncover and express feelings, especially hidden frustrations, anger, resentments, or fear.

Negative emotions can get stuck in your liver causing the liver to become sluggish as negative emotions like anger, fear, and frustration and block the free flow of toxins.

It is important that these emotions are allowed to be processed and released to avoid causing additional stress that would undermine the detoxification process and essential oils make excellent tools to help gentle release and detoxify emotions.  For example, our key organ of detoxification, the Liver, holds onto traumatic experiences and negative emotions, like anger, impatience, resentment  and frustration creating emotional blocks cause the liver to become sluggish.  Processing and releasing these negative emotions are an important step in opening the drainage pathways.  Learn more about importance of processing unresolved emotions HERE.

To help you move through and release anger and negative emotions from the cells of the liver, apply 2 -3 drops of Liver Support™ over the liver, the heart or around the earlobes.  You can also gently inhale Liver Support™  for 3 – 7 breaths, breathing out any negative emotions on the exhale. For more tips on detoxify emotions, read this article

5.  Binders

When we detoxify, we need to make sure that the toxins are not only mobilized, but actually leave the body.  In order to leave the body, toxins travel through the liver, where they travel to the small intestine in the bile.  If the toxins are not bound to anything, most of them will get reabsorbed in the gut.

Binders are substances that ‘bind’ to toxins to help move them out of the body.  They work by attracting or trapping toxins, and transports them out of the body.  You can read more about binders HERE.

Binders can contribute to constipation, so combining Parasympathetic® blend with binders can help keep you regular.

Resources:

Ready to get started? Click the links below to order today:

• Gall Bladder™ available here
• Liver™ available here
• Liver Support™ available here
• Parasympathetic® available here