Today I have ‘dark rings or racoon eyes’ – aka Uncle Fester, The Munsters.
The liver and the kidneys are the two main organs of detoxification. As most of us will have food and gut intolerances, these will be made worse over the celebration season. It is easy to spot and feel. There are many make up brands ready to cash in on the solution.
I’ve seen this in many therapy colleagues, clients and also close family relatives and friends. It’s is especially common in the Asian community and is always advertised in Bollywood magazines. Lifestyle habits including medication, vaping, smoking, shift work, environment, chemicals and various foods can contribute to your eye health.
The liver – The Grandfather of all organs
The Liver takes on most of the strain from your lifestyle and nutritional choices on a daily basis. Most of the time the liver doesn’t grumble and gets on with filtering the food and liquid you drink into energy so you can be the best possible you. So when it’s the season to be jolly around the corner, it would make sense to get a few things in place to help support that old faithful friend of yours, the liver.
How to tell when my Liver is unhappy:
- Dark urine throughout the day
- Painful upper back
- Dark circles under the eyes
- Cravings and addictions that intensify
- Feeling of being overwhelmed and frustrated
- Chronic fatigue
Chronic fatigue is perhaps the most overlooked symptom of liver toxicity as more favourable answers are found to your tiredness, brain fog and relentless sugar cravings. Often self-medication such as exercise, reducing fatty foods, reducing alcohol, increasing sleep, eating nutrient dense foods and drinking more water will reduce symptoms. However, these changes don’t always provide results and when this is the case, a more in-depth investigation needs to happen.
The liver’s performance can directly impact emotional constitution. A toxic liver can be the reason for various forms of depression, which is really a form of anger turned inward. General moodiness, feelings of despair, and occasional outbursts of anger can all be caused by a burdened liver.
However, many people do not realise that the liver’s function or operational deficiencies play a significant role in your emotional and mental health. We all get slightly moody from time to time and that’s forgivable behaviour, but chronic and wide mood swings accompanied by physical energy are another.
So if you find the symptoms below sound like you, it may be time to look at your detoxification pathways / nutritional skills and or alcohol consumption:
- Cant lose weight
- Cant kick the alcohol
- Have a heavy meat diet
- Have a heavily processed diet
- Have strong and ferocious mood swings
The Liver is also best friends with the digestive system and so your problem may be manifesting here, as it always comes back to the gut!
The worst case scenario is to do a liver cleanse without addressing diet and lifestyle issues. When putting any client on a protocol they must have a low allostatic load first. If it’s a stressful time for the client, I’ll always make you wait, otherwise we are treating symptoms and not the root cause. I’ve seen many colleagues put clients on gym/shred programmes, juice cleanses and all sorts of other stuff without looking at the body’s full picture.
This, in my personal opinion, we miss the bigger picture and without change we are still in the same boat a few months down the line. Dark circles can show within two hours of eating a meal, they are an immune response and some people have them all the time.
What do I get if I do some detoxing?
- Weight loss: The liver produces bile which is essential in the breakdown of fats. When you start detoxing, the liver further assists the metabolism of fats in the body aiding your weight loss and ability to tone that beautiful body of yours!
- Increase your energy: Once the liver eliminates the harmful substances out if the body, the liver starts to run more efficiently providing you with more energy.
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- Look younger: Surely you don’t need any other organ after this one. When you remove the toxicity that your liver has been storing your skin will automatically look brighter and younger! Cancel the botox!
- A clean liver: It stands to reason that the organ that has been designed to remove toxins from your body should need detoxing. It is normal to have toxins in your liver, but when they build up to inordinate amounts that they start to inhibit detoxification pathways.
Puffiness under the eyes is an indicator that the hormonal system is not regulated. This comes from eating too much food, usually of a poor quality in that it is too much sugar and carbohydrates. This triggers an awakening response and gets more unbalanced, often due to blood sugar levels. Eating incorrectly before bed comes at a cost, as we won’t enter into a deep sleep. This can also add heat to the body causing us to sweat at night, thus consuming energy and leaving us lifeless in the day. Kidney stress will also cause puffiness due to the consumption of foodstuffs that the body cant digest, assimilate and eliminate.
Dry eyes are to do with dehydration and also being in a state of sympathetic dominance – so fight or flight.
Dull or dirty whites of eyes are also liver stress, indicating that the body cannot clear toxins. This is usually referred to as dirty blood that is often laden with waste, toxins or being in toxic environments from smoke, burning garbage or smoke from buildings (firemen).
“The eye are the windows to the soul”.
