Cleansing & Liver Support with Essential Oils

By Tracy Griffiths, BCPP and Julie Sinclair, BCPP

In Health Building, Dr. Stone outlines a protocol for cleansing the liver, especially necessary when “…the diet is excessively rich in cooked, starchy foods and sweets, and contains no green sprouts, no salads and little fruit…”—which happens to sound a lot like what many of us eat during the holiday-filled winter months. In addition to the food we eat, exposure to prescription and recreational drugs, environmental pollutants, and alcohol can take its toll on the liver. 

As the largest internal organ, the liver is also one of the most important for keeping us “filtered” and functioning healthfully. Like a waste disposal plant, the liver filters blood coming from the digestive tract before it moves through the rest of the body, eliminating harmful chemicals, metabolizing drugs, secreting bile and more (performing about 500 crucial bodily functions, including synthesizing protein, producing enzymes and hormones, breaking down and recycling tired blood cells and regulating glycogen storage). Energetically, the liver can also hold onto emotions like negativity, hate, grief and anger. 

Fortunately, given a moment of rest, the liver has a remarkable ability to heal and rejuvenate itself. And now that spring is on the horizon, the time might be right for you to think about a liver cleanse. Unlike other parts of the body, the liver doesn’t have pain receptors to signify it’s in distress. Instead, symptoms might be a dull ache under the ribs on the right side of the body, right shoulder or back pain, itchy skin, fatigue, yellowing of the skin, dark urine or light-colored stools.

Ready to give your liver some love? In addition to re-reading and following Dr. Stone’s recommendations in “A Daily Diet to Regain Health” in Health Building, including utilizing  his recipe for a liver flush each morning, consider using Young Living essential oils for liver support. Easy to carry with you throughout the day for ongoing application and inhalation, they are potent and effective, helping to detoxify and tonify the liver—thereby increasing the liver’s available energy so it can function at a higher and in a more balanced manner.

Some of the best single essential oils for liver support include: 

• Cypress: a diuretic that helps the body flush out toxins from the liver
• Geranium: assists the liver by expanding bile ducts 
• German chamomile: stimulates bile secretions and supports liver detox
• Ginger: helps reverse a fatty liver and stimulates liver secretions
• Helichrysum: supports the cleansing of blood and energetically helps cut through held anger
• Juniper berry: supports the purification of blood and relieves some of the liver’s burden
• Ledum: cleansing, harmonizing, balancing
• Peppermint: stimulates healthy bile flow 
• Rosemary: enhances bile flow and helps reduce excess plasma liver enzymes

For blends, the following two Young Living options combine multiple single oils into a powerful mix.

• JuvaCleanse®: Helichrysum, Ledum, and Celery Seed – helps cleanse and detoxify the liver

• JuvaFlex®: Fennel, Geranium, Rosemary, Roman Chamomile, Blue Tansy, and Helichrysum – helps cleanse the liver to build a stronger system and may help detoxify the lymphatic system and provide digestive support as well as breaking free from addictions

Here’s to a strong, healthy liver! (And also happy birthday to Dr. Stone, who was born on February 26, 1890.)

If you’d like to join Young Living and get a 24% member discount on all essential oils and essential oil-infused products, visit our website. Or, if you’d like to learn more about Young Living essential oils and how to use them in your daily life, sign up for our e-newsletter by emailing FlowIntoWellness@marketingscents.com.