The Easiest & Most Effective Post-Alcohol Hormone Detox

If you spent the Fourth of July celebrating with friends and family, you might still be feeling the warm fuzzies of spending time with your favorite people, hanging out by the water, and waving sparklers.

But if your holiday weekend included a celebratory drink (or three), you might not be feeling so hot physically or emotionally. You’ve got that familiar holiday hangover, complete with foggy thinking, exhaustion, headache, and feeling blue.

There’s no denying it: drinking can feel fun, relaxing, and sexy in the moment, but the aftermath isn’t pretty. You’re suffering, and so are your hormones.

‍Studies show that moderate alcohol consumption raises estrogen levels and lowers progesterone—a key hallmark of estrogen dominance, which is a common hormone imbalance for women. And estrogen dominance exacerbates a long list of hormone conditions, including PCOS, fibroids, and endometriosis.

In today’s blog post, I’m going to walk you through how drinking can mess with your hormones and how, if you’ve had a boozy weekend, you can recover quickly and reset your hormones. But before I do, I want you to know that I’m not here to make you feel guilty for the occasional glass of wine! Really! Holidays and special occasions are a part of life—and while regular moderate-to-heavy drinking can slow down your healing if you’re trying to improve symptoms that are related to estrogen dominance, the occasional glass of wine isn’t something to beat yourself up about.

Rather, my intention in this blog is to make sure you start feeling better faster and that your next period is unaffected by your Fourth of July festivities.

How Alcohol Damages Hormones

As I already mentioned, alcohol raises estrogen levels which worsens the symptoms associated with hormonal issues like PCOS, endometriosis, severe PMS, and fibroids. Here’s what else can get all mucked up when we imbibe:

• Concentration of alcohol tends to be higher in women’s blood after drinking equal amounts as men. That’s because women have significantly smaller quantities of an enzyme that breaks down alcohol in the stomach, which results in women absorbing 30 percent more alcohol in their bloodstream when they drink the same beverage as a man! (Researchers aren’t sure why there’s such a big difference in this particular enzyme.) This means the physical impact of alcohol is much stronger and faster for women than for men.
• Alcohol forces the liver to run through your store of vitamin C (and other important antioxidants) to break it down, which leaves you vitamin and mineral deficient. This is especially problematic if you know you are already dealing with a deficiency.
• Although alcohol can make us feel giddy in the moment, it’s ultimately a depressant. Drinking alcohol drains the adrenals and makes you feel more tired and down.
• Alcohol messes up steady blood sugar, which is so important to hormonal healing. So if you’re dealing with blood sugar dysregulation as a part of your hormonal health issues (and many women are) this is something to consider. What’s more, we don’t always make the best food choices when we’re tipsy, which makes the blood-sugar roller coaster even worse.

So if you’re still feeling the after effects of the Fourth of July, skip the greasy breakfast and try my One-Day Hormone Recovery Protocol instead. You’ll feel better sooner and you won’t be heading toward a terrible round of PMS with your next period.

Your 1-Day Hormone Recovery Protocol

First thing in the morning:

• Take a B vitamin complex, and have a glass of warm water with lemon. This helps flush your liver.
• Mix up a 16 oz glass of my favorite liver support juice. Combine a handful of spinach, one carrot, four stalks of celery, half a cucumber, half a bunch of cilantro, one-third a bunch of parsley, half a lemon with rind and half a green apple in a blender or juicer.
• Eat a breakfast of two poached eggs, a half cup of quinoa, half an avocado and two tablespoons of sauerkraut.

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Middle of the day:

• Eat a big lunch — brown rice, miso glazed salmon and kale or bok choy in soy sauce — to replenish missing micronutrients and balance sodium levels.
• Take a high-quality probiotic and an omega 3 supplement.
• Drink coconut water to replenish your electrolytes, and take a magnesium supplement.
• Step out into the sun for 15 minutes, with no sunscreen, to boost vitamin D3.

Afternoon

• Take a high-quality liver detoxification supplement.

Evening:

• Drink bone broth or have chicken soup to soothe the inflammation from the booze.
• Do yoga twists. These moves will help to detoxify your internal organs and prevent a backup of estrogen.
• Head to bed early to detoxify your brain’s immune system.
• Take a high-quality magnesium supplement to replenish this essential micronutrient and help promote healthy sleep.

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Remember: Once you have the right information about how your body really works, you can start making health choices that work for you.And if your hangover continues to hang around, or if your PMS is a serious issue every month, download my free 4-Day Hormone Detox to get rid of it for good.Love and Ovaries,Alisa