5 Ways to Stimulate Your Lymphatic System
I didn't know about #3 and #5 until I started MLD.
When we talk about conservative care for Lipedema, we are focusing on decreasing pain and swelling. Swelling is one of the major contributors to Lipedema pain, so focusing on decreasing edema is one of the best ways we can help lower our pain.
Even women who don’t believe they have swelling are surprised when they start attending MLD sessions with a lymph specialist and find underlying edema they didn’t realize they had.
Managing edema is one of the basics of our conservative care.
If you want to keep your lymphatic system as healthy as possible, keep your lymph fluid moving. So, here, I’ve given six ways you can use to stimulate your lymph system!
1. Physical activity
Exercise helps move fluid throughout the body. Even a 15- to 20-minute stroll can help your body shift fluid around and eliminate waste.
If you are chair- or bedbound, pumping your calves is a good way to mimic walking, and it gets the muscles pumping to help move the lymphatic fluid through your system.
Above is a 2-minute video above to show you some very beginner bed exercises.
2. Dry Brushing
Dry brushing has been used for thousands of years by many cultures, including the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Chinese. I started dry brushing over 25 years ago when I was studying ayurvedic medicine:
Dry brushing is a traditional practice known as garshana and is a technique that has been used for those who experience ama, which consists of toxins or undigested metabolic waste products in the body. (source)
First thing in the morning, I’d sit on the edge of my bed and use a special brush to get my lymphatics flowing.
Dry brushing has gained popularity in recent years for its ability to keep the lymphatic system healthy while exfoliating the skin. Just move the brush in circular motions, starting at the extremities and working your way toward the trunk of the body.
3. Deep breathing
When I did MLD with a massage therapist, she would start the session with diaphragmatic breathing. I was familiar with this type of breathwork from my yoga practice (it is also used in meditation), but it does take some coordination if someone hasn’t done this type of breathing before.
I would take a deep breath and expand my belly. On my outbreath, my therapist would gently press down with her hands into my belly. We did a half dozen of these breaths at the start of every session.
Breathing slowly and deeply can help move fluid through the lymph vessels and nodes. Place both hands on your belly and focus on expanding your belly as you inhale and contracting your belly as you exhale.
4. Swimming
Swimming is a great way to get your lymph fluid moving. The coolness of the water helps with inflammation. Water is a natural compression for the legs, which helps with lymph flow. And swimming exercise uses the lower leg muscles to contract and pump lymph fluid through the lymphatic system.
These three things—cold, compression, and physical activity—are what make swimming one of the best exercises we can do for our body.
5. Tapping your skin
There are vigorous types of tapping (or slapping) that can include large bodily areas, such as what’s shown in this video above. There is also more gentle finger tapping in smaller areas of the body, such as facial tapping. All forms of tapping can be helpful to wake up the body and get it moving.
For lymph flow stimulation, tapping with your fingers in the area just above the collarbones with light pressure can activate the lymph capillaries beneath the skin. You start with the deep belly breathing and then move to the gentle tapping. After that, you can follow up with a self-massage for MLD if you choose.
Getting our lymphatic system moving is important and a combination of any of the above we can incorporate into our everyday conservative care. And a couple of them are simple and only take a couple of minutes!
Take care!
Michelle