Can Dry Brushing Help Your Lymphatic System?

 

 Many of the expensive machines there were designed to stimulate lymph flow. You know what else does that? Dry brushing! And it is inexpensive and easy to do at home.

Story at-a-glance

• Energizing, invigorating and stress relieving, dry body brushing gently cleanses and exfoliates dead skin cells to reveal soft, glowing skin, but other good habits and supplementation can also help your skin be its best
• One of the most basic reasons to begin dry brushing your skin is to stimulate your lymphatic system, which is essentially a network of tissues and organs that help transport metabolic waste out of your body
• Using the correct body brushes (one with a long handle comes in handy) as well as the right methods, body brushing can impact your body in ways that promote healing, skin vibrance and improved circulation

 
Your skin is the largest organ of your body, so treating it with TLC and maintaining its health will go a long way toward making you look and feel your best. Besides consisting of blood vessels, sweat glands and nerve endings, your skin helps remove waste, aids in digestion and has a lot to do with good circulation
Nicole Eckert, a certified holistic nutritionist based in Newmarket, Ontario, believes that delving into a balanced, nutritionally optimal lifestyle should include a practice some have never heard of — skin brushing, something ancient Greeks, Native Americans and Ayurvedic medicine have known about for centuries. Gentle, daily detoxing involves several practices that can be done several ways and for several reasons. It’s extremely inexpensive and it takes just a few minutes every day.
Discovering (and taking advantage by actually practicing) healthy removal of toxic waste is one of the most crucial habits you can get into. It’s also a way to increase your energy while decreasing stress, lifting brain fog and supporting your digestive health, which are practical considerations that help you not only feel good but look good! Eckert states:

"Your lovely liver, kidneys, lungs, skin and colon, are your superstar detoxification organs and their overall function is just critical for your optimal health and well-being. With your skin being your largest organ – and your largest detoxification organ for that matter. The simple detox habit of dry brushing is a super enjoyable practice that's going to make your skin glow, and get you detoxing fo-sho (rhyming intentional)."¹

Many people who started with a softer, gentler brush have graduated to one that's a little firmer, using a firmer pressure gradually, as well.

 

How Does Dry Brushing Your Skin Impact Your Lymphatic System?

One of the most basic reasons to begin dry brushing your skin is to stimulate your lymphatic system, which is essentially a network of tissues and organs that help transport metabolic waste out of your body. Parts of your overall lymphatic system include your thymus gland, lymph nodes, spleen, liver and tonsils.
Something you may not realize is that for most people, especially as they get older, when your system begins getting sluggish, moving slower and slower, it compromises your immune system. When your immune system isn't working as it should, your body becomes more susceptible to problems like sinus infections. Further, one of the reasons you keep hearing how crucial exercise is involves your lymphatic system, because movement is essential for it to function as it was designed to do.
It doesn't have a pump, so it relies on muscle contractions — aka exercise — to "shake things loose," so to speak, which helps your body in its detoxification process. Further, many of your lymph vessels run just below your skin's surface, which is how brushing your skin can impact how well your lymph glands perform. Brushing your skin is an innovative way to gently cleanse and protect your skin and improve circulation.
There are brushes for your hands, feet and nails, face (which have softer bristles), hair and body. Besides the type for dry brushing, there are brushes you can use as you bathe.

Why Do People Brush Their Skin?

Exfoliation rids your body of dead skin cells. When you consider that you lose more than a million skin cells every day, it's no wonder we all experience a slightly irritating dry, itchy sensation from time to time. You're still wearing last week's dead skin cells! The problem often causes such skin conditions as acne, eczema, psoriasis and various rashes.
In fact, dry brushing your skin is said to be for your skin something similar to what milk thistle does for your liver. You release up to a pound of toxins through your skin, your largest eliminative organ, every single day, which is about a quarter of the total waste you excrete on a daily basis. You may not know exactly what's going on inside your body, but your skin is often the first to tell the tale. According to Bare Natural Health:²

"(These) are signs that you're in dire need of some toxic dumping, but when our skin is clogged full of dead cells, our toxins get stuck in a traffic jam and have nowhere to go. Instead, they get reabsorbed into the body, taxing our kidneys and liver, or stored in fat cells, which can contribute to cellulite."³

Body brushing may also help prevent and reduce cellulite. Although it's not a tested science conducted in a clinical setting, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that dry brushing helps ease the clumpy signs of cellulite. It may help distribute fatty deposits to tone muscles and tissues below your skin's surface, Mother Earth Living maintains, and circular motions may also reduce the appearance of cellulite.⁴
Energizing, invigorating and stress relieving, it also reveals soft, glowing skin. Dry brushing not only clears clogged pores of dirt, oil and other residue, it stimulates your hormone and oil-producing glands and your circulation, which helps leave your skin feeling fresh and more prone to healing, and allows your skin to "breathe" properly.

 

What Type of Brush Is Best?

There's actually a brush designed to dry brush your skin. Quality brush bristles are made from natural fibers rather than synthetic materials, and they're available online and in some health food stores. You want the bristles to be dense, stiff and strong so that the experience is, as Eckert quips, "comfortably uncomfortable" — not too soft, but not so stiff that they scratch your skin, either. Eckert notes:

"I started out with [a] classic Bath Brush. I love this one because of the long handle (it's the ultimate back scratcher). I recently upgraded to [an] Energy Brush, which is handle-free but has these super-cool bronze bristles made from a copper-tin alloy, which creates this super soothing effect and a pleasant tingling sensation – this is like the big-cheese of dry brushing. I've also got this cute little Facial Brush, which is a savior on dry-face days."⁵

Eckert recommends a body brush designed expressly for this purpose. A long brush for hard-to-reach places like your back, the bottoms of your feet and the back of your legs made from bristles of the konjac plant is another recommendation. Depending on where you live, environmental toxins are wreaking more havoc on your body today than ever before. Sometimes the air you breathe isn't necessarily negotiable, but what you eat, drink and put on your skin certainly is — dry brushing may help to rid your body of those variables you can't control.

How to Use Your Body Brush

No matter what time of day you shower, it's right beforehand that you want to take advantage of everything body brushing can do for you. Pick up your brush and get to work, starting with the lower part of your body first with swift, gentle upward strokes. "It's important to work in this direction as it supports the natural 'highway' of your lymphatic system," Eckert says.⁶

1. Start working on your feet, using gentle, circular, upward motions toward your heart from the tips of your toes, including the tops of your feet, your soles and moving upward, first one side and then the other
2. Brush slowly and gently; even if you're ticklish, making it difficult to cover your stomach, sides and chest, it will become less so as your body gets used to the sensation.
3. Do your arms, neck and as much of your back as you can get to. Remember to avoid areas where you might have scratches or anything that would make contact with the brush painful.
4. Don't use the regular brush on your face, as your skin is far too delicate. Use a specially designed facial brush, which has softer bristles.
5. Once you're finished, you can shower, which washes away all the dead skin cells you've loosened. Water set at warm or hot further increases your circulation.

This routine can be done before every shower or just three or four times a week, but perhaps hard-to-reach areas can be done once a week — whatever your schedule allows and your needs call for. You may also want to try an alkalizing bath, which adds a new dimension. One more thing: Since skin brushing is stimulating, doing it in the morning seems to be preferable to "waking up" your skin at night.

 

Caring for Your Body Brushes

Body brushes may be constructed of solid waxed beech for dry brushing or beech plywood for wet brushing, with wild boar, horsehair or even a combination of horsehair and bronze bristles, among other options.⁷ The plywood brush is best for wet brushing, as it can take sitting in water for long periods, as well as with alkaline baths.

1. It's best not to expose your wooden brushes to long periods in water, so when you're not brushing, place the brush with bristles downward on the edge of the tub.
2. If you do alkaline wet brushing, the bristles of the brush should be rinsed well using clear water. Excess water can be "tapped" off using a towel and the brush should be placed bristles downward on a dry towel.
3. Wooden brushes should be air-dried, not with a hairdryer or placed on warm heating appliances as it can crack and damage the wood.
4. The bristles of your body brush can be washed with lukewarm soapy water, but without excessively wetting the wooden parts. In time, the color of the wood will probably darken somewhat.

Experts also recommend replacing your brush every six to 12 months because the bristles do begin to break down.

 BUY YOUR BRUSHES HERE

Night Eating

One issue with which many of my clients struggle is eating at night, after they have had dinner. I hear things like:
“My husband and I watch TV and snack after dinner.”
“I feel mildly hungry around 9-ish, and am afraid that if I don’t eat, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, starving, and won’t be able to sleep.”

 

“I crave sweets at night and sometimes binge on them.”
I believe there are three main reasons why most people want to eat shortly after they’ve had a reasonable dinner:
One
They were distracted when they ate dinner, whether with their phone, watching TV or whatever, and therefore did not experience the satisfaction of their meal.
Two
They are tired after a long day, and associate eating food with getting more energy.
Three
Their willpower is totally depleted after having used it up on a variety of other tasks throughout the day, so their resolve is low. This especially contributes to overeating if their willpower was used to avoid eating earlier in the day, which is what usually happens when people go on diets.
There is a lot of controversy among the global medical research community about eating later in the evening. Not surprisingly, there are conflicting studies about whether it is better to eat more later in the day or earlier.
Although I’m not sure what this writer’s credentials are, he makes some interesting points about why eating at night isn’t bad, and cites some research to back it up.
When I visited Spain a few years ago, no one ate dinner until at least 9 p.m. Yes, they had siesta mid-day, but that wasn’t necessarily following their largest meal. And you know what? I didn’t see many fat Spaniards.
Europeans, in general, are known for eating a late dinner, and their obesity rates are lower than in America where people tend to eat earlier.
I’ve read studies that say eating a big breakfast will help you lose weight, and other studies that say if you eat most of your calories in the evening, you’ll lose more fat.
Everyone is different, so forget all of those rules and the so-called conventional wisdom. The important thing is to listen to your body and respond to its needs. Eating at night is only a problem if you eat when you aren’t hungry.
Here are some tips for dealing with eating at night if you want to lose weight and keep it off:

Are You Hungry?

Are you actually hungry or is something else causing you to want to eat? Maybe it’s your habit. Learning to understand this difference is crucial. If you aren’t hungry, don’t eat. Remember, the non-hunger urge to eat is just a thought in your brain.
It will pass pretty quickly, just like your other thoughts, if you don’t respond to it. If you aren’t sure, think about whether you would feel satisfied with a salad or a cup of yogurt. If you only want to eat chips or cookies, it probably isn’t true hunger.

Late Night Eating and Sleep

If eating before bedtime disturbs your sleep, avoid it. Sleep deprivation is also associated with weight gain, so aim to get enough sleep, and don’t let your sleep be disturbed by your digestion. If you’re actually hungry at bedtime, eat a banana, which contains compounds that help you sleep.

Eating Without Distractions

Call me naïve, but I still find it alarming that people actually eat their dinner while watching television. People who eat with distractions don’t taste much of their food and tend to overeat. Essentially, they don’t experience their meal, they aren’t satisfied and crave snacks afterwards.
Learn how to eat without distractions, with the exception of whomever you are dining with. This means keeping your smart phone or other devices away from where you eat, and not eating in front of the TV.

Eat or Do?

Make a choice between eating and doing other activities. If you are actually hungry, and have to choose between food and your email or the TV, you’ll likely choose to eat. If you aren’t hungry, do something else and don’t eat.

Boredom Knocking

If you eat because you’re bored, make a list of things you can do instead of eating. To break your night time eating habit, have other options that you enjoy. If you’re tired, rest!

Package Half-Empty

Don’t eat snacks or sweets out of the package. Unless there’s only one serving left or it’s a single-serving size, put your snack in a bowl or on a plate. Notice how much food you gave yourself. You’ll eat less than when you get ¾ of the way through that bag of chips and wonder where they all went!

Severe Measures – Brush Your Teeth!

Brush your teeth one-half hour after dinner. Most of us are too lazy to brush again, and food tastes awful following toothpaste.

Weightloss Success Story

 

 

  Stephanie lost 57 pounds!
This mother of three got healthy and lost the weight — and so can you! "The information I learned from the Mayo Clinic Diet is now imprinted onto my everyday life," Stephanie says. "Once you learn it, you can't forget it, and you experience a life change that involves conscious awareness — rather than a 'diet' that starts and ends. I'm proud to say that I have been able to keep the 57 pounds off for eight years with these healthy habits!"

57 Pounds Lost!

Height: 5'4", Age: 43
Two days after my third child was born, my beloved father died suddenly from a brain aneurism. He was my best friend, and his passing was an extreme blow to my heart. But my newborn son needed my energy and attention. I realized I could choose depression and darkness — which, truthfully, is what I wanted — or I could choose light and love for my new son. I chose the latter.
Through this struggle I found myself lacking the energy I needed to take care of my family. I had always wanted to be an active mom, but feeling so heavy — both in my heart and my body — left me wondering how I could do it. On top of these challenges, life threw me another curveball: My seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I had to contend with a new life of weighing food, counting carbs, reading labels, tracking blood-sugar numbers, and many, many needles. I was now the warrior, the mommy, the doctor, the nurse, the boss, and I was determined to nail it.
My closest friend and supporter during this time in my life was my aunt. She gave me a book on the Mayo Clinic Diet. It taught me about portion sizes and sensible eating, but I found the magic was in the food journal. The journaling changed my life and helped me understand that food is to be used for fuel, not comfort. With this realization, I started to lose weight.
Before I started the diet, I was comfort-eating in the evening after the kids went to bed, and I wasn’t very active. Changing those lifestyle habits helped me lose weight. Now I eat light and healthy throughout the day and little to nothing after 7 p.m. And I’m consciously active every single day. During the early years of my daughter's diabetes, she wanted to take taekwondo, and I wanted to encourage anything bright and positive. When I brought her to her first lesson, I was bored sitting and watching, so I signed up, too. Who knew I'd become a ninja — and eventually a yoga teacher!
The information I learned from the Mayo Clinic Diet is now imprinted onto my everyday life. Once you learn it, you can’t forget it, and you experience a life change that involves conscious awareness — rather than a “diet” that starts and ends. I’m proud to say that I have been able to keep the 57 pounds off for eight years with these healthy habits!
Favorite snack
Apples. Many, many apples every day.
Biggest surprise
When you eat healthy, you want to get in shape. When you get in shape, you want to eat healthy. One path will lead you to the other.
Benefits (other than weight loss)
I have endless energy. I am also left with the confidence of knowing that I had the willpower and determination to see myself become a healthy, strong and independent woman.
Best advice
Life is a roller coaster, and through all the highs and lows, I was brought into a journey I never expected. We all have a light to share and contribute. Finding unconditional acceptance and love for yourself is step one. Open the door to that, even if only a crack, and the light will shine in.

*Participants can expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week.

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Cilantro Lime Chicken only takes a few minutes in this simple marinade for tons of flavor! Made with fresh cilantro, lime, and a few other special ingredients, this is a chicken recipe you'll love.

Author: Robyn Stone | Add a Pinch

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 4-6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
• 3 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped
• 2 limes, zest and juice or 4 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 lime, sliced
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
• pinch cayenne pepper (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat grill or oven to 375º F. Place chicken into a large baking dish, about a 9x13. Stir together cilantro, lime zest and juice, olive oil, salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper, if using. Pour over chicken. Top with lime slices, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 5 minutes.
2. Remove chicken from marinade and place onto grill or in oven for 20 minutes. Grill or bake until chicken registers 165º F when checked with an internal temperature probe. Remove from oven and serve warm.