Lymph Detox Therapy: Leah Levitan on Drainage

Leah Levitan on Lymph, Detox & the Language of Flow

What if cleansing wasn’t about getting rid of, but remembering how to flow?

In a world where stagnation breeds disconnection, Brooke sits down with Leah Levitan, lymphatic educator and founder of Lymph Love Club, to explore the body’s silent rivers and the rhythm of release. Together, they reveal how the lymphatic system—so often overlooked—acts as the conductor of vitality, emotion, and movement.

In this conversation, Leah opened up about:

00:00 Introduction to Lymphatic Health
02:59 Understanding the Lymphatic System
05:50 The Role of Lymph Nodes
09:11 Immune Response and Lymphatic Function
11:57 Practical Tips for Lymphatic Health
15:08 The Fab Five Techniques for Lymphatic Drainage
23:59 The Hidden Benefits of Lymphatic Health
25:41 Optimizing Performance Through Lymphatic Care
27:40 Introducing New Habits for Lymphatic Health
30:16 Client Transformations and Lymphatic Awareness
31:55 Targeted Lymphatic Techniques for Women
33:52 At-Home Techniques for Abdominal Lymphatic Care
36:18 Understanding Lymph Node Health
38:11 The Importance of Regular Detoxification
40:04 Proactive Detoxification Strategies
41:25 Addressing Lifestyle Habits and Emotional Attachments
44:02 The Impact of Constrictive Clothing on Lymphatic Health


It’s a luminous reminder that healing isn’t force—it’s flow. When we listen to the lymph, we rediscover the body’s own language of renewal.
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Leah Levitan
Website & Resources: https://www.lymphloveclub.com/linklist | alignmassagecompany.com 

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Instagram: @lymphloveclub


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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Everything is frequency. Leia Leviton was an absolute joy to interview. She carries bright energy and a deep practical understanding of how to move the lymph with ease. If you wake up puffy, inflamed, or heavy in your face, eyes, or neck, this episode has practical solutions for you. Leia walks us through a simple routine called the Fab Five. A quick drainage practice you can apply early morning and night. I do it every day, twice a day, and I've continued doing it since we recorded. The difference of having this little routine is very real. This conversation is grounded, hands-on, and embodied. Best listen to somewhere you can follow along and actually massage with us. If you've been longing for simple tools to feel cleaner, lighter, more youthful, and in your own skin, this one delivers. Be mighty. Good afternoon. Welcome back to the Gamma Seeker broadcast. Today I have the Lymph Love Club. If you don't know who she is, you should definitely be following her. Leah Levitan. Levitan?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Levitan?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Levitan is from Austin, Texas. We had a chance to interact together at the Fasha Congress this year. And I really wanted to have her on because we've had no experts about lymph. And it is a buzzword and a popular phrase that's being pulled around. Dr. Perry has done a great job at educating people about the big six. And many people are starting to do massage, but they don't really understand the why of the massage. So I really wanted to have you on to give us a nice little lymph 101.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for having me. And it was an honor meeting you at the Congress. So much information.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yes, that was kind of a blast. I'm still feeling like I'm integrating a lot, particularly some of Keith Barr's stuff. What about you? What is like still kind of itching in the back of your brain?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Man, I really I don't know if you were able to make it, but the Science of Yin yoga class that they had at 7 a.m. before any of the lectures started, that was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

The instructor, she was from overseas, and the way that she taught was so beautiful. And I I wasn't familiar with her work. Um her name is actually slipping my mind at the moment, but man, it was just really it was really powerful to sort of move through and to be working on your connective tissue. It just felt really special and I never attended a class like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Very cool. Thanks for telling me that. I love Yin Yoga. Yeah, me too. So let's start with the basics. What is lymph?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Uh well, lymph is the fluid that flows through a lymphatic system. So it has a very similar component to seawater. So it's salty and it's full of nutrients. It also carries the cellular waste from our body. And so this fluid is flowing through these flexible tubes that move through throughout our entire body. And the only place that you won't find lymph is in like your hair or your fingernails. We have a lymphatic fluid in the brain, we have we have it everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

It's even in our teeth, too, right? Doesn't our teeth even have like a lymphatic?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah, there's lymphatic supply in our teeth, and our tongue is a primary mover of lymphatic fluid in our face.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

So, how do you teach people how to restore lymphatic health?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

That's a good question. I think it really starts with awareness of what it is. Because when we I think we're all familiar with fluid accumulation. Like we wake up and we might feel some puffiness under our eyes or we feel some puffiness in our jaw. We've been ill before where our lymph nodes swell up and it scares the shit out of us. I mean, we've just all had lymph stuff, but didn't really know what it meant, you know, swelling in our feet and ankles. It's just, it's really helpful to understand the system, even just as a base level of like the fluid layer of our body that that we are just a bunch of cells, sort of circulate, you know, this fluid that's circulating around it. So helping somebody come to this place of lymphatic health starts with that awareness, that education of their own body, and tapping into the different ways that they can take care of it. And that is really multidimensional. So it sort of filters into every avenue of our life.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

So the blood system is what a lot of people know about, right? But the lymph system is actually, I think, three times greater. Am I right with that?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I mean, well, there's more fluid that is circulating through the lymphatic system.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

And yes, so the cardiovascular system and the lymphatic system, these two make up our vascular system. And they actually run parallel to each other. While they are separate systems, they are really deeply intertwined because all of the blood that's circulating through the body, you know, that fluid that comes out of there, the plasma in our blood that leaks into the tissue space, that's actually what is taken up into the lymphatic system, cleaned, filtered, recycled, and put back into the bloodstream. And so this delivery of oxygen and nutrients to our cells, the removal of cellular waste, metabolic waste, things that are coming from the outside, this in turn is just feeding and bathing our cells. So it's basically how our body does anything. And it's a huge component of our immune system. So it protects us from illness and disease.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

You're the first person to talk about the nutrients of the lymph in my own world. I've always heard of lymph as being the waste, and like the waste gets kind of pushed out through the blood vessels, and then it's kind of captured into this other system. So the way that I kind of picture it is it's like it's almost a sludge. Yeah. And then like that toxic sludge, these wires that kind of like move the canal of lymph, they have these nodes. And then these nodes are where a lot of people are massaging in case it gets stagnant, because we'll have, you know, people that have like tumors of lymphoma, it'll kind of bulge out of their body. Am I explaining this right? Can you please elaborate?

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah. So we have about six to seven hundred lymph nodes in our body, and those are like the little tiny organs of our lymphatic system. So these like little filtration stations that are stationed around the body, they're usually in great acute, like they accumulate the the heaviest in areas that are exposed to the outside world. So our head and neck has nearly a third of the lymph nodes in our body are located there just because it's guarding the airway. You know, anything that we're breathing in, it's sort of making sure that we don't get sick or it's doing its best, right? And then there are clusters of lymph nodes. So there's no large pump for the lymphatic system. Our cardiovascular system has the heart, which is great at pumping blood to and from the tissues. It's not the end-all be-all. It really relies on muscle engagement to get that blood to the cells that need it. But the lymphatic system really relies on muscle activation and fascial engagement to get that fluid to where it needs to go. So these clusters of lymph nodes that are in our armpits, in the hip creases of our knees, we've got a couple in our elbows, a couple in the behind the knees. And this location of these like filtration hubs is really intended to get pumped and pushed and massaged when we're moving. And so the body has a beautiful design there. And I forgot to mention that another third of the lymph nodes are located in the abdomen. So for like the digestive tract, the pelvic bowl, another entry point to the body, right? So just protecting all the guard, all the doors.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah. Yeah. And then well, the way that the lymph is pumped is through movement, but um, it all comes back to the heart, right? It like all of the fluid kind of gets pumped and then dropped back into the bloodstream right around the heart area. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yes. Yeah, they're in sort of invisible quadrants where the flow of lymph is actually gravitating towards those clusters of lymph nodes. So we have a superficial lymphatic system, which is just below the surface of the skin. Anything that you can pinch and pick up. So if you were to just pinch the skin on your forearm and pick it up, this is your superficial lymphatic system. So if anything were to puncture that, that's where that immune response comes in. I accidentally cut my hand today and it's red. And the lymphatic system is already making sure that any germs or bacteria that's kind of gotten in there, just making sure that I don't get an infection. Knock on wood. No. And I already lost track of what I was saying because I went off on a tangent about my hand. The superficial, okay. The superficial versus the deep. Thank you. My ADHD gets me sometimes. So that superficial layer, that like outer crust of our body, it's being filtered, channeled through those lymph nodes, and then it dives deeper in underneath like the deep fascial layers. So that's more like organ and muscle supply. And so that is where that converges into larger and larger pipes. And so that large pipe that you're talking about is the thoracic duct. It sits right on the front of the spine, and there's a huge filling chamber there, the cisternachyle, and it has a special type of lymphatic fluid in there that's a milky white substance. It's like from the digestive fats from the food that we eat. And so all of that stuff is kind of converging into this central ocean, if you will, before it goes back into a vein called the subclavian vein, so just below the clavicle, and then goes back into cardiovascular circulation. Pretty neat.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

It is. And when we get into these lymph nodes, my understanding is that this is where some of our immune system is absolutely living. And I could be wrong there, but it what's happening within these lymph nodes that's so important to us.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

So there are immune cells that are kind of flowing through the system itself, but there are immune cells in the lymph nodes as well. And so basically those immune cells are sort of like surveilling the fluid as it flows through. And should it find something that it feels like it doesn't belong, then that's where we get those that cell division. The body will actually cut off the exit point. So there's a clear entry point into a lymph node and an exit point. There's multiple, many, but the body will shut off the exit point and allow lymphatic fluid to fill that node as those cells divide. And that's when we get a swollen lymph node.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So that's sort of like, you know, and the nervous system, our nerves are sort of branching and vining all over our lymphatic vessels. And so there's definitely that nervous system connection and response to perceived threat, which is really cool.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Question. This may seem like very off topic, but I'm I'm really curious. When someone is having an allergic reaction response, is the lymph in play to help kind of like create that swelling and that reaction?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Well, my understanding, it's like mast cells, right? Like mast cells are what, like the zombie cells. They're recruiting other cells and they're basically just exploding and releasing histamine and all kinds of things. And so, yeah, when we get that allergic reaction, it's definitely an immune response. But immune response and like cellular stuff is super complicated and not my area of expertise. Cellular biology was not not my best course.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

Yeah, sorry, I know that question was kind of complex. I've been sung by a lot of poisonous creatures, and I've experienced how the blood kind of like shuts off certain areas to kind of capture the poison and then like kind of like slow doses.

unknown 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I'm doing this because like I my most recent poisonous experience was um with this caterpillar. It's like one of the most poisonous moth in all of North America. And somehow I had laid my wrist right on it, and it was a whole day of like deep breathing and like not being able to eat, but my arm got like numb. Whoa. And it was like my body had did this little internal surgery. And I wonder how much um was responsible there by the lymph of kind of like stopping certain systems and ripping it into one stream so that it could take care of it. Uh, it was an interesting thing to internally uh process. Okay, so what would be the biggest lymph node in the body that would be, in a sense, helping us pump everything else since it is interconnected?

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Well, it's kind of a trick question because a lot of times we refer to that chamber, that filling chamber with the digestive juices as a lymph node, that's cisternochyle, but it's not really a lymph node. So it just doesn't have that same anatomy or structure to it. It's not a filtration center. So it doesn't have little chambers where the fluid kind of goes through. It really is just like a reservoir. So the largest lymph node of the body technically would be uh the one just like maybe an inch below the ear. And so there's just like a large lymph node there that's like a main airway lymph node that's sort of like different than the tonsil, you know? Yeah, is that different than the tonsil? Tonsils are actually lymphoid tissue, so they're not lymph nodes. So it's just sort of like a meaty, it's like a meaty mass that has a lot of immune activity, but not uh not a lymph node per se.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Wow. Okay, that's that is new information. What about the adeno? Would that fall in the same Corey?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Same, same, yeah. Well it's definitely I mean it's definitely part of the lymphatic system for sure, because we actually have those little fluffy, you know, pillows of immunity all through the digestive tract and things like that. So we have these things that produce mucus and have immune cell activity. And that's really just like another form of our immune system, which is really robust.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

If someone hasn't heard of lymph before and they're kind of like, I don't know if this is an issue for me, maybe mine is healthy. What would be a good place for them to kind of just test their lymph?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

I would say start incorporating some sort of lymphatic activity, like Dr. Perry's big six. I've seen plenty of people get taken down a notch just because they're like, whoa, the detox response that I had from that was just like way more than I thought. Because when it comes to detoxification, it's like our body is only really good at removing the things that it's able to, that the organs are able to. The lymphatic system does not detoxify. That job belongs to our detox organs. So a lot of times those little things that we're missing in our lymphatic health can actually just be sort of aligning with everything and how it works together. So, yeah, a lot of times when people are seemingly healthy, if their body's not able to eliminate things and it's just kind of holding on to things, it will just kind of continue to circulate through the lymphatic system. So when you start working with a lymphatic system and it gives you these reactions, I would say reactions, but detoxification symptoms can be as mild as like feeling thirsty, have maybe getting a headache, feeling fatigued, or it can be or an increase in urine production. That's a common one, and not very uncomfortable. But sometimes people have really uncomfortable detox reactions, like a Herx reaction where you might have rashes or indigestion, things like that.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

And that would be caused because as we start to massage these areas, we're kind of pushing the lymph back into play. Um, am I right? And then does that affect the blood at all? Because I know like when we do detoxes, we're kind of asking the body to move things into the blood to then move them out. But the lymph is in this separate system. So when we're massaging it open, are we just feeling like that discomfort of that stagnant fluid kind of moving?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Oh, well, in real time, I guess I was just thinking like after.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Um, I although some people do feel ill when they start moving their lymphatic fluid because it is so so stuck and slow and thick, and it's really meant to be watery and viscous, but sometimes it can be a little bit thicker.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Okay, so I'm like trying to think about how I want to steer this question without asking like impossible questions, but I'm like trying to put the beginner mind in my brain. It's like I guess the next layer of question is if someone wakes up with puffy eyes and maybe a little bit of a post-nasal drip, what would be the thing that you would advise them to do?

SPEAKER_00 17:14

That's a good one. I would say my Fab Five. That's like the thing that I would teach people. Would you be willing to show us a little bit of that? Absolutely. So I know that we talked about how a third of the lymph nodes are in the head and neck, but we have two major chains that run in front of and behind this muscle called the SCM. And so we have these major chains here. We've got some kind of in the front of the esophagus, we've got some lining underneath the jaw that drain like the teeth and the tongue. We've got some in front of and behind our ears, and then we've got a couple on either sides of our nose. And so the Fab 5 basically is working with all of these clusters of lymph nodes, but first we have to change the pressure in the system. So the lymphatic system is a pressure system, and the lowest point of pressure in the body is just behind the collarbones where it goes back into circulation. So what we're gonna do is just take our hands and place them over our collarbones, just over that triangular space. And you can cross your hands on either side, or you can do one side at a time. But what we're gonna do is just press your fingertips down into that space, and you can make almost like a circular pumping motion. So from the corners of your shoulders towards the base of the neck. And you can take a moment here too to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth just to kind of trigger that deeper lymphatic pumping. And I would say for good measure, you could do this for like 15 to 30 seconds. There's really no magic number. Sometimes people are like, pump it 10 or 15 times. Your lymphatic system doesn't care. We just don't want to cause pain. So that's point number one of five. Point number two, you'll take your wrist and put them together to kind of create like a seat. Now, wrap your hands just around your neck and kind of give your neck a hug. So what you'll do is you'll press backwards just a little bit and then pump downwards. So it's a backwards pumping motion. And what we're doing is we're clearing out the lymphatic, any of the lymphatic fluid that might have been sitting in these lymph nodes that needed a little push, a little zhuz. And then we've changed that pressure to create drainage and more flow. So now the lymphatic system is flowing a little bit more quickly than it was before. And we're also stimulating our vagus nerve here. So we're triggering, triggering relaxation, sort of communicating safety to the body, which actually dilates the lymphatic vessels and makes them larger. So that also increases flow. Point number two, you can just take the tips of your thumbs, start right at the tip of the jaw, and just kind of put your thumbs underneath that mandible. And it's kind of a little hard to talk when I do this because your tongue sort of moves up as you're displacing that tissue. So now we're just going to glide our thumbs along the borders of our jaw. When we get to the back corner where it sort of turns up, that's sort of the end point. And then you'll repeat this process. And so you can just slide along these borders of the jaw. You should feel like some saliva production. You'll, you know, a lot of times here, people will feel maybe a change in the pressure. Like if you were to do this, if you had a headache, like a tension headache, this is where you might start feeling some relief. Now you can to get the lymph nodes in front of and behind the ears, you can do just like a peace sign. So like one finger in front of the ear and one behind, or you could do Spock hands where it's two fingers in front, two behind. Choose your adventure and just sandwich your ears in between those fingers. So now we're gonna do like a little circular pumping here. You could even just like rub up and down. Again, that's taught so many different ways online, and you don't have to be there's just there's no like right way to do it. It's all about the order in which you do it because of that pressure system. So the last point would be just below the eyes, just on either sides of the nose. You can kind of feel around in here with the tips of your pointer fingers, just feel into that squishy space and see if you can find a spot that feels like a little tender, maybe like a little divot. There's actually a little hole in the skull here on either side where some vessels pass through. And there's lymph nodes that sit right on top of those, and then there's that big sinus reservoir underneath. And so if you just press and hold here, or you can rub in a circular motion. No wrong way to do it, but we just want to create a little bit of a pressure change for those deeper compartments in the head. And you can just prioritize kind of breathing through your nose as you're doing that, so you can kind of open things up. And that's the that's the fab five. So the the lymph that's draining underneath your eyes actually drains into that nasolabial lymph node on either side of the nose. So it's like when people get that fluid accumulation under the eyes. In traditional Chinese medicine, that's the kidney area. And so I often think of electrolyte balancing, stress, things like that. But of course, it can also be muscle tension, having poor tongue posture, kind of having it like sort of hang out on the floor of the mouth versus being resting on the roof of the mouth, which definitely changes the pressure and how the lymphatic fluid flows from the brain. But what I love about the Fab Five is that the fluid from the brain. Actually drains out into those deep chains along the sides of the neck before it goes back into circulation. So anytime that you're doing this, even though it just takes like a couple minutes, you are ensuring that like your brain is being cleansed. And that's really important. So I hope that's helpful.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

That's very helpful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Um, you know, I kind of love what you were saying about the nasal labial folds here and how the under eye goes there. Because most of the people that I know, if you, you know, consume a little bit more dessert at night, if your water quality was kind of under par the day before, a lot of people will wake up with puffy eyes. So I feel like that that's just a good little protocol there for so many.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah. And add that to the big six. So if you were to just kind of like bring that into the fold, if you're already doing the big six every day, points one and two are basically the same because Dr. Perry is like kind of opening the collarbones, the sides of the neck. And so then you would just go up into the face and then come back down into the body.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Is there anything that people don't know about the lymph or that you don't see represented online that you would want to share? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Not a lot of people talk about it when it comes to so neurodegenerative diseases when it comes to like Parkinson's and MS, but also concussions. I know you said you have a lot of athletes that listen to this channel. When it comes to traumatic brain injuries and things like that to help relieve some of the pressure in there, lymphatic drainage is really powerful. And so that's kind of something that is less trendy because I think there's a lot of beauty benefits and anti-aging benefits that come with the lymphatic stuff. I mean, it's we're improving the quality of our cells. Of course, of course, we're gonna look great. Of course, our skin's gonna glow and we're gonna feel good. But there's also just so many medical benefits, and we need more research on that stuff because there's people out there that could use this medicine, you know, it's just internal medicine.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I like that you were talking about the lymph in the brain because when I think of like optimizing performance as an artist or an athlete, you know, a performing artist has to deal with a lot of like stress and pressure, and anything that can clear their mind before they step on stage as an artist or an athlete is really important. And I think that we overlook the clarity of mind that we can have by taking care of the lymph because the body is a rhythmic moving river system. And if our lymph is really sluggish, you know, what's happening in the lymph could be, you know, translated into our cerebral spinal fluid just like in a matter of days. So when we think about having a healthy lymph system, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

It would look like staying hydrated. Lymph is mostly made of water. I don't think that we could have lymphatic health without hydration. And prioritizing sleep, that's when our lymphatic system, that brain drainage, is happening. It's usually happening in uh deep non-REM sleep, that cycle. And of course, food is such a big part, but movement is a big part too.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

So what about sweating? Is sweating in your top five for that too?

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Sweating, I just I have a lot of clients that aren't super great at sweating, you know, they're just like, I've lost the ability somewhere along the way. And so sweating is really helpful to support detoxification. And so, yeah, I think it does belong on there in the sense of just like gentle detoxification in a way that our body is designed for. So, yes, add that one to the list, sweat it up.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

I I get asked so much about high quality water, and I find myself often saying, yes, but you also need to move that water because I lost for a short period of time my ability to sweat. And I started to religiously go to a sauna until I got that ability back because I kind of felt like my hands were swollen, my feet were swelling. And this was before I was doing the fascia flow, before lymph was kind of a buzzword. And I felt like when I increased my quality of water, but also increased like my just passive, relaxed sweating, that there was kind of a significant shift, I guess also in the hyaluronic acid of the body, but I kind of felt like everything had a little bit more room. Like after you do a detox or a juice cleanse, like everything kind of just moves a little bit more buttery. So I was curious, what is like a good transition that you've seen with one of your clients where they come in kind of maybe chronically swollen and bloated, and um, what their transition was like?

SPEAKER_00 27:59

A lot of times it's just introducing new habits and ways of being with your body and like taking care of it. It's I mean, to hand somebody a dry brush and to say, move this over your skin repetitively and work as much skin as possible. That's a weird task for some people, you know, that are just like, oh, I thought like diet and exercise was it. And so then you're like, okay, so now I also want you to, so I want you to dry brush your skin, but I also want you to do a bunch of bouncing and shaking and rubbing your collarbones and rubbing the rubbing your armpits and rubbing your abdomen, doing all these weird little things like that. So incorporating these habits that are helping them take care of that lymphatic system so that they can sort of expedite the process of their healing. And it can be a long road for some of them, but it's always moving in the right direction. And of a lot of times, if their body isn't able to detoxify, then we're kind of talking more about like castor oil packs or sauna, things like that to help get things, to help get the, you know, things open. If they're constipated, that's a huge problem. If they're dehydrated, that's a huge problem. If they're super stressed, that's a big problem. So it's like, okay, where do we need to focus the attention to help support that organ so that it can do its job and actually eliminate the things that were moving because we can do all the lymph stuff, but if those toxins are not able to leave our body, then we're not gonna get very far.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

So it's a lot of recalibrating.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Yeah, and you're basically, you know, increasing their internal awareness of where things can get stuck. So I I often find that clients are looking for one thing. And if they do this one thing, everything else will work. And what I find from people like you and I is it's it's a journey. Health is not just a destination, it's how we are constantly calibrating or tuning where we are in that given day based on everything that we had taken in the day before, sleep and stress and inputs. What's a good like client story that people can relate to potentially from they they don't know what lymph is, they find you, they work within that program. What's something that they have kind of shed in your process?

SPEAKER_00 30:23

A lot of times people are coming in, and this is maybe more specific to women. We do primarily see more women. I think just with our hormones, we just have more shit going on, right? Breast tenderness, cyclical breast tenderness, that's a huge one. That's like always indicating to the liver. Maybe they're wanting to work on cellulite or bloating. They have a lot of like GI stuff and brain fog. So when those clients are coming in and we're sort of kind of checking those boxes to be like, okay, like how's your poop? How's your sleep? How's your food? How's your movement? What can we work on, or what can we support you with as we're, you know, doing our sessions together. And those, it really takes like mutual trust and effort to like build that therapeutic relationship to help get somebody over that hump. And so just coming in with that mindset of like, okay, I am I I have to do the homework, you know, going in for a session is not gonna fix me. And the fact that there's nothing wrong with them, I mean, like they're not broken, that we just want to create that space for them to heal. So curiosity, that's a huge one. They're gonna need curiosity and some drive to do some weird lymph things for themselves.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

I haven't seen many people discuss the lymph that are in the belly and the lymph that are is around the pelvis. I was curious how you encouraged people to take care of those areas or some of the tools that you used.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, I mean, you can do very targeted lymphatic drainage. So you can do breast lymphatic drainage, and the breast tissue actually drains to the axillary clusters for more reproductive stuff, like in the belly and the abdomen. The aguinal lymph nodes are actually draining the external genitalia, but the deeper organs, those are being pulled into the pelvic lymph nodes. So even something as simple as getting familiar with your abdomen and knowing how to massage it, just sort of like knowing where things are in there is really helpful. I'll usually teach clients to release their diaphragm just from a fascial perspective, sort of taking the tips of their fingers and gently placing it, like hooking in underneath the ribs and kind of sliding your fingers down the borders of your rib cage. Little things like that can increase flow big time and help with pelvic congestion and you know, painful periods. It's like all of that stuff moves, it's all connected with fascia, and there's just so much lymph stuff going on in there that when you know where things are and you're using a combination of lymphatic techniques as well as like myofascial release techniques. I have a ball here that I love for the abdomen. This is uh the gorgeous ball, but there are lots of like soft Pilates balls out there, and when it's soft, then it's soft enough to use in the abdomen, and you can use that to do some targeted breathing, and that's really helpful for lymphatic drainage.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

That's so beautiful. Thank you. Is there any like demonstration that I mean, other than people reaching under their abs for the diaphragm? Is there anything they could do at home for the belly or for the abdomen if they're like laying in their bed? What would be your advice?

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah, I'll show you a little landmark that's really great. So to find that thoracic duct, that big main channel that's on the front of the spine, it's attached to the front of the spine. So like you're probably not gonna touch it directly. So we're just talking about indirect, right? Indirect. But if you find the bottom of your rib cage and you just poke your fingers in there and you're like, okay, I found my rib cage, and then I also have my belly. Find the belly button and then walk your fingers between the belly button and the bottom of the rib cage, and then it's a little bit off to the right. So what you'll do is you can take your flat fingers, you can stack one hand over the other. So just the fingertips here are in the midline of the body, and then you can do like a little wave-like pass over it, kind of like you're strumming the string of a guitar or you're playing a violin. You could also scoop upwards, so you can press in and do like a little gentle pumping upwards towards the heart. And then the pelvic bowl, it supports a lot of the lymph nodes, and so even so the inguinal lymph nodes are in the hip creases, but if you come up actually into the lower, like below the belly button, these areas are really good to massage. So you can be working these in like a circular motion, just a little pumping rhythmically. And so, yeah, and of course, that standard clockwise massage is always great because that's just helping the feces move through the intestinal tract and stimulating the colon and working with the anatomy of the body. If you're going in a certain in a clockwise circle, then you're always moving with the way that feces moves through the intestinal tract.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

If somebody was massaging their pelvis, like near where those lymph, the inguinal lymph nodes are, and they feel like little balls, does that indicate something is dysfunctional or has become solid, or is that normal?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

It's just a, I mean, it's just it's it could be an indication of a lot of things. So our lymph nodes are filters, and those filters can get clogged with debris. I know for a fact that I have a lot of tattoo ink in some of my lymph nodes. And I know that my lymphatic fluid, just based on the amount of tattoos that I have, is no longer clear or straw-colored, but probably more like a light gray, a really light gray. So you can have stuff stuck in your lymph nodes. It could also be an indication that you're not moving your hips enough. A lot of times, you know, it's a very sedentary culture here in the United States. We do a lot of sitting or a lot of standing, which is two different versions of the same problem. And so that lymph can get really stuck there when our hips are locked in the same position and we've been seated for hours at a time. So sometimes what people will notice when they start incorporating rebounders or vibration plates is that those lymph nodes will go down. And that's just an indication that you're getting things moving and that things are moving better. Chronic inflammation is another thing that can sort of cause whole lymph node clusters to swell. And that's a whole other can of worms because the reason that somebody might have chronic inflammation is going to differ greatly from person to person. But a lot of the clients that we have come in are like everything hurts. You know, they're just so inflamed that everything hurts and that their immune system is just kind of on edge because of the things that aren't able to leave the body. This sort of ties back into that detoxification piece. There's just some stagnation, if you will.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

So I am, I love promoting four detoxes a year to people. Um, and it's kind of, you know, whatever feels good for them, but I really feel like four times a year we should give our body the space to let go. Um, if that just looks like eating fruits and vegetables for seven days, if that looks like a juice fast, if that looks like a water fast that's done correctly. Um, I'm a big fan of giving our body space to release what the filters have had to put up with. Um, and I find that when people haven't detoxed before, doing one detox is kind of like a huge hurdle. And it may not be comfortable because there's so much damage, but then the second one's a little easier. Then the, you know, the four third one's a little easier, and then it kind of compounds. What is a detox ritual that you find yourself saying the most to your clients?

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Detox ritual. Honestly, it's it's a lot of like prioritizing fiber and making sure that they're working on pooping and that water intake and sweating. So I would say that that just in the sense of supporting the body's natural detox processes, that's where my mind goes, just as like a massage therapist. We're just kind of trying to help them support their lifestyle habits. So it's hard to be like, try this detox.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

I beat the detox drum hard, like with my membership. I mean, it's like, come on, guys, if we're not giving it space, everything kind of gets blocked up, you know, and the fascia and the breath, you can pump those all day long. If it's a bunch of sewage that's trapped in there, it's difficult to make the gains that people want. So I'm um I'm here supporting people like you, like, come on, do it, do the thing.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

Well, if anything, we try to be more like proactive too. It's like, how can we slow down the things that don't belong in our body? So we do talk about toxic avoidance, you know. I think that's the first step of detoxification, always. It's just like, how do we like prevent this shit from getting in? How do we how do we slow it down? This is a toxic world. So, what are some things that we can do that are really simple that you can start today? It's like, cool, stop buying castor oil in a plastic bottle. It's a carrier oil, it's absorbing that plastic and then also absorbing into your skin. So not only is that like a net zero, but it might even be counterproductive. It's like we we want to do good, but we also need to be mindful of the some of the even like wellness products that we're buying that might be not so great for us either.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

So I have a question about like if you have a client that comes in and they drink regularly and like they occasionally enjoy energy drinks or soda or maybe like a crazy amount of coffee, what is a way that you get them to start taking responsibility or um help them change that lifestyle habit? Because there's usually a bit of emotional attachment to those habits as well.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah. Well, I feel like the nervous system piece always comes in. You know, it's like, what are we, what are we running from? What are we coping with? What are we soothing? And what are we avoiding dealing with? So we have great referrals for somatic experiencing. That's probably like one of our go-to modalities to refer people to. It's like, I love any sort of trauma therapy that doesn't involve talking about trauma. Like me too. If you don't you don't have to talk about it, if you can just sort of see it out of your body in a safe space, that's amazing. And so I think it just kind of starts with like, cool, where is your nervous system at? What patterns are you stuck in? How do we identify those spots? And what are some of the tools that you can use to get out of them? Like what what are the tools that are really accessible to you? So I will often teach clients like, you know, orientation, like looking around the room, hearing, smelling, seeing. What do we, what are we feeling? What does your body feel like in the chair? How do we breathe? Things like that. So yeah, I don't know. I want to I mean I want to share this. I can't beat them up about it. Yeah. They're gonna do what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

I have uh so I am a Scotch-Irish, and most of my family drinks heavily. And the part of my family that doesn't drink heavily drinks a lot of soda. And so I've been trying to chart my way through my own family clan, and I have found the best thing that's gotten my uncles who would just giggle at the idea of a somatic experience to deal with their problems. That I give them, I've given them pH strips and ask them to measure their first pee in the morning. And I'm like, listen, if you run acidic, you're driving your body into a very unhealthy place. And no surprise, everybody that's drinking heavily and drinking a lot of soda have a really acidic bloodstream. But now the barometer to them is like they're a lot of them are engineers. They know how to like fix machines. Um, they know how to like work machines. So they're relating to their body, like, okay, so my gasoline is running too hot. It's not the right octane level. So I have to like kind of tweak my intake, you know, between coffee and soda. Yeah, it's been really helping me with the people that are a little bit more stubborn. And instead of me just saying it, it's like, well, go test yours. Are you neutral? How many days in a row can you stay neutral? And I feel like I've gotten past some of their very stuck neurons. I just wanted to share that with you. I'm hoping that it sticks. You know, my job is to just buy the pH strips and put it in front of them.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

Yeah, I love that. It's interesting because it's like a lot of times when people are coming in and they are having that like two, one, two, three glasses of wine to kind of cope with the day at the end of the day, it's like, well, your liver is really important, you know? It's got over 500 functions that we know of right now, and we need it. We really need it. And so trying to help them sort of support that and the hormones and all kind of I don't know. I just sort of remind them about that liver function.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah. How about smoking for the lymph?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Well, that's gonna be really constricting for the blood vessels, and so I would assume that that would be constricting for the lymphatic vessels. I haven't seen any uh like research specifically about smoke and lymph, but there's like a lot of lymphatic stuff going on in our lungs. And there's a lot of like, you know, mucus in there, and there's lymph nodes like surrounding in front of and behind the lungs, just almost acting as large filters there. Just feels really counterproductive for lymphatic health.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

For sure. Many women wear bras quite often, and they wear tight, beautiful clothes, and they may look wonderful, but I know that this is affecting the lymph. So, how can we assist our lymph when we've come home from a long day? Maybe we've been in very concealing things with our bras, with our, you know, potentially tight outfits, and what can we do?

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Yes, okay, tight-fitting clothing. This is a great topic because I think clothes are great, and yeah, we want to look cute. But depending on the design, not not all bras are going to be constricting for our lymphatic system. I think the bra design that I that I try to tell my clients to avoid is that U shaped underwire bra. So that one kind of creates a physical barrier for our lymphatic fluid. Because kind of when we did that pinch test earlier in the episode. Episode, that superficial lymphatic system, if you see those indentations from your socks or your yoga pants or your bra, you know, the bra straps like digging in over the tops of the shoulders where all that lymphatic fluid goes back in. It's just one of those things where if you can avoid tight elastic bands or like corsets or belts that are sort of like I mean, I don't think those are in style anymore, but it used to be like a thing to wear these like big belts like right around the bottom of our ribcage. I'm glad those went away. But I still have oh good. Keep it for fun. It'll circle back. Yeah. Everything circles back. But yeah, it's like, I don't want to tell people not to wear bras. Like kindergarten teachers, wear bra. That's fine. That's okay. You can put them away. But as long as you're trying to stay moving and maybe you're doing a little bit of like breast and armpit massage and kind of doing the big six before you get in it, after you get out of it. That's a great way to just sort of make up for that. But limiting use is obviously going to be a great option, like the best option, where it's like maybe just like don't wear underwear or don't wear a bra if you can swing it. No pun intended. But it's great to limit those things and to wear things that just feel a little bit more limp friendly.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yes, I am absolutely with you. Thank you so much for being on this with me and like being the first person to talk about lymph and like the little things that we can do at home. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with my audience?

SPEAKER_00 47:03

Oh, thanks so much for having me. It's like my favorite topic. So happy to come and talk lymph anytime. You can find me all over the internet under Lymph Love Club. We have uh a global community. I teach two classes a week on how to take care of your lymphatic system. And some of those things are basically like lymphatic movement, you know, the anatomy of the body, how these things are are moving, what these movements are actually moving, and some really nerdy stuff, like, you know, how to mobilize the organs and do really detailed, fun things. Gets weird in there. But yeah, there's a free one-week trial to come and just have a class with me. Love to have you.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Oh, that's such a nice offer. Yeah. Thank you, Leah, for being with us today.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Yes. I also made we made a promo code to give your listeners 25% off of a course. So there's a promo code that you can link in the show notes. Show notes.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

So it'll be below. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks for joining us today. This has been so much.