Flow and Restore: How Yoga Boosts Your Lymphatic Health

There are so many benefits to practicing yoga. Opening the lymphatic channels–-freeing your flow–-is an important one. The lymphatic system is your body’s natural  detox network, essential for immune function and overall health. Read further to understand how yoga supports and enhances lymphatic health, and learn strategies for beginning a flow-promoting practice.

Understanding the Lymphatic System

What is the Lymphatic System?

• The lymphatic system is an elegant series of vessels, ducts and nodes that runs like a river with many tributaries and rivulets throughout the body. Every  system in the body, including your nervous, digestive and neurological systems, is influenced and supported by your lymphatic system. Its critical roles include producing white blood cells for immune function, collecting and filtering bacteria and toxins that can cause disease, absorbing fat in the gut, and maintaining your body’s critical fluid balance.

Why Lymphatic Health Matters:

• When your lymphatic system is functioning well, every other system in your body reaps the benefits. Waste products get removed as they are produced. Fluid balance dynamically adjusts to your changing needs. Recovery from surgery, trauma, and illness happens more rapidly and easily. 
• When flow is sluggish, you’re at greater risk for disease and dysfunction.  Healing slows down. Clear thinking muddies. Energy and joy diminish.
• Supporting your immune river is essential for maintaining health, preventing illness, and promoting recovery.

How Yoga Supports the Lymphatic System

Promotes Circulation and Lymph Flow:

• Some yoga postures are specific to clearing the lymph nodes. Nodes congregate at the joints, and these postures both compress and open at the joints creating a pumping action at the lymphatic hubs.
• Yoga also employs deep, long and rhythmic breaths which continuously and dynamically engage the lymphatic engine, the diaphragm muscle.  

Reduces Swelling and Inflammation:

• Supported sustained inversions offer gravity-assist for draining the lower body, and long arm holds are often against gravity, promoting upper limb drainage. 
• Gentle prolonged stretches combined with profound breathing allow the lymphatic river the rhythmic stretch and release on the skin required to propel lymph back to the heart, reducing swelling, congestion, stagnation, and inflammation.

Enhances Immune Function:

• Numerous studies have linked yoga’s stress-reducing effects with improved immune function. Stress management is critical to lymphatic health. Stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine can exist at unhealthy levels with chronic stress, putting a greater burden on the lymphatic system, reducing its immune capabilities.

Detoxification and Waste Removal:

• Certain poses and sequences support the body’s natural detox processes by facilitating lymph movement and encouraging elimination of toxins.

Yoga Poses for Lymphatic Health

Recommended Poses:

• Several categories of yoga poses are particularly beneficial for lymphatic flow, such as:
  • Twists: Detoxifying and stimulating lymph movement by “wringing out the nodes” of the trunk.
  • Inversions: Using gravity to enhance circulation and aid lymphatic drainage.
  • Gentle Flows (e.g., Sun Salutations): Promoting overall circulation and lymph flow.

Incorporating Breathwork:

• The lymphatic system does not have a heart like the blood circulation. It is propelled by skeletal muscle movement, the pulsing of nearby arteries, and breathing. Deep, diaphragmatic breathing during yoga can profoundly support lymphatic drainage and overall health. 

Practical Tips for Practicing Yoga for Lymphatic Health

• Creating a Routine:
  • Starting and/or ending your day with a 5-10 minute yoga routine can optimize lymphatic benefits. Even 2-3 minutes of breathing with a few gentle yogic stretches can go a long way to encouraging lymphatic flow and releasing the small blockages and areas of accumulation from a night of sleep or a day of activity.
• Combining Yoga with Other Therapies:
  • Consider integrating yoga with other practices like lymphatic drainage therapy for enhanced results. Scheduling a drainage session before or after a yoga class can be a powerful enhancement of the therapeutic benefits of each modality. Or join one of my retreats to experience a morning of lymphatic well-being through yoga, lymph drainage and breathwork.
• Listening to Your Body:
  • As always, it is so important to practice mindfully, paying attention to how your body responds to the breath and gentle movements, and adjust as needed. This work should never be painful.

A Sample Movement Sequence

• Breathing to clear the deep lymphatics and jumpstart the lymphatic engine: Seated, rest one hand on the belly, one on the chest. Feel the belly fill first as you inhale, then the chest; reverse this as you exhale, chest emptying, then belly. Repeat for 30 seconds.
• Stimulate the neck/supraclavicular region seated: ear to shoulder with micromovements (chin to chest and then high toward the sky, gently move head forward and back, side to side, yes and no), repeat on both right and left side; nose to the left and same micromovements–all stimulating the neck nodes and supraclavicular area, all while breathing consciously. Switch sides and repeat. Drawing a smile with the chin from shoulder to chest to other shoulder, a half circle, breathing.
• Stimulating the nodes of the major regions in the armpits, groin, and abdomen: Start comfortably on your back, bend knees, soles of the feet on the ground, knees and feet hip width apart
  • Armpits: Lengthen arms up to the ceiling and overhead, lifting and lowering a few times with the breath, inhale to lie overhead, exhale back to your sides. Then inhaling the right arm overhead and sliding the left palm toward the feet, rooting the right hip and low back toward the floor, feeling the lengthening of the space between each rib on the right, inhaling into this space, expanding it, and on the exhale, bringing the right arm down. Do the same on the left. Now lay the arms overhead. Inhale and as you exhale let the knees fall gently to the left as you slide the right arm up and along the floor feeling a gentle opening in the right armpit. Breathing here, 30 seconds. Then do the other side.
  • Groin and abdomen: Bring the knees upright, feet hip width apart. Inhale and, while you  exhale, pull first one knee to the chest, taking it in gentle circles, pumping the groin nodes, long inhales and exhales, then letting that knee go and taking the other knee into the chest and circling in both directions. Now bend the right knee to the chest, gently shift your hips to the right, and cross the knee to the left, maybe with the help of the left hand, crossing the knee to the other side and into a gentle twist. Inhaling here. Exhaling here. Hold this twist and breathe deeply for 30 seconds and then switch to the other side. This is also stimulating the nodes between each rib as well as the 200-300 nodes of the abdomen.
  • Abdomen: Sphinx pose for abdominal clearing. Lie down on the belly and rest your forearms on the floor, elbow under shoulders or elbows more forward if that’s easier on the low back. Create a gentle backbend as you roll the shoulders down and back and lift your chest. Bring your awareness to the abdomen and the movement of your belly as you breathe deeply with the diaphragm. With every inhale feel the belly press into your mat, with every exhale feel it draw away from your mat. Hold the position here for 1 minute focusing completely on the sensations of your moving breath.
  • Abdomen, groin, armpit: Raise yourself gently onto all fours, cat and cow, inhaling to arch, exhaling to round.
  • Groin: Bridge pose for draining the lower body with a gentle inversion and opening the groin nodes. Roll over easily onto the back and bend the knees with feet planted on the floor. First simply rock the pelvis forward and back, arching the low back and then pressing it into the mat. Inhale as you arch the back and exhale as you press into the matt. Then root down against the shoulders and the feet as you lift your hips up and away from the mat. Stay in this position breathing deeply, 1-3 minutes. Come down, lengthen legs, rest. Take the position again, and if it feels available, rock the hips forward and back, gently arching and rounding the low back while the hips are in the air. If comfortable, stay for 1-3 minutes before coming out. 
  • Groin, abdomen, axilla: Gentle windshield wipers while arms lengthen with knees bent and toward the ceiling, feet hip width apart and planted on the mat. Inhale at center, exhale let the knees sway to the right, inhale back to center, exhale sway to the left, gently back and forth with your breath, exhale to a side, inhale to center, knees like a windshield wiper. Reach the arms overhead and lengthen the right arm when the knees go left, the left arm when the knees go right, for 2-3 minutes.
• Inversion for gravity assist
  • Legs up the wall with a blanket folded under the sacrum/tail, head supported, neck neutral, the space of a small orange between your chin and chest. For gravity-assisted drainage of the hands and arms, you can lift straight arms toward the ceiling and gently make fists and release, fists and release. Additionally, try wrist circles, ankle circles and ankle pumps, all while inverted.
  • Gently roll your head left and right to clear the termini at the supraclavicular fossa. 
  • Complete your practice with 30 seconds or more of eep belly breathing.

In Summary

• Yoga Can Promote Free Lymphatic Flow and Your Overall Health
  • Exercise in general is good for your lymphatic system and your overall health. Yoga specifically, by incorporating the breath, inverting the body, and utilizing the movements of twisting and flowing, is especially effective at promoting free flow and immune health.
• Don’t Wait: There Are So Many Ways to Begin
  • Start your daily practice tonight. 
  • Book a lymphatic drainage therapy session that includes yoga-inspired breathwork. 
  • Attend one of my wellness retreats focused on lymphatic health.

Disclaimer – This blog is for general information purposes only. Furthermore, the information contained in this blog is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult your licensed healthcare professional for advice on your specific condition.