Lymphatic flow routine
A lymphatic flow routine
Gently clear your body of blockages - especially useful for tight neck and shoulders
Gently waking up your lymphatic system can have a profound effect on muscle tension and joint stiffness.
Your lymphatic system carries waste products, from your arms, legs, pelvis and abdomen, back to your heart where it re-enters your blood circulation.
- Tight muscles tend to restrict the lymph vessels causing the lymph fluid to stagnate and so further impairing drainage from those muscles and their surrounding joints and organs. A build of waste products causes pain and discomfort.
- Conversely, directly releasing those lymphatic vessels will clear the waste and so relax your muscles. Not only that, because, for example, your neck and shoulder muscles are released, you will find that your shoulder joints move more freely.
- It is a very simple and comfortable technique to do on yourself,
This 5-minute routine is designed to be done in the morning, to wake up your system and get fluid moving.
- However, if you have a specific problem, for example, solid shoulders or swollen ankles, you can also do mini versions of it throughout the day.
- In fact, if you have trouble sleeping, going through this routine lying in bed helps to soothe your body and ease you of to sleep.
Try it as a ‘lymphatic reset’ twice daily for two weeks; then continue daily if you have found it helpful.
We always ‘clear the drains’ near your neck and abdomen first, so that the fluid from your limbs then has somewhere to go.
- You can use your hands to gently, like stroking a cat, move the lymph through your body.
- Or try using a soft body brush - the handle can help you reach areas pf your body more easily.
- You can even use the spray from your shower - just direct and move the spray as if it were your hands.
The 5-Minute Morning Flow
Minute 1: Clear the Main Drains
The lymphatic system empties into the bloodstream at the base of the neck. If these ‘drains’ are plugged, nothing else will move.
The Collarbone Pump:
Place your fingers in the hollows just above your collarbones. Gently pulse downward toward your heart 15–20 times.
Don’t poke, just pulse.
The Neck Sweep:
Use flat palms to stroke gently from behind your ears down to your collarbones. Use the pressure you’d use to stroke a kitten - very light.
Minute 2: The Deep Pump (Diaphragm)
The largest lymphatic vessel (the thoracic duct) sits right behind your ribcage.
Deep Breathing:
Place your hands on your lower ribs. Inhale through your nose so your ribs expand outward, then exhale forcefully through your mouth. Repeat 5–10 times. This physical expansion ‘pumps’ the deep lymph nodes.
Don’t take too big a breaths in, concentrate on the forceful out breath
Minute 3: Underarm & Abdominal Clearing
The Armpit Scoop:
Reach across your body and use a cupped hand to gently ‘scoop’ upward into your armpit 10 times. Repeat on the other side.
The Belly Circle:
Place your palm on your belly button and rub in a slow, clockwise circle with light pressure. This follows the path of your colon and stimulates the deep nodes in the gut. Repeat 10 times.
Minute 4: The Lower Body Sweep
The Groin Fold:
Gently ‘karate chop’ or pulse the crease where your legs meet your torso 15 times.
The Leg Slide:
Starting at your ankles, use both hands to ‘bracelet’ your leg and stroke upward toward your groin. Do 3–5 long strokes per leg.
Minute 5: The ‘Rebounder’ Finish
Now that the paths are open, we use gravity to move the fluid.
Heel Drops:
Stand tall and rise onto your toes, then drop your heels firmly to the floor. The ‘thud’ creates a vibration that moves lymph. Do this for 60 seconds. Alternatively, just dance or shake your whole body vigorously!
Three Tips for Success
Hydrate:
Lymph fluid is 95% water.
If you're dehydrated, the fluid becomes sludgey and won't move regardless of how much you massage.
Light Touch:
Lymphatic vessels are right under the skin.
If you press too hard (like a deep tissue massage), you actually flatten the vessels and stop the flow.
Consistency:
Doing this routine several times a week will lead to progressive improvements in the health of your whole lymphatic system.
How does lymphatic drainage work?
To understand why these steps work, it helps to visualize the lymphatic system as a series of one-way ‘streets’ that all lead to a single ‘main highway’ in your chest. If there is a traffic jam at the highway entrance, the side streets (your arms and legs) will stay backed up no matter how much you try to move the ‘cars’.
Here is the physiological ‘why’ behind each stage:
1. Clearing the collarbone & neck
The lymphatic system has no central pump like the heart. Instead, it relies on pressure gradients. All lymph fluid eventually drains into the subclavian veins located right behind your collarbones.
By pulsing this area first, you are ‘emptying the trash can’ so there is room for new waste to enter. If you skip this and start with your legs, the fluid has nowhere to go and simply stagnates.
2. Deep diaphragmatic breathing
The thoracic duct is the largest lymphatic vessel in the body, running from your abdomen up through your chest.
This duct sits right against your diaphragm. When you take a deep, belly-expanding breath, the physical movement of the diaphragm acts as a manual pump, literally squeezing the lymph upward toward the neck. This is often called the ‘lymphatic pump’.
3. Underarm & abdominal clearing
These areas contain high concentrations of lymph nodes (the filters).
Lymph nodes act as checkpoints that catch bacteria and toxins. In the armpits (axillary nodes) and the gut (cisterna chyli), fluid can often get ‘thick’ or sluggish. Light stimulation encourages the nodes to process the fluid and move it along the chain.
4. Lower body sweeps - the uphill battle!
Because of gravity, fluid naturally pools in the ankles and calves (edema).
Lymphatic vessels have tiny one-way valves. By stroking upward toward the groin (where the inguinal nodes are), you are helping the fluid overcome gravity and push through those one-way valves.
5. Heel drops & shaking
The lymphatic vessels are wrapped in a thin layer of smooth muscle that reacts to vibration and muscle contraction.
The jarring motion of dropping your heels or shaking your limbs creates a vibration that ‘unsticks’ fluid from the tissues. Additionally, when your calf muscles contract, they physically squeeze the lymphatic vessels, forcing the fluid toward the torso.
The Golden Rule - light pressure
The most important scientific fact to remember is that 70% of your lymphatic vessels are superficial, meaning they sit just under the surface of the skin. They have much thinner walls than your arteries or veins so if you press too hard (like a deep tissue massage), you collapse these tiny tubes, and the fluid stops moving entirely.
You only want to move the skin, not the muscle - use the same pressure as if you were stroking a kitten or puppy!
If it hurts, you are pressing too hard!