For many individuals, the winter months bring with them an increase in seasonal illnesses like colds and flu, sinus infections, congestion, respiratory complaints, and more.
Lymphatic drainage therapy (LDT) is a way to reduce the incidence of these complaints. Administered as gentle massage therapy, LDT helps to remove toxins and generally improves overall health and immunity.
What Is The Lymphatic System?
The lymphatic system runs throughout your entire body. As part of your immune system, it helps your body heal and fight off infection. Lymph is a fluid that circulates through this system, bringing nutrients to your cells and oxygenating your body. Lymph helps to move toxins out of your body through lymph vessels, which carry them to your lymph nodes to be released.
How the Lymphatic System Works
Your lymph system is very much like your blood circulatory system except for one critical difference. While blood is circulated through blood vessels to and from your heart, the lymph is circulated towards the heart with through the pumping action of lymph vessels. To simplify: Circulatory system: 2 ways and a healthy Lymphatic System, one way.
Because the lymphatic system needs to keep moving for you to stay healthy, it is essential to ensure that it is flowing and draining efficiently. This is an area where lymphatic drainage therapy can be beneficial.
How Lymphatic Drainage Therapy Helps
LDT offers a lot of benefits, especially in the winter months. It can help you fight off colds and viruses more efficiently, and if you do succumb to seasonal illness, it will most certainly speed up your recovery.
Other benefits of LDT include:
- Boosts metabolism
- Reduces water retention
- Improves skin tone
- Speeds up healing
- Reduces cellulite
Even if you are not prone to seasonal illness or flu, we tend to be exposed to more people who are during the winter months. When our immune systems are strong, we are better able to fight off whatever comes our way. For this reason, you might even say that LDT is like having an extra layer of body armor.
Who Can Benefit from LDT?
Just about anybody can benefit from lymphatic drainage therapy. No matter how “clean” our lifestyle might be, our world is filled with environmental toxins that threaten our health and wellbeing.
From the water we drink to the foods we eat, the air we breathe, and the products we put on our skin – no matter how informed our choices are, we are still exposed to toxins every day.
Exercise, increased water intake, eating organic foods, and making healthy choices are all excellent strategies. Adding LDT to your healthy routine amplifies your results, tonifies your immune system, and gives you extra protection from toxic predators we cannot see.
Winter Months Are The Right Time For LDT
During the winter months, when many of us are exposed to more germs and illness than usual, LDT is an essential part of staying healthy.
Lymphatic drainage therapy can benefit and alleviate the following seasonal complaints:
- Sinus Congestion and Infections
- Ear Infections
- “Full” Ears (congestion in the ears)
- Vertigo
- Headaches
- Dry Eye
- Eye Pain
- Pneumonia and Respiratory Infections
- Head Pressure/Migraines
- TMJ (Jaw Pain)
What To Expect at Your LDT Session
When you come for your LDT session, allow two hours.
The massage session itself can vary from 30 minutes to 90 minutes. I usually suggest the first session to be at least an hour. It is important to relax and hydrate before we start, and you may want to take it easy afterward.
Drink lots of water before and after. You might be very thirsty following your massage. Drink as much water as you can to assist with the detox mechanism.
Baths or being immersed in water after a session is a great way to prolong and enhance the therapy.
For some individuals, the detoxification effect is quite powerful, so be sure to give yourself plenty of time to recover. However, most people feel great after and sometimes an immediate or delayed increase in energy and mental clarity.
