I found another lovely bodywork modality that I’m hoping to weave into my personal practice! Today I’ll share some of what I’m learning for those in my life who may be curious about what it is and/or whether they’d wish to experience it themselves.

This past week we had a few classes dedicated to lymphatic drainage massage. It was the best education I’ve yet received on the lymphatic system! I’m surprised some of this wasn’t included in my basic schooling as a child in California. Why was I taught about the circulatory system, and not about the lymphatic system? They are completely interwoven and work together for very basic-level bodily functioning.

The lymphatic system is part of the immune system, and operates somewhat like the trash service of the body. Lymphatic cells are constantly picking up “cellular wastes” as well as any kind of unwanted foreign materials, and moving them out of the body.

Lymph vessels look a lot like the vessels of the circulatory system (veins, arteries, capillaries), and in fact interweave amongst them throughout the whole body. Lymph fluid is another bodily fluid that is, ideally, continually moving things along. Unlike the circulatory system, though, which has its own pump (the heart), the lymphatic system relies on a passive pumping system — fluid moves because we move it. When we move our muscles and bodies, it causes lymph to move. And, it can manually be moved! That’s what “Manual Lymphatic Drainage” (MLD) massage is. It is, very simply, the physical moving of lymph!

What I Enjoy About MLD Massage

Practicing this kind of massage is an entirely different experience for both practitioner and client. Physically, it is extremely gentle, light, soothing, and rhythmic — we are working with something that lives literally just beneath the skin. It can feel like “nothing is happening”, until you tune into something more subtle sensorily and energetically.

And opening into this subtle kind of work leads to something poetic in me. When I am giving a lymphatic massage and tuning into the lymphatic system, it is the moving version of a poem. If it were a Haiku it would read:

the waters in me

moving the waters in you

leave us clean and fresh

Who Can Benefit from Lymphatic Massage?

I feel genuinely excited to offer this experience to others, not because it’s trendy but because of its unique loveliness. I believe many would enjoy and benefit from it!

Clinically, lymphatic drainage massage is actually standard supportive protocol for a number of specific conditions or situations, including certain kinds of edema, lymphedema, post-operative care, post-cancer-treatment care… but this can also be very useful for an otherwise healthy person. Here are some ideas of how you might want to explore adding lymphatic work to your life:

• Athletes or people who physically train on a daily basis — lymphatic massage can accelerate the recovery process by helping your body metabolize cellular wastes more quickly. If you’re one of the many who are trying to dial in your rest & recovery protocol – try out some lymphatic massage and see if it helps you come back fresher!
• Chronically stressed people — lymphatic massage is immediately very parasympathetically activating, creating conditions for rapid relaxation, both during the session and afterwards. Try giving yourself the gift of a dreamy, rhythmic, gentle journey inside your body to give your mind a break and help your body process through anything that may be stuck.
• Self-knowledge — I am personally taking great joy in learning to connect with this part of my own anatomy and recommend the experience to anyone who wants to grow an innate felt sense of the lymphatic system. All of our organs have their own specific subtle energy, and we can absolutely learn to feel the inner workings of our bodies, and to be in more direct relationship with processes we normally consider automatic.

What to Expect from a Lymphatic Massage?

Okay, so you’re curious now what to expect from one of these sessions?

It will be a tour through your own lymphatic system, starting with pumping and clearing your main lymphatic nodes, followed by manually moving lymph in the vessels of the skin over the whole body. That part will feel like very gentle and rhythmic skin stretching, and may also include brushing and other gentle movements at the skin layer. Depending on what you sign up for, you may be in for a whole-body session, or a facial lymphatic drainage session, or a combination of both.

The main thing to know ahead of time is that this is a very light-touch experience with pressure that amounts to at most the weight of a quarter. It may seem underwhelming, like “is anything even happening here?” if you come into it expecting to feel something in your muscles or myofascial tissue, as with other kinds of massage. If you can let yourself relax into the gentleness of it, your whole nervous system will go into a lovely relaxed state and you’ll be able to receive it more fully.

Physiological responses to the work can happen as well, both during and after. You might get a runny nose. You’re very likely going to abruptly need to urinate after your session. You WILL need to drink more water in the day or two afterwards. You may experience something along the lines of “detox symptoms”, which in some cases can be minorly unpleasant and typically short-lived (think mild headache, or temporary increase in flu-like symptoms). This can be a good sign that your session is therapeutically helping your body process something that needed to move out.

On the more subtle/energetic layer, I hope you’ll have a new experience of feeling the specific fluid-light sensation of lymph moving through you, and the subtle signals of clarity that are revealed when inner stagnancies are turned into fluid connected movement.

Lymphatic Work & My Practice

For myself, I still have some weeks of school ahead, and plenty of time to work with this modality alongside others. There are specific use cases of lymphatic massage that require advanced study, and I don’t intend to take myself in that direction, but it would be lovely to have this work be a part of what I offer.

If this kind of work sparks interest or curiosity in you – especially if you love gentle, soothing, nervous-system-relaxing kinds of experiences – I’d love to share it with you! I’m offering lymphatic massage as part of my evolving local practice. I’m more than happy to answer any questions and talk about whether it might be a good fit. Reach out any time 🙂