 There are many kinds of disorders that involve chronic and really acute lymph swelling. Now in this video I want to discuss lymphatic drainage both from a biomedical point of view giving you a sample exercise that you can do in about five minutes. But on top of that discuss a little bit about the history of lymphatic movement in traditional Chinese medicine because ancient doctors for thousands of years have viewed moving the blood and the chi and the lymph as key to longevity. So in this video let's give a demo and we'll discuss a little bit more. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hine doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book Master of the Day. So before we jump into this video on the lymph check out these two related links right below this video. The first is for a free guide for daily rituals that could potentially help you add to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And the second is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine there's info to contact my private practice and clinic right below this video. So the lymphatic system plays many many roles in the body ranging from fluid levels to the immune system to removing dead cells and waste products from the body and even reabsorbing things from the digestive system. But before we jump in here you know we say in traditional Chinese medicine that good chi and good blood movement are key to longevity. Now I think what falls into the bucket of chi is not a mysterious energy but is the lymphatic movement. Take a look here before we jump in at some of the areas where there are significant clusters of lymph nodes right. You have when you get an acute upper respiratory infection swollen subendibular lymph nodes under the jaw. You have them all around the neck and the clavicle axillary in the armpit there in the groin inguinal and many other areas in the body. But today what we're going to focus on is these more superior parts of the body around the neck and around the ears areas where there's significant lymph flow and clusters of lymph nodes. But it's interesting to see just how many channels in the body directly trace areas that are high density lymph nodes. So the Sanjiao triple warmer comes right around the ear here where people often have lymphatic swelling and around the jawline, the armpit and the groin. So let's jump into this exercise now. Now there are lots of ways to move the lymph probably exercise is the single best one or Qi Gong for thousands of years has been a big one in TCM. But manually physical stimulation is a way as well. So we're going to start off with a cluster a hot spot of lymphatic activity which is the axillary area under the armpit right. Some people will get swollen lymph nodes here even when they're acutely ill for example. So we're going to start it's hard with my sweater here by just cupping and using just as much surface area on the hand to basically stimulate and move for about 10 times or you know between 10 and 30 seconds. But we're just going to do a five minute routine here just so that it's simple. Just doing a gentle rotating motion like that. Then we'll go to the other side. Now in TCM tapping is often used as well to get blood flow and circulation going. So you can also tap to get a very similar effect for generating increased blood flow to a certain area and lymphatic flow right. Ultimately if you're moving the blood you're probably moving the lymph very well too which is why exercise is so good. The next spot where there's often a lot of lymph nodes is not only around the jaw, around the ear, some mandibular and also right along the clavicle the collarbone here. So now we'll go up here near the collarbone right. We're going to be doing a bit of the same. In TCM gua sha cupping scraping is often used to generate a similar effect. So you'll you know you'll sometimes see people when I was living in China you'd see people with these deep bruising from the scraping therapy as it's called sounds a lot scarier in English but tapping will have a similar effect as well as this moving generating physical movement of the lymph right. It's a lot like when you have a bellyache your body naturally wants you to put your hands on it or put a heating pad on it for example. So we're generating movement right of the blood and of the lymph. So then we're going to go up towards the ear right. So for some people in TCM they'll do tapping like this right. There's often a rubbing motion people do like this generating heat in the suboxypetal area but you can either rub or you can tap all around this area but the easiest is just like this. Alright. So around the ear then we'll go to the sub mandibular area right and the other side and then a common area for gua sha is often this sort of scraping or rubbing motion. Alright. This is a common area even just for manual massage for obviously neck pain but we're talking about the lymph and blood flow here. Trying not to mess up our little mic here. So you get more you ordinarily wouldn't be as much on the SCM muscle but trying not to give you too much of an earache and same on the other side. And then from there sometimes what we use is tapping again. So obviously around the clavicle we talked about the lymph nodes here. We talked about the lymph nodes here and very commonly even at the end of certain kinds of breathwork forms in traditional Chinese medicine will follow up with a just general brushing sort of motion. Brushing down, brushing down, brushing down, tapping, tapping, brushing down, brushing down. So as an overall lymphatic drainage or movement practice you can do this sort of other brushing those five different areas or tapping is often very good as well. So in PT they'll often use a rubbing motion but in a lot of traditional breathwork forms like qigong they'll be tapping. Right. Tapping is much more commonly used in addition to you know rubbing or pressure or friction that kind of thing. Now in traditional Chinese medicine there's a saying that there's a close relationship between the qi and the blood and I'll say that a more material version of qi is maybe something physiological like the lymph. Right. Now there's one particular way of doing qigong that has been discussed for thousands of years and that's called shaking. So shaking qigong is often where people are jumping up and down and literally shaking until you generate heat and until you sweat. Now the shaking is what they call something that can ward off the 10,000 illnesses and what that means is that it's just a general way of improving overall vitality, improving blood flow, circulation in a similar way in some ways as just physical exercise will do it. But for thousands of years shaking has been a very, very valuable health practice and has a very specific benefit in the field of traditional Chinese medicine. So for example qigong literally translated as breathwork instead of qiwork but qiwork one of the main aspects is that it combines physical exercise, visualization and breathing. Now I want to demo some of these poses you can see for thousands of years these postures have been used for overall health but one of the things they do the best is move the lymph and they move the blood so cardiovascular benefits. So as you can see here in this book demoing a historic famous qigong form you can see all these various movements that were traditionally done with breathing and certain tempo to increase the blood flow and also secondarily the lymphatic flow. So in ancient times not just was qigong used but obviously physical exercise is one of the best for the lymph. I like to think that qigong is the 2000 year old lymphatic pump specifically the shaking qigong. Alright guys so that's a little basic lymphatic drainage or lymphatic movement routine you can use exercise is also one of the best keep that in mind. That's what I have you here today check out those links below this video and I'll see you soon.