By Jennifer Shaw, Austin Massage Therapist and Guest Blogger
Lymph is a clear fluid that flows its way through the body toward the heart. If the words “toward the heart” didn’t sound significant enough to you, here are three more reasons why you should care about your clients’ lymph – and your own.
- The Massage Therapists’ Medium | The lymph system includes all the structures dedicated to the circulation, and specifically, it is responsible for the removal of interstitial fluid from tissues – that’s the fluid surrounding your body’s cells – and there is about 11 liters of it in the average human body. (That’s more than five, 2 liter soda bottles worth of fluid.) As massage therapists, often times it’s our job to get that fluid moving.
- Multi-organ Wellness | Lymph absorbs and transports fatty acids and fats from the digestive system through its system referred to as the lymphatic system. It also transports white blood cells to and from the lymph nodes into the bone. Lymph even affects your spleen. Keeping your lymph system healthy keeps multiple physiological systems healthy.
- When All Else Fails, Use Fear Tactics: CANCER | Due to its nature and function, lymph and the lymphatic system are also often times responsible for metastasis, the transportation of cancerous cells between the variousparts of the body. Yes, I said the spreading of cancer. The lymph nodes, which filter the lymph for foreign particles, can trap the cancer cells. If they are not successful in destroying the cancer cells the nodes may become sites of secondarily affected areas.
Love your lymph! Do you know how?
Lauterstein-Conway Massage School offers an annual Introduction to Manual Lymph Drainage course presented by Liz Hoffmaster. Click here for more information about the workshop.