Dry Brush The Bloat Away!
Our skin is full of shit and I encourage you to dry brush everyday because it takes less than five minutes to make your skin feel so fresh and so clean, you may not even need to shower! Showers are boring anyway. Dry brushing improves not just the quality of your skin (even known to reduce cellulite!), but the quality of your body’s drainage.
Ever since reading The Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose, my original inspiration for everything detox, I have dry brushed everyday before getting in the shower (I do shower sometimes, but prefer the shower bidet). Dry brushing stimulates the lymphatic system, which is responsible for removing cellular waste and debris from body tissues. Lymph nodes are spread throughout the body with heavy concentration around the neck, armpits and groin area and serve as sites for immunity cells, which assist our immune system in filtering out cancer cells and foreign substances. The lymphatic system needs a lot of encouragement to assist in these processes because it does not have its own heartbeat pumping these fluids out. Dry brushing is the easiest activity to incorporate into your daily life to help drain your lymph. Dry brushing has even been associated with alleviating bloat because it encourages the lymphatic system to drain excess water and toxins, improving digestion.
Lymphatic drainage is so powerful that it is employed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. One of my favorite clients owns a popular massage spot, Knead, in Downtown Jersey City. Her knowledge of the body is impressive and she was trained/certified at Memorial Sloan Kettering in lymphatic drainage massage. I believe she is the only one with such credentials in the entire state of NJ! I always assumed that every kind of massage assists in lymph drainage, but I stand corrected. Deep tissue massage actually has the opposite effect on lymph. While it helps break up crystallized lactic acid in the muscles and soften scar tissue, it cuts off lymph drainage. Lymph drainage massage is more like gentle tickling. Sign me up!
So while it may seem like dry brushing ain’t doing shit, trust that it is actually assisting one of your immune system’s most important functions. Brush your entire body, with special concentration around your pits, neck, stomach and groin area. Make sure to brush in the direction of your heart, which is best for circulation. You can find my favorite Yerba Prima Tampico dry brush at any health food store.
