What is the lymphatic system and why should you care?

Do you experience chronic illness? Do you struggle with unexplainable acute symptoms rising at times? Is your immune system weakened? Do you feel sluggish, toxic?

Though often overlooked and misunderstood, many consider the lymphatic system to be even 2x more important than even our arterial blood supply system. Why? In your body you have 3x more lymphatic fluid than blood, and this lymphatic fluid is in charge of eliminating cellular wastes from your body. The lymphatic system works closely with the immune system to remove toxins, wastes, pathogens and even rogue cancer cells from the body. Healthy lymphatic drainage then is not only paramount during a detox program, it’s important for overall health and well-being.

Your lymphatic system does not have it’s own pump. Your lymphatic system requires you to move, it requires you to cause muscle contraction to move the lymph. This is why physical activity is essential for creating great health. Walking, running, biking, swimming are all great options, but the one considered the best fitness activities for supporting the lymphatic and immune systems is rebounding. Many health enthusiasts, including success guru Anthony Robbins rebounds everyday.

A rebounder—a mini-trampoline, is revered as best because it moves the lymph through the G-Force pull (the pull away from gravity) on every cell and tissue in the body, including the cerebral spinal fluid. By bouncing up and down on a rebounder, you literally pump the flow of lymph through what are normally one-way channels. This action produces a powerful detoxifying benefit beyond any other “horizontal” fitness practice you can do because of the vertical, force-flow of lymph fluid.  Rebounders are available at most sports stores, but the premier one to note is Bellicon, which is only available at their website.

7 Tips to Move Your Lymph:

1. Drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water everyday
2. Add citrus, preferably lemon or lime to your water or to dress your salad
3. Add ginger and turmeric root to your teas, your smoothies and juices
4. Include lots of leafy greens
5. Experiment with different adaptogenic herbs, like rhodiola, Fo Ti Tieng, and Siberian Maral Root
6. Add sea vegetables to all your meals
7. And my favorite personal care practice to support healthy lymphatic drainage: Dry brushing. Dry brushing not only removes dead skin cells from our body, it reduces cellulite and activates waste removal by releasing toxins via our lymph nodes.

Take action to produce results. If we do not take action, our goals are just dreams. To harness your power, get off of the bleachers and onto the court of your life, and begin with at least one action. Darren Hardy of Success Magazine calls this the compound effect. Lao Tzu, the ancient Taoist philosopher and author of one of the oldest Sacred texts, the Tao Te Ching, said it best, “Every journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.” One small step leads to two, to three and so on and before you know it, you’ve made progress in an area of life that is very important to you, an area that was likely once only a dream.
I offer up a very simple but powerful “Anthony Robbins exercise” to get you started. As soon as you wake up in the morning, jump out of bed, put your sneakers on and head out for an early morning walk. As you briskly walk, repeat with conviction and excitement, “All I need is within me now… All I need is within me now.”

Develop on this in a way that empowers you, like “All the love I need is within me now,” or “All the strength I need is within me now,” etc. Say it. Sing it. Scream it! The act of moving and saying these words repetitively and with conviction, feel it in your bones as you repeat these phrases, has a powerful effect on our subconscious mind. This simple exercise is a straight up state changer and will shift your energy and mood on a dime! This one simple exercise, by shifting your state, can set the stage for many other life-changing decisions. Repeat your incantation with an 8 count breath over and over, and if your anything like me, your words may soon turn sing-song, because your adrenaline will start really pumping!  Playfulness alone alters our state, and adds yet another whole level of freedom and fun! … All I need is within me NOW! ALL I need is within me now! ALL I need is within me now! Play with it. Have fun to CREATE your life!

“It is in moments of decision that destiny is shaped.” ~Anthony Robbins

Drink this elixir every morning when you first wake up to jumpstart your day, to cleanse, heal, tonify and alkalize your body!

• 8-16 ounces warm or room temperature water
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 1 teaspoon Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp of raw honey or a couple drops stevia  (Optional: Do not use if you suspect bacterial, yeast or microbial overgrowth.)
• ginger, chunks (optional)

Raw honey benefits:

▪ It’s loaded with vitamins, minerals, & enzymes.

▪ Helps to cleanse the liver, remove toxins, and flush fat from the body when done 1st thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

▪ Soothes indigestion (relieves acidity in the stomach).

▪ Energy boost

▪ Anti-microbial and anti-fungal – helps to keep your skin clear (helps with skin conditions such as eczema, ring worms, & psoriasis).

Apple Cider benefits:

▪ It is a natural remedy for heartburn.

▪ Can help clear up skin conditions and acne

▪ Promotes digestion and will keep you regular

▪ Helps control weight

▪ Can help regulate blood sugar

▪ Helps reduce sinus infections and sore throats

▪ It is rich in enzymes and potassium

▪ Can help ease menstrual cramps

▪ Helps promote youthful healthy bodies

Lemon benefits:

▪ Helps make the body more alkaline (increases pH)

▪ provides lots of Vitamin C

▪ blood purifier

▪ Cleansing agent & tonic for you liver by helping it produce more bile.

Cheers!!

Many believe that too much stomach acid causes acid reflux and heartburn, but the reverse is more often the problem. Most of us do not have enough stomach acid, hydrochloric acid, which is pivotal to healthy digestion. Why? For one reason, our stomach does not produce enough hydrochloric acid to handle an overly acidic of processed foods, and two, our body does not produce as much stomach acid as we age. This is one of the reasons why I recommend a diet high in raw vegetables and fruits, which are rich in enzymes to support their digestion.

But we do need healthy stomach acid to digest the food we eat and to maintain a healthy digestive tract. Have you ever heard someone say I can’t eat this or that particular food because it is “too heavy?” This is often because they just can’t digest what they ate because of low stomach acid.

If our stomach acid is low, our body cannot digest even the healthiest foods we eat. Sadly, this means that we are not digesting our food properly, which no doubt means poor nutrient absorption. Poor nutrient absorption can lead to a whole host of health problems, including malnutrition, nutritional deficiencies, infections and an overgrowth of bacteria or yeast beginning in our small intestines.

Low stomach acid also leads to indigestion. Many take antacids to relieve the feelings of acid reflux (common after eating high protein or overly processed foods). We simply can’t digest what we’ve eaten. An antacid may temporarily relieve uncomfortable symptoms from acid reflux, heartburn and indigestion, but over time regular use of antacids make the problem worse.

6 Steps to take to reduce acid reflux and acid indigestion include, and 1 easy-peasy, every day morning remedy:

• Chew your food thoroughly. Digestion begins in the mouth.
• Reduce or eliminate heavy animal product intake which requires more stomach acid to digest than plant proteins.
• Reduce stress which exacerbates the digestive process.
• Eliminate processed foods and sugar
• Eat whole, live-foods, like vegetables and low-sugar fruits
• Take a probiotic in the morning with:
• MORNING LEMON WATER ELIXIR: 16 ounces warm or room temperature water, Juice from 1/2-1 lemon, 1 teaspoon Bragg’s raw apple cider vinegar, a couple drops of stevia or raw honey (optional)

 

What do you do to turn on your ‘be-awesome-factor’ every day? What do you do to intentionally create success every day? To be awesome and happy everyday, to intentionally create success every day, to create our most powerful selves everyday, we begin by committing to 30-60 minutes every single morning to intentionally shape and grow a powerful success, be-awesome psychology.

An unstoppable success psychology does not just happen. We must create a success psychology to be awesome, to be our Highest, kick-ass selves! We must train ourselves. Condition ourselves. Like an Olympic athlete trains to compete and win in their sport, we train to create success and win in our lives.

We set benchmarks for success for forward movement in both our personal and professional life. We hold ourselves accountable. We read success-driven magazines and books. We listen to success-driven educators in our car, when at the gym, when out walking. We flood our world with success educators. We add an accountability partnership with someone committed to high-level success, someone invested in our success, like a friend, colleague, coach or a group that will hold our bar up high, to ensure success beyond what we initially set out to achieve.

Hold fast. Growth and forward movement inherently require change, inherently require a shift in our psychology from habituated, old patterns of doing things to success-driven practices. No doubt stories of challenge, stories that ‘it’s too hard’ to be awesome will rise. When you feel stopped, when discomfort rises, call your accountability partner. Call your coach.

When it comes to increased health, it’s not just what we eat but how we eat. Digestion actually begins in the mouth, where contact with our teeth and digestive enzymes in our saliva break down food. But these days most of us rush through the whole eating experience, barely acknowledging what we’re putting in our mouths. We eat while distracted—working, reading, talking and watching television—and swallow our food practically whole. On average we chew each bite only eight times. It’s no wonder that many people have digestive problems.

There are many great reasons to slow down and chew your food.

• Saliva breaks down food into simple sugars, creating a sweet taste. The more we chew, the sweeter our food becomes, so we don’t crave those after-meal sweets.
• Chewing reduces digestive distress and improves assimilation, allowing our bodies to absorb maximum nutrition from each bite of food.
• More chewing produces more endorphins, the brain chemicals responsible for creating good feelings.
• It’s also helpful for weight loss, because when we are chewing well, we are more apt to notice when we are full.
• In fact, chewing can promote increased circulation, enhanced immunity, increased energy and endurance, as well as improve skin health and stabilize weight.

Taking time with a meal, beginning with chewing, allows for enjoyment of the whole experience of eating: the smells, flavors and textures. It helps us to give thanks, to show appreciation for the abundance in our lives and to develop patience and self-control.

The power of chewing is so great that there are stories of concentration camp survivors who, when others could not, made it through with very little food by chewing their meager rations up to 300 times per bite of food. For most of us 300 chews is a daunting and unrealistic goal. However, you can experience the benefits of chewing by increasing to 30 chews per bite. Try it and see how you feel.

Try eating without the TV, computer, iPhone, newspaper or noisy company. Instead just pay attention to the food and to how you are breathing and chewing.

This kind of quiet can be disconcerting at first, since we are used to a steady stream of advertising, news, media, email and demands from others. But as you create a new habit, you will begin to appreciate eating without rushing. You have to eat every day—why not learn to savor and enjoy it?