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| Skin brushing is one of the better self-help health care methods available to us today. It be can be performed on your self while the skin is dry or wet. Stimulation of the skin activates natural healing pathways within your body and it removes toxins from pores and other external surface areas. It also stimulates nerve beds within its structure that in turn activate normal healing pathways and healing processes throughout your body. There are no drugs involved, no toxic reactions or contraindications to be concerned about, only the commitment to yourself to perform it on a regular basis. Skin brushing can be used over the entire body or just to special local areas to stimulate the body’s normal inflammatory healing response. The skin is the largest eliminative organ of the body and one of the four major intake and eliminations systems. The digestive tract, kidneys, and lungs are the other three. Over the course of a regular inactive day the skin eliminates over a pound of waste products mixed in with its sweat. In individuals who are active or in athletes who are very active the skin eliminates many times more. Sweat glands are located through out the skin's surface and automatically eliminate unwanted metabolic waste produced. *Never do brushing during active cancer, sunburn, or infection.
For maximum lymph drainage both the sequence and direction of the brushing are important. The area closest to the drainage point is treated first. Brush the armpit region before the chest and both before the head and neck. The groin region is brushed before the abdomen. To reduce the resistance of gravity, brush the upper body before the lower body. Use 7 brush strokes for each step. Brush up the arms from the hands to shoulders. Armpit: Use 7 circular clockwise strokes and 7 counterclockwise strokes. Chest: Brush from the breastbone to each armpit, 7 times on each side. Women avoid direct brushing to the breasts, use curving strokes below the breast. Brush sides upward from the waist to armpit. Back: Brush upward and outward from spine, 7 strokes on each side, starting at the base of the neck. The upper back and shoulder blades drain into the armpit. Neck and throat: Start at the back and brush outward and upward from the spine, then forward over the shoulder to the soft hollow at the base of the throat. Turn head to right when working on left side and vice versa. Place brush vertically at the base of the skull and brush along the jaw line to throat and down over the collar bone to the chest. Lower and mid-back and buttocks: Holding the brush horizontally with both hands, start at the lower sacrum, pull brush upward with firm pressure to the bottom of the shoulder blades. Use 7 strokes each up the center, left and right of the back. Buttocks: firm, upward and outward strokes. Begin at the top, circle around hip to groin region. Gradually work down to the gluteal fold where the buttocks join the thigh, and then back up to the top. Leg Region: Brush left leg first, using firm gliding strokes rush upward 7 times on the inside, outside, front and back, front and back, from knee to the top of the thigh, brush from the ankle upward to the knee. |
| LYMPHLAND |
