What Is the Lymphatic System? How to Get It Moving at Home

[0:00] Now, if you don't have any neck pain or shoulder pain, I want you to really do this fast, really fast, about 20 or 30 times. Just really, and don't be afraid to push it up to your shoulders. Most people are too gentle. There you go. That is big. That's a better way to do it, right?

[0:15] Oh, I mean, my arms are tingling. My legs are tingling. We're bringing life to ourselves. Health and wellness is confusing. There's a new trend every week. Everyone's got an opinion, and it's hard to tell what's real versus what's good marketing. This is Dialed In Health and I'm your host Melissa Goodwin.

[0:30] Every episode we sit down with real providers doing the work and ask them the questions you would ask if you were sitting in this chair. Let's get dialed in.

[0:43] Swollen ankles, heavy legs, brain fog, you can't shake. What if that is one system asking for help? A system many of us never think about. Today I'm sitting down with John Ossipinski. Online, he is lymph man. He's also an army medic, a New York City firefighter, and he also has 30 years of hands-on work with the lymphatic system.

[1:05] He's an author, the host of the Lymph Brain Revolution podcast, where his rebounder video has over 400,000 views. Today he's going to talk to us a little bit on Dialed In Health about what the lymphatic system is. How to tell if it's slowing down and what to do about it at home.

[1:23] He's also going to show us a few moves that we can do on camera, so we're excited about that. So welcome, John. Thanks so much for being on the show. Oh, thank you for having me. I have an important message. We need to think about our lymphatic system a little bit more. Most people don't even know they have this system, and that's scary.

[1:40] And it's a system that cleans us. So we're going to learn a lot today. Well, I'm excited because the only thing I know, I know we've got some things under our arms and somewhere in our when I get sick, you get the the swollen glands here and you're supposed to, I don't know what you're supposed to do. So I'm excited that you can show us all how to take care of our lymphatic system today.

[1:59] Yeah, it's a it's a simple system that we that we can maintain and most people don't realize that. Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about your background. You're an army medic. You're a New York City firefighter. How does that lead into 30 years of working with the lymphatic system?

[2:16] Yeah, well, when I was younger, I was a army medic and then came out of the army and went into the fire department and then I retired and it's it's I like to help people, right? And so, as working with the lymphatic system, becoming a certified lymphedema therapist, I helped a lot of people, people with cancer.

[2:36] But I branched off into the brain because that was my specialty before I learned about the lymphatic system. And became a certified lymphedema therapist. So I really bring the lymph brain connection to life. And most people don't even know that we can control how our brain clears.

[2:51] And we do that with the lymphatic system. So at 47, you were very sick. What was happening, and what did you do during that time when you were really sick? Yeah, a lot of stress. I owned my therapy center which I worked and had like 11 employees, and I had Partners in a pizzeria, two pizzerias, and let me tell you that was stressful.

[3:14] I bet. And yeah, not the therapy, but the restaurant. If you want to have a lot of stress, start a restaurant. And I would drink a lot of tea. So every time I went to the restaurant, and I would go to numerous times a day between you know lunch and dinner, and get iced tea and drink eat some pizza and really not take care of myself.

[3:31] And the stress was was killing me. I had irritable bowel syndrome. Even before this, for 30 years, I had irritable Bowel syndrome, and I thought it was normal because most my family had it, right? We see a lot of people who have it. And then I started having more problems.

[3:46] Even though I had a massage therapy clinic, I my hands started spasming. My back would twist like a pretzel. My restless leg syndrome would I would sit down and they would just start driving me crazy. I was losing my hair in clumps. I was 70 pounds overweight. And at the end I was having heart palpitations and and you know that means we're getting pretty toxic.

[4:06] And I didn't really understand what was going on, right? Because I was getting massages, I was taking a bunch of supplements, but I really wasn't eating well. I really wasn't doing exercise, so I wasn't putting it all together. And with the lymphatic system, even though we hear a lot of people say, "Oh, we have to, you know, drain it, do things to it." We just have to be more aware of it, and it's more of our diet, more of some basic supplements, breathing, moving your shoulders, and learning how to drain yourself.

[4:30] But it's something that we have to learn how to move throughout the day. So maybe you can break it down for us. Many people hear the lymphatic system and you equate like like I do you equate it with something in your in your neck or under your arms or you see somebody with swollen legs and we don't really know what it is.

[4:47] So maybe you can break down what is the lymphatic system. Sure, it's a tiny network of vessels and nodes like your circulatory system, but where your heart has a pump to push push blood through your arteries and veins, the lymphatic system is just a one-way river.

[5:05] It just starts picking up waste and you have to move to make it pick up waste. You have to deep breathe to make it pick up waste. And then it just moves through your body and sometimes it'll go into a vein. Sometimes it'll go into a the lymph node. But it is a river. It's like a house plumbing system too.

[5:20] You have a quarter inch, half inch, three quarter inch, and one inch pipes. And we can get clogged up in those smaller pipes with dead cell material, fats. And that's what really makes A dysfunction in your lymphatic system, which can lead to many diseases, which begin in your cell.

[5:37] But it really is about circulation. We're not circulating when our lymphatic system and the major drain is right here, all right. And then all the lymph nodes are in our creases of the body. And what does that mean? We're meant to move. We're meant to bend. We're meant to move our arms, right? When you move your arm, you're moving lymph nodes, right?

[5:53] So we don't think about that. And we sit for a living. We sit when we're relaxing. And we need to move, and when we move, we help our lymph system to clear waste from our body, fats, and move around your immune cells. Which, if your lymphatic system is not flowing well, and most people are not flowing well, because we have one little vessel here, the size of an angel hair pasta, that has to handle the waste and fats and fluid from thousands of lymph, the vessels and hundreds of lymph nodes.

[6:22] So, if you can imagine that that can get overwhelmed very easily. And if you think about a roof, a flat roof or some type of container that you clog up the drain and fluid's always going in it, if you don't clear that drain, it's going to fill that roof or fill the system.

[6:37] And our bodies are like a five pound bag with 10 pounds of fluid in it, and that's why we feel congested. That's why we feel bloated. And it's because our lymphatic system, this tiny network of vessels and nodes, is is not really doing its job. Or we're not doing our job of movement is the big thing and deep breathing.

[6:55] So you mentioned that you know it's clearing things out and I think in some of your your videos you even say it's it's the body's sewage system. So and you you mentioned a couple things, fats and cells and immunity. What is it clearing out and and where does it all go?

[7:13] Yeah, that's a common question because it just doesn't go to the garbage. You you don't do a big detox or go get some IVs or do some exercise and it just Goes into a hefty bag and out to the garbage. No, it really just goes into your lymph system. A lot of it goes into your veins, right?

[7:28] Your veins picks up a lot of your waste in your tissues, but the lymph system picks up about 10 percent of the waste that your veins can't pick up, and that is what becomes our inflammation. It's dead cell material. It's carbon dioxide. It's just bacteria, viruses, cancer.

[7:44] It could be many things. Platelets. It's just waste that the The lymph system, the the the secondary system that must remove waste from our body, is not doing it. And we we know that inflammation is the root cause of disease, but nobody really knows what inflammation is. Inflammation, what makes all those hives and your the redness in your body, or your aches and pains, or your flare-ups, is what your lymphatic system cannot clear.

[8:07] So the days somebody feels good, like maybe they have fibromyalgia or cancer and they they feel really good one day, those are days their lymphatic system is flowing. Then they do a little bit more that day because they feel good, and the next day they're crippled. They have a flare-up because they've moved the waste through their body, which is making them more toxic.

[8:24] So the lymph system does not just pick it up and throw it out; it picks it up, goes through some lymph nodes and immune cells, and then it ends up in your neck, goes right into your subclavian vein, which is right below your clavicles, and goes right into your heart again to be pushed out. So that's why we feel more toxic after we do anything with the lymphatic system.

[8:43] So you tend to have a little more of your symptoms. When we're trying to get healthy, and that sometimes scares people away, but we have to go through a little light detox often over a few weeks and months sometimes, and then we can sort of alleviate that inflammation. So it sounds like you get worse before you get better when you're starting to clear it out.

[9:02] Yeah, the the very often that's the headache you feel after a massage or you go for a run and the next day you're not feeling well or do a sauna you know and you're dehydrated and the next day you have a headache and not feeling well. That's because you're not hydrated enough and you release some waste, right?

[9:17] We are storing waste when our lymphatic system is not flowing. So the heart pumps blood. What makes the lymphatic system move? We do. Okay. It it does not have a pump. It does. It's just a system that depends.

[9:32] That's why the lymph nodes are in every crease of your body. You move your arms. You're you're squeezing your lymph nodes. You move your legs. You're you're squeeing. The lymph nodes behind the knee in the groin, right? When you bend over, you're squeezing the lymph nodes. You do a crunch. I think crunches are great for people, right?

[9:48] Just put your hands on your chest and just raise your head up a little bit on the floor. That stimulates two to 300 lymph nodes more in your chest more in your neck. So we have to know that we have to stimulate it. That's why sitting at a desk all day has been shown to shorten your life because we're sitting, right?

[10:06] We're we're we're limiting how our lymph flows, and the biggest thing is posture. Many people just slouch just a little bit. There we go. Right, we just sit up straight. I know you're making me think about how it's sitting. We just feel better. A lot of people just sit a little bit, just that little bit going forward. That's puts pressure in this area and even in your abdomen where we have three big vessels called the cisterna kyli.

[10:28] So when we just slouch a little bit and some people live that way all the time, we're limiting flow out of our abdomen, our pelvis, our legs. And out of our head because your head has to flow down to this area, your body has to flow up to these one little vessels on either side of your neck. So it's just something be more aware of.

[10:46] Most people never think of it. I ask ask your friends about it. Ask your friends about it. Hey, what's the lymph system? Most of them will know if they've had somebody with cancer, right? Because they hear about it. Most people don't know about that. Right, and they just go, "I don't know what is it." I'm like, "Well, it's amazing you have one and it cleans your body." And I get that all the time.

[11:06] So that's why we're all so sick is we're missing that we can maintain a system that actually cleans our body and moves around immune cells. And it's not just activating the lymphatic system. It's not just using your hands. It's not just bending. It's really learning how to change your cellular environment.

[11:21] And that's what most people be missing because they. Do a little supplements. They do a few IVs. They feel a little better. Get a few massages. And then a month later, they're feeling sick again because they haven't done enough to go deeper into the cells. And that's what we use the lymphatic system for. But we also have to change our diet.

[11:37] And I'm not I'm not big on being perfect in my diet. I have one life. I want I want to enjoy it. I want to go out and eat something good. Have a piece of cake or a burger. You know, I don't eat a lot of meat but once in a while I'll have a burger, an in and out burger and a Protein burger they call it in lettuce wrapped wrapped up in lettuce.

[11:55] So I want to live my life, but we have to know how to clean up, and that's what I become really a master of for my own life because I'd be dead if I'm not even kidding. I I really told my wife long when I was 47 I was so sick. I said, "I think I'm getting cancer. I just feel so sick the last few months, you know.

[12:10] And then I decided to just change my life and for 30 days I ate fruits and vegetables. Cooked vegetables. I didn't even know to eat raw vegetables. I had salads sometimes and it changed my life. I took some magnesium, some digestive enzymes, and drained my lymphatic system.

[12:27] And in 3 weeks, I felt my brain pop. So at 47, my brain, and that's young. 47, my brain was shrinking. I'm 68, and I can't imagine where I would be now if you know my brain hadn't actually popped. So I changed my environment in my body, which changed the environment in my head, and my brain went.

[12:46] And I felt it, but all of my issues went away. My hair started growing back, my weight came off in months, and my back stopped spasming. And you know, I'm control, I'm in control of my weight now because I understand the science. Two studies in 2005 linked fat and obesity to damage lymph vessels in mice.

[13:02] A lot of this research is in mice, right? A lot of times they say, oh well, you can't translate it, but I'm not going to wait for them to translate it because the lymphatic system is a system that's missing in medicine. And oh, I want to talk about the report. The 2023 report because in my book an undetected acid alkaline imbalance I wrote 20 years ago that disease begins when we become acidic in our body and it slows or stops your lymphatic system and here in 2023 NIH which is the National Institutes of Health in the emerging importance of lymphatics in health and disease they write changes in normal lymphatic function can alter multiple systems in the body and manifest as different and varied pathologies There are many conditions related to lymphatic dysfunction within all body systems.

[13:46] What does that mean? That means disease begins with lymphatic dysfunction, and that dysfunction is a fat building up in a tiny lymph vessel. Then the cells can't get cleaned, or maybe it's dead cell material, or maybe the vessel is constricting. And we have control over that with our movement, with our breathing, with our diet, eating cleaner a few days a week, right?

[14:05] And not having the sugar and the white flour. It makes a big difference. You know, it's hard to get healthy. That's what I was doing. I was eating. All the standard American diet, taking a bunch of supplements, taking care of my lymphatic system with massage, but I wasn't doing the rest of it, and it didn't work.

[14:20] And once you put everything together, it starts working much better. I'm curious when you think about you'd mentioned a couple of times this this area here. Why are you said it's sort of like a the size of a spaghetti spaghetti noodle? Is that what you said? Angel hair pasta.

[14:36] That's tiny. Angel hair pasta, even smaller, right? So So how why is this area so important? What are some things you can do to to to see if your lymphatic system might be sluggish or not working well? Yeah, number one, that's the terminus of the lymph system and the terminus just means it's the end of that system, right?

[14:56] So it just everything has to flow there and it's really one tiny vessel. If you've ever had angel hair pasta, that's pretty small and it can get stuck. It can get crimped and we that's a tightness we feel when it's blocked up around our shoulders into our neck because waste is not able to go down into those vessels so it builds up into our tissues and it really can detend, det det det destroy your bones and your neck you get degenerative disc disease any tissue it can break down if it's acid waste because it's acid waste that's what I wrote in my book 20 years ago is that we treat acid as a digestive issue right But not as acid damaging your esophagus or your kidney or your liver or your brain.

[15:35] And in 2024, a study came out linking brain acidity to multiple neurological disorders, depression, the autism, seizures, headaches, migraines, Alzheimer's, PTSD, many of them.

[15:54] So when people have these problems, they never think of acidity in the brain. But this is science. So I wrote that 20 years ago. I put it together that acid is stopping our lymphatic system. It's affecting our body and brain. So there are those two studies are out there now, but nobody's putting them together.

[16:10] They're they're not linking them. And it's really simple. We spend 2 billion dollars a year on antacids just in the U.S. 7 billion worldwide. So that's a lot of acid. But you don't have to have any symptoms of acid in your body for it to silently be damaging a tissue or your heart or your brain.

[16:27] And and no one looks for that. So what might be some early symptoms? What does it look and feel like early on that that allow or even you know mid mid disease that make you stop and think, I might need to address my lymphatic system.

[16:43] What would you notice or what would you feel? The biggest thing people feel is bloating, right? They feel bloating, right? Because your lymph system has to remove fluid, and we we all know lymphedema. People get. Cancer surgery and they their arm can swell, their legs can swell, any part of their body can swell where the nodes are removed, and it really is the idea that it's just fluid building in our body.

[17:04] I mean, I've when I was a young boy, I remember an aunt and I was a young boy. I remember her arm was humongous, you know, and and I didn't understand that. Why is that happening to her? And here now I understand it. But that we can see it in swelling. We see it in the skin with inflammation.

[17:19] People get red. Irritated skin, eczema, we get psoriasis. People with psoriasis, which is white cells all over their body, they get psoriatic arthritis. The same cells that are building on their skin are building in their joints, right? Because the lymphatic system is unable to clear that waste.

[17:35] So it has to go someplace. It goes in your skin, your bones, your tissues, and creates what we call the the disease. But even skin tags, people should have a nice indentation here. Some people have a swollen like a ball right above their clavicles. That's a sure sign that your lymphatic system is really backed up.

[17:53] And we survive, we live, we just don't live our best life. We have all kind of health problems when our lymphatic system can't clean a gland, a bone, or a muscle, or a tissue, or an organ. Yeah, so it's senior day at the store. We see a lot of folks that maybe have swollen ankles, swollen legs.

[18:13] What is happening? Why do our legs and ankles swell as we get older? What's happening there? Yeah, well, I I I see this a lot. Actually, I just noticed that the other day that why are there so many people? I mean, I know why, but here in Arizona, people wear shorts, right?

[18:28] Because it's 114 degrees. Now it's cooler and it's 89 or no 98 today, so that's cooler for us. But they wear shorts, right? So I see all of the red legs and it's not that they have lymphedema. Some may and don't even know they have it, but it's just a swelling and then they get sores on their legs, right?

[18:47] It's because the legs, the fluid from the legs, the lymph fluid has to flow up through the legs, through your hips, through your abdomen, through your chest, up through into your neck. That's a long path and when we don't move a lot, it can't do it.

[19:02] So I'm seeing a lot of people at the gym. I try and be very regular. I I I wasn't before going to the gym because it's so important for aging for everything and I'm seeing a lot more people who were in their 80s and even 90s coming in with with wheelers what do you call them you know things that help them walk and they're getting coaching so their doctor basically told them hey you you have a choice you stop moving or you're gonna just gonna you know get get sicker and sicker and I see these people start doing better it's amazing So we have muscles.

[19:36] Every time you move your muscle, we move lymph flow, right? We actually squeeze and move lymph. So if we don't move, we're we're not going to be cleaning our body as well. And most people are very sedentary. Just when do you when do you know to go to the doctor? So one of the things you said that many many vascular surgeons don't even really understand the lymphatic system well.

[19:57] Right. So a lot of people are swelling in their legs and then they go get their veins stripped. Which is gonna make it even worse, right? It makes it have more problems. Number one, you're having surgery on it. You're having surgery on an area that's already having a little bit of swelling, meaning it's not having good lymph flow.

[20:13] Then you're gonna get multiple surgeries. Often they take a few veins out, and then you know they wonder why they have more problems. So in any surgery, we want to make sure we're taking care of the lymphatic system, and that's why it's nice to go get a therapy, but that's why I believe people should learn how to take care of themselves, right?

[20:30] That is key. It's what we do numerous times a day before I go to bed. I do an eight-minute routine. It takes a few minutes while I'm walking in bed, sitting on the other bed, and I I drain myself. And I I go to bed after taking a few deep breaths, doing the lymph man shoulder shuffle, and I feel tingling in my body. I know my brain is going to clean for a little while because our brain clears mostly while we're sleeping.

[20:50] And if your lymph system is not really clearing your brain, because your brain has to clear into the lymph system outside of the brain and then down into your neck. So if your neck is tight, if your lymphatic system is not flowing, then your brain is not clearing well at night. And maybe that may be why we have so much dementia.

[21:06] They say one out of two or three of us are going to have dementia by the time we die. So I believe if we understand the lymph-brain connection, something that I'm really an expert in, that we can have a better chance, an edge. We can have an edge. That's what we want is an edge in not having dementia because it really is rampant.

[21:23] And it's not about living a perfect life, taking supplements, doing exercise. I've I've met Many of those people in my life and now they're having some problems with how they think. So lifestyle plays a role, but it's more about knowing how to clean up than just living a perfect life.

[21:38] You know, not having some meat or alcohol or cannabis or anything like that. It's it's people are going to do those things. We have to learn to clean up because they affect our cells. They affect our lymph system. And we can you know manage the things we do in our life and then our lymph system can work much better.

[21:56] So you your specialty and you've mentioned it just just now is the lymph brain connection. Tell us more about what is that? How is our lymphatic system connected to our brains? Yeah, every organ, every tissue, every muscle, everything, fascia, all has these little vessels like rivers running through your body.

[22:14] And the lymph brain connection was found in 2015, but I've been writing about it because as therapists we were taught that there were membranes. Around the meninges, inside the meninges, which are the membranes that surround your brain, and we would try and use those to improve flow in the brain.

[22:30] But then in 2015, they found direct lymph-brain connection. They found lymphatic vessels in the meninges, the membranes that surround the brain, and it's really just snug right onto the brain. They have lymphatic vessels. So the brain's lymphatic system, which was found in 2012, I think, or 2013, 2013.

[22:49] That's a system that it just cleans your brain, right? It just moves fluid across your brain, the lymphatic system, but then it goes into the lymphatic system. So even though the lymphatic system is is important, it's cleaning your brain. If your lymphatic system is not flowing in your neck and clavicles, then your brain is not going to clear as well.

[23:07] So really, with your brain it it comes down to your lymphatic system. So deep breathing, good posture, doing the lymph man shoulder shuffle. So something that we can do to open up our lymph. Emphatic system within seconds you'll feel more flow in your body. The thing is, it just clogs up again because we're filled with waste.

[23:25] So you move a little bit and then it starts to clog up because we make ourselves a little more toxic at first, right? So we have to remember that and just got to keep it going. Just don't do too much every day. Don't do like a a hyperbaric chamber one day and the same day do a chiropractic and maybe get a massage.

[23:40] You better off spacing that out every every other day do a therapy. This way your body gets a chance to respond. To sort of normalize and then you can go ahead and clean up because some people get caught up in a detox, detox, detox mode and what I've learned is that makes you more toxic because you're you're not giving your body a chance to to sort of normalize and deal with that waste.

[24:00] So when you do a detox and you start to feel bad, how long does that typically last until things start to clear out? Yeah, it depends on the person how the how their lymph system flows. Some people have, you know, will feel it that night, and oh, and I'll tell a little story in a minute about what I put people through.

[24:18] But some people, because they're not flowing well, they may they say, "Oh, I didn't feel anything after the session." But then two days later, they're like, "Whoo, they're they're knocked out, right? From that waist, it just took time for their body. So everybody deals with it de differently. But typically when I work on people, they'll and and if you're very stressed, if you're very sick and you're very inflamed, I'm going to work.

[24:39] Do differently with you. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it easily. We're gonna do maybe a 15 minute session, maybe a 30 minute session. Normally my sessions are for 45 minutes. And you know I'm gonna go in slow because my goal is not to make you sick. My goal is to slowly open up your system so it could deal with it. Because most people go ahead and do a big detox and it just shuts down their lymph system and then they wonder why they're sick for a few weeks.

[25:00] And in my office when I realized that we were filling with cellular waste in 2003, I put hundreds of people through A little bit of an experiment. I had them come into me and I did three days in a row of sessions, three days in a row of a work I developed called lymphpractic care for the spine and me for the lymphatic system.

[25:20] It's like chiropractic but the word is meaning taking care of chiropractic take care of the spine, lymphpractic take care of your lymph system. And I put people through three days in a row of the same exact session, fully closed session actually. And that night the first night and this is people all different because I saw all different people.

[25:38] I saw cancer. I saw autism. I saw brain problems. I saw surgeries, spine surgery. That's all different things. And they would have the same reaction over three days. First night they would have a little bit of fatigue. That's the biggest thing people feel is fatigue because it's limiting how oxygen when you become acidic you don't have oxygen in your blood cells and you get tired then they would have a little digestion the issue or a headache and then the next day they would come in saying oof I just felt a little tired I would work on them the exact same session again, right?

[26:06] And they would feel good afterwards because you always feel good after you get your lymphatic system working. And then because of the release waste from two nights in a row, they would have the worst aggression. If they even didn't have aggression or depression or anxiety, they would be biting their spouse's head off.

[26:22] They would be having depression. They had a little anxiety and they were not sleeping. That was the biggest thing. Nobody slept. They said, "What was that? I couldn't sleep." They felt like they had the flu. They would come in the next day. They would say, you know, what was that? And I would say that was waste moving through your body. And then I would work on them the exact same session, right?

[26:40] Just activate their lymphatic system, and they would feel better, and they wouldn't have that detox reaction. Meaning we had alleviated that waste over a few days. Now I wouldn't do that again because they felt it, right? You don't need to do it that way. What I've developed is we do it slowly.

[26:56] We do it over a couple of weeks, but we definitely work to clear up waste. And then people's lives changed and I didn't cure them. That just showed me that, wow, everybody is stored with waste because everybody had the same reaction and the same react things we all have: anxiety, depression, aggression, sleep, you know, not feeling well, headaches, digestive it, the issues.

[27:18] I saw everything people had in different people. So it's really most of our health problems are due to the buildup of cellular waste, fats and fluid because our lymphatic system isn't cleaning us and we can gain direct Control over it, no matter what state you're in, even if you have fourth stage cancer, I deal with a lot of those people because it's about quality of life, right?

[27:37] Yeah. Chemo and radiation, even CAR T cell therapy creates a lot of cellular waste in your body. And if you don't keep up with that cellular waste, and nobody's telling you to do that in the medical system, then you don't do as well. You you feel worse. You need pain pills. You need sleep pills.

[27:53] You you're not doing well. Where People in my courses or who I coach they they say they go into their doctor's office even with forced-age cancer and they just got a pep in their step and that's the way we should have be able to live our life right for whatever we have left we want to feel good so activating the lymphatic system in any stage of disease fibromyalgia you have MS you have an autoimmune disease there are almost a hundred of them and they're all due to the same thing what part of your body is not getting lymphatic Flow.

[28:21] That's all it comes down to, and that part of the body fills with waste and inflammation, and that's your problem. So it makes it simple, right? It's just too simple. And even though the government found this out, it'll be 30 years, 20 or 30 years before we start learning about it from them. So we really have to take control now, and that's what I've been doing.

[28:39] My goal is to educate people around the world, and I've been doing that for working with the lymphatic system for 30 years, but really realizing that how to educate people for 20 years. So you mentioned that that NIH study a few times. So in that report in 2023, give us again like the high level.

[28:59] What were the important points and what is still kind of being worked out in that report? Yeah, the report actually came from a conference where they were just going to talk about lymphedema and weight loss and a couple of other things, and it turned into something very different because they asked all the NIH H researchers say, where do what are we looking at and what do we need to look at with the lymph system?

[29:21] So it changed the whole focus of that conference. So this report is actually a study of that conference and in the report they list every disease, anything with the central nervous system, which is aging, which is Alzheimer's, which is autism, anything with cancer.

[29:38] They list all these things are associated with the lymph system, even blood cancers they say, and they list blood cancers. Per se, but they said it in the report that we know that blood cancers are due to you know the lymphatic system not clearing away. So they they know these things, but they listed everything from fibromyalgia COPD.

[29:57] I mean every organ system they listed many diseases there, right? So it's it's going to be a long time, right? It's going to be a long time, but they are onto it and I'm I'm glad because I had con- that's how my book came about. My book came about because I Didn't want to write a book.

[30:13] I, I want to contact the government. So for a year and a half, I was contacting the government, Surgeon General's office, HHS, and basically got told we can't help you. And I took all my research and I wrote wrote them saying we're dying. It's affecting children with autism and other things, you know, dementia.

[30:29] And they said we agree with you, but we can't help you. So that's when I decided to write my book. So on the longevity side, you've mentioned the dementia thing. Few times, obviously cancer and other things. From a longevity perspective, how does the lymphatic system?

[30:46] We we've heard of zombie cells. Maybe you can explain those. But how does the lymphatic system help with zombie cells and then overall with our longevity and health? Yeah, these zombie cells are really integral. We have to think about them. But we know about zombies on TV and you know they don't die.

[31:04] And these zombie cells are called senescent cells. Meaning there are cells that are no longer going through their replication. They can't work anymore, but they still sit around and they just give off a component called SASP that damages and kills the cells around it. So what it does is it creates cytokine and that's an inflammatory agent and it just keeps on ramping it up.

[31:24] Now we need some of these zombie cells. We need a little bit of them, right? In our body, they help us heal. They help us do different things, cancer with tumors When we get too much when the lymphatic system can't clear that senescent cells we get too many of them and they just keep on ramping up inflammation and inflammation and inflammation.

[31:44] And that's why we have so many problems with inflammation and why inflammation is a root cause of disease. Now there are many wastes in the body. If you see on TV there's amyloidosis. That's one of the first diseases I wrote about 20 years ago. It's just a buildup of cells in your body. So there are many different types of waste in our body.

[32:00] And the lymphatic system is the one system that has to remove them. So even though there's a lot of research on senescent cells and aging, that's what ages us. I'm 68. People are always amazed that you know, oh, you look younger. Well, I I take care of getting waste out of my body. When you see somebody who's aggressively aging, that that their skin is not clearing waste, and our superficial lymphatic system is right under our skin.

[32:22] It's right under the layer. So when and that's only depend on breathing. So if we're not deep breathing, then we're not clearing waste out of our body, especially our skin, and that's why we have so many skin problems. But aging has every metabolic disease has been linked to these senescent cells.

[32:38] So a lot is coming out, eh but they haven't really you you don't see a lot about oh the lymph system is not cleaning these senescent cells, and that's why we have them. They have they haven't linked that yet. They're starting to in the last year we've learned a lot about the meningeal lymphatics coming out. They're linking that to many things with the.

[32:55] our our our brain and how we think and feel. So, but what people don't realize is that we can gain direct control by just doing a few simple things. Well, let's talk about those simple things that we can do. I'd love to know. So you've mentioned it a few times here the the shoulder shuffle that you do at night before you go to bed.

[33:15] And I'm curious why don't you walk us through that first and then maybe we'll talk about some other things that we can do to help our limbs. Lymphatic system. Yeah, number one is posture. I always start with posture because if we do the lymph man shoulder shuffle and we're not sitting straight, so we just sit up a little bit straighter, head back because a lot of times we're on a computer, kids are on phones and computers all day, and that's limiting their lymph flow.

[33:37] So we just want to sit up straighter. It just feels different, right? You can feel almost feel. I want people to learn to feel a flow in my courses. I actually get them to feel what it's like to have flow in their body. Right now, all we ever feel is bloated, or you know, we don't understand flow. So, sitting up straight is very important.

[33:53] It opens up your plumbing, and then I just put my hands on my lap or put them in front of you if you're standing up, and I just put one shoulder up and the other one goes down, and I reverse it. And I do that very slowly. If you have any neck pain, any shoulder pain, any surgeries, check with your doctor. But most people should be able to do this nice and easy like this.

[34:09] Already, I just felt my lungs open up, like very gently, open up. I felt my legs a little bit of flow. But now, if you don't have any neck pain or shoulder pain, I want you to really do this fast, really fast, about 20 or 30 times. Just really, and don't be afraid to push it up to your shoulders.

[34:25] Most people are too gentle. There you go. That is big. That's a better way to do it, right? Oh, I mean, my arms are tingling, my legs are tingling. We're bringing life to ourselves. We're bringing life back into our body. And what did we do? We didn't drain ourselves. We didn't do anything.

[34:41] And that's why this is so important. And I want people to follow me on Instagram at lymph man because I go on three or four days a week just to say, "Hey, here's some new science. Let's talk about brain health." And but hey, let's do the lymph man shoulder shuffle, or let's drain our side of our neck, or let's do some stretching.

[34:57] I do simple things, right? I'm not there to show them a whole routine. I just want to be there to show people that, "Hey, it's time to think about your lymphatic system today, right?" And numerous times a day, and you know we have to just be more aware of it. Most people aren't. Doesn't that feel different?

[35:13] Yeah, no, I definitely felt like felt the tingles when we were doing it quickly. I'm curious, you mentioned breathing, and I guess I wouldn't have correlated breathing with my lymphatic system. So tell me how the how does breathing help my lymphatic system?

[35:30] Yeah, every time you take a deep breath, it creates pressure gradients in your body. So it's called intrathoracic pressure. Meaning when you take a deep breath, especially with our diaphragm, don't breathe through your chest. A lot of people breathe through their chest like trying. You're you're trying to squeeze your lungs against your ribs.

[35:47] It's hard. So we want to breathe with our diaphragm. If you don't use your diaphragm a lot, it becomes fibrotic, meaning it becomes stiff and it doesn't function well. And so we want it to move. So we want to get a deep breath in. Correct your posture again. I would sometimes take the the lymph man shoulder shuffle because we want to do that a few times a day.

[36:04] And just put your hands right below your rib cage and. Take a deep breath in and let your belly come out, right? Your navel. Let, and that is a way to get a deeper breath in. So we take a deep breath in. I like to do it deep through my nose, and then blow it out really hard.

[36:20] Blow blow it hard, harder than a candle, like you're blowing out a birthday candle. One more time.

[36:29] That again, I'm feeling a little different. My my toes are tingling. I'm feeling sinus area. And so many people have sinus problems. And we don't want to have a sinus problem because a year ago they found nasopharyngeal lymphatics right behind your nose. That's lymphatics right behind your n- nasopharyngeal.

[36:47] And they say not only does it clean your nasal area, your sinuses, it probably plays a part in your eyes and also they say a big part of your brain. So we have sinus problems if and some people have such chronic, chronic stuff they're on medication all the time that just keeps you dried out we need to create flow and That's something that we can do with our hands, with our diet, with our breathing, with the shoulder shuffle.

[37:11] We just have to do like really right now. My under my nose is so itchy from and we didn't do much, right? But we and the more we do it, the more we remember to do it. Put signs around the house, you know in front of your refrigerator. Hey, do the shuffle. Take some deep breaths.

[37:26] It becomes more of a second nature, right? More so these aren't crazy things, but. Yeah, the the things that you're showing us are not crazy wild. It's just shoulder shuffle. It's deep breathing. It's things that we can all do. Now, let's get into the rebounder video, which has a ton of views.

[37:44] I've seen these. Like my mother-in-law has one of these rebounders that she bought for her husband, and he's got some some early like swelling on his legs and things like that. So tell me, what's the big deal with the the rebounders and the bouncers? What's going on with that? Rebounders have been around for a long time, right?

[38:01] And my kids are now 25 and 26. And when they were younger, we bought our first rebounder. I didn't even know about it. I wasn't didn't know a lot about this stuff that I'm learning now or know now. And we bought a cheap rebounder instead of them bouncing on a bed. And it was just with little fabric, the material, right?

[38:20] 75 dollars. So now we use one with a bungee cord. And why we want to rebound is because when we bounce, you don't have to do a lot of exercise on it. You don't have to do that. Just bounce, very gently bounce, right? And when you bounce, when you go up, you're actually pushing fluid up.

[38:37] The valves in the in the larger lymph vessels, the larger lymph vessels have valves. They close down. You bounce again. Fluid goes up. Then the valves close down. You go up, down. So when you bounce for 20 minutes, you're moving lymph flow through your body.

[38:53] Sometimes I get on for a minute. Sometimes I get on for three minutes. Sometimes I'll do 20 minutes in front of the TV. Just bounce. You know and you feel it the next day. But a lot of times I just do it a few times a day. Just get on it because I'm sitting so much at the computer now. And and and just to move my blood.

[39:09] But you don't have to spend a thousand dollars or you know a few hundred dollars and you get a really nice rebounder. If you don't have if you have got sore knees or if you've got shaky, you know as we get older the balance goes you know all kinds of things are happening maybe not Maybe not as comfortable jumping on a rebounder.

[39:24] What would you tell that person to do? You and and some people have to be careful with a rebound if they do have disc problems or back problems because it's that it it is going to bother it. But they can just sit on a rebounder too and bounce. You can sit on a exercise ball and bounce, right? And that way it's not the pressure on the legs.

[39:40] But what I would tell people and what I noticed I used to be working in an office eight nine hours a day or longer, six or seven clients a day. And I worked on them all day, so I I was like a workout all day long for me. I'd come home like the Hulk. I did that for a long time. When I switched to sitting in front of a computer and sitting with coaching people, so I'm sitting all the time, and I wasn't doing the exercise.

[40:02] After about a year and a half, I know I noticed going up the steps was a little more difficult. I noticed my legs were giving out more, and I realized, oh my God, I'm not walking around a table anymore all day long. I'm sitting down, and my legs are getting weaker. And my back was getting weaker, so I go to gym now.

[40:18] I mean, you could do squats, you can do all different exercises, but we have to concentrate on exercises for our legs. Number one, we're moving the big muscles in our body, which are going to move lymph flow. But we want to make sure we're also stretching the upper body so that the fluid in the lower legs can move up to the upper body here.

[40:33] So it's just understanding that it's not just a lot of therapies start at the legs or start at the pelvis. We have to start up here. We have to start to open up the lymphatic system, and that's my big thing. In the therapy that I develop is I start here on every person. I start on their clavicles and open that up.

[40:49] Open up the major lymph drainage like cleaning a drain or a gutter you know a drain in a gutter. You know you move those leaves and boom things start flowing. So and and people feel it almost immediately. Get that angel hair pasta working right. Exactly. So tell us a little bit about how often should I be doing these things during the day.

[41:09] You know you got the rebound or you said at night you do the shoulder shuffle a couple You know how often should I be thinking about this and and doing different movements? Well, this is where people think it's like, oh, I just do three days a week of exercise and, well, 500 million cells die in your body every day.

[41:25] Approximately 500 million cells. So a portion of that, you know, maybe 50 million cells are becoming waste in your body that your lymphatic system may not be picking up, even a small portion of that. But that's what's going to make your inflammation. So we want to. Do it numerous times a day.

[41:40] Wake up in the morning and do some stretching, right? Do some stretching of your shoulders, which is going to open up those angel hair pastas. Do that 10 times. Do the lymph man shoulder shuffle. Take some deep breaths, right? Then get up and you'll see you'll start feeling less tight in the morning as you start doing this.

[41:56] Then after lunch maybe do a little bit of movement because then that'll help your digestion. And then before bed do it again because you want your brain to clean. You want your body to clean. If you just go to bed exhausted, tired, not flowing, you're not going to clean as well. You do the lymph man shoulder shuffle, take some deep breaths, do a little bit of stretching.

[42:12] If you know how to drain yourself, I teach an 8 and a 12 minute routine, and in my bigger classes, I teach, I mean, how to drain the eyes, mouth, breasts, every part of the body. And you know, these are the things we need to do. But most importantly, it's being aware that you have a lymphatic system, which most people don't.

[42:29] So diet has to change a little bit. I'm not about being perfect, but we have to eat a little more green. So let's talk about that. How much does your diet affect your lymph system. What should we what should we be doing if we're feeling like maybe things are a little sluggish? I'm at home and I'm like, well, I don't want to change everything, but maybe I can get a rebound or and change my diet a little bit.

[42:49] How much of an effect does diet have versus some of these other things you're talking about? Diet is a big effect. That that's one thing that I wasn't changing. That's one thing that I didn't add to it. I never liked vegetables. I ate pasta. White rice, Chinese food, a lot of fried Chinese food and and meat, meatballs, pot pot roast.

[43:07] That's what I ate. I didn't eat any vegetables. But now I love vegetables, right? I've learned to like them and you know you feel different when you start eating more vegetables. But it's it's you have to include the veget- it's not about eating perfect all the time. It's taking a few days every week to slowly clean up some inflammation, right?

[43:25] That I did it for 30 days. I was at my low point. I was really feeling something was going to happen to me. Don't wait for that. You know, start cleaning up your diet. That's what I teach in my courses. I teach instead of doing, hey, 30 days or I have a two a two month course, eight week course. We we we go slowly.

[43:40] It's little changes. We don't do big changes. Studies have shown that just little changes, just cutting out a little sugar, cutting out a little pasta, doing a little bit of exercise. You start doing that, you start feeling better, and you're like, oh, I'm going to do more of that, right? So sometimes when we do too much at one time, it overwhelms the lymphatic system, and that's where people feel so sick and they're like, oh, I'll never do that again.

[43:59] So we try and avoid that. My goal is to get people to feel better at first and then we sort of teach them how to clean up a little bit more at a time. If you do have a birthday dinner, you know, is there anything you can do to speed up the cleanup the next day or is there anything? Should I be doing extra rebounding or should I be deep breathing for an extra hour or something to help get rid of the birthday cake?

[44:20] Yeah, just just change your diet, clean up, and it happens. People think, oh, I have to eat bad for a week or two weeks for for it to bother me. You eat a big acidic meal, which is meat, bread, right, pasta, even spinach is acid forming. Then you are gonna really change your blood chemistry.

[44:37] But and you and and if you have a few birthday parties like one week and then you have another at the party the next week, we tend to get more acidic, right? We don't realize that. So we want to enjoy your life. You have to learn how to clean up. I go on vacation. I do a cleanup before, right?

[44:53] I do a few ups and salt baths. I do a little exercise. I clean up my diet. This way, I can go on vacation and enjoy myself. Many people go on vacation. They're already very toxic. The the vacation sort of lets them release some waste because they're letting go of the stress, and then they feel horrible on that vacation.

[45:09] And then they come home and they're not doing anything to clean up again. So to me, we have to just learn to be good at cleaning. We clean our air conditioners, we clean our our houses, our our carpets, but we don't clean our body. And we need to learn to clean our body with our lymphatic system, and then we have much more control over our mental and physical health.

[45:28] So, from a supplement standpoint, you said you you took some magnesium when you weren't feeling well. What is the what are the supplements or enzymes or things that you you recommend people take or try, in addition to doing some of the things you're talking about here, breathing, bouncing, moving, the shuffle.

[45:47] What do the supplements do? Yeah, a simple we we need to have some supplements. Even though when we eat healthier, when we eat more fruits and vegetables, we're getting supplements. We're getting the magnesium, the potassium, and all the little minerals that we need when we have the vegetables. Unfortunately, a lot of people are not eating the vegetables. But I only thing I really took was magnesium.

[46:06] So magnesium is a key supplement I always take because it reduces acid in the body. It helps chemical reactions work better in your body. So without magnesium, a lot of things don't work. So that's a simple thing, and don't take one big pill, you know, take it a couple of times a day. A lot of people take a 400 milligram pill, and it might give you a loose bowel.

[46:24] So I like to take 250 in the morning, 250 at night, and once in a while I'll have, you know, 250 in the afternoon when I feel a little bit more, and and your body just starts feeling better. The tightness we feel in our body is acid, magnesium can help reduce that in your body, and in my podcast, the Lymph Brain Revolution podcast, I Talk about different diseases.

[46:44] So I'm I'm not just talking about one thing, anxiety, all the time. I talk about the lymph system and its relationship to different diseases because I want people to see that it's it's tied to everything. And when I look for supplements, magnesium always comes up. Omega 3s always come up. Why? Because they're they're anti-inflammatory, right?

[47:00] And most of our diseases are due to inflammation. And then I I tell people take like a digestive enzyme. You could take that the with the meals because our digestion is not working as well and that makes more waste in your body if your digestion is not Working as well. What about the things like dry brushing or different, you know, vibration plates?

[47:20] Are those things worth it? Are they hype? Are they, do they work? What what are you, what are you, what's your stance on that? I use a vibration plate at the gym. I don't have one at home. You know, I have a handheld vibrator and I use that on my neck on my head.

[47:35] I use it on my chest to open up my Angel hair pasta's here using on my abdomen wherever I have aches and pains I put it and I hold it there for a few minutes and the area gets all red and bumpy because it's releasing weights so I like a handheld one rather than a stand-up one even though they work a little bit but you want to make sure you go do the lymph man shoulder shuffle before you get on any type of exercise equipment a bike or treadmill or a rebounder or even a vibration plate because open up your system first right and then you're bound to Not have to work so hard exercising to get it to open up here because we want to get this to open up.

[48:12] So you know it's just those simple things right that that we need to do. So you so you've got kind of a system that you that you provide here. So tell us a little bit about you know what is your system? If somebody came to you, what are the things that you definitely can help with?

[48:30] And and is there is there anybody that's like too far along where you're like I can't help them anymore. No, no, because it's all quality of life, right? If you're in a lot of pain and you're struggling, I coach people all around the world, really all over the place, and they all are not doing anything for their lymphatic system.

[48:47] Even if they person who understands lymphatic system, they really don't know what to do. So I coach them, I show them some ways. I don't teach a full routine in my personal coaching in one-on-one. I'll teach you what you need to know for your specific health problem. But in my courses, which most people join, I we we start slow.

[49:04] I'm just finishing a small course. It's going to be like I think $99. It's just to teach people how to drain their head because I feel we need to drain our head. Too many people are having problems with their head. So that's going to be a 90 minute course. Then I have a a four week course. I have an eight week course. Each one builds into the next one, right?

[49:21] So people can have a few months with me to really gain control over their health. And and it works, right? And if you're not a course person, just getting on a call with me, you know, a few times will instill in you the lymphatic system that you need to take care of it. And people feel the difference from the first time they start talking with me because I have them to do things, and they start flowing.

[49:42] What do people notice first, and how long does it take them to start to see results when they start working with you and your and using your system? That's what I was getting to. People with COVID. So I deal with people very sick. That that's what I become known for. People who've tried everything and COVID people thousands of people are still having you know COVID if not the the millions I believe.

[50:02] It's when your lymph system becomes overwhelmed. They found with COVID it's the remnants from the virus the virus goes away you're you're feeling better but then the remnants RNA remnants and waste just start to inflame and build up into your nasal area up in your brain.

[50:18] That's why people have fatigue. They can't think. They, I mean, I've had women who were very powerful, running offices, and they just, just for a year or so, they just really were knocked out. They went to work, but they just couldn't even think anymore. And within a week and a half to two weeks, people feel a difference working with me.

[50:34] Often from the first time they start talking to me, they feel a difference because we're getting a system working that most people never think about, and and that is a problem, right? How can we? Take care of our health. How can we improve our health? How can we have an edge in preventing disease or aging with our mind intact and and not understand a system that cleans us?

[50:53] And it's a system that every person, if our children understood this, if we could train them to think about their lymphatic system, do a little exercise, know that some foods are, you know, we eat these, but we don't eat a lot of it because it's bad for us. It stops your body from cleaning or but we eat these because they're better for us.

[51:09] I think our kids would have a better understanding of of health and we'd see a lot less anxiety. Anxiety is rampant nowadays in children. It really is horrible, but it's rampant in everybody. Anxiety, depression, mental health. We've missed the lymph-brain connection and it's something that we gain control over.

[51:26] What do you think is the most common mistake people make when they start a a program, whether that's yours or somebody else's? They overdo it, and and I've had a few people contact me, John. I feel so sick. I I just started your course and. I drained myself and I it felt good.

[51:43] I did it again you know and I always tell them drain once and then wait a day or two but they say it felt so good. They did it again and anytime we activate the lymphatic system and then we do it again the next day or a few hours later we're pulling more waste into the system so you're going to have more severe detox reaction a Hirschmaheimer reaction which is just your body feeling a headache migraine digestive issue you're not feeling well and then over a few hours to a day or two it's going to clear mostly by the next day people feel better but yeah we want to avoid that.

[52:15] Yeah so I did notice you have a big audience of women that are kind of between the ages of 50 and 80. What do they come to you for the most? What's the questions you get the most? You know people don't just have one problem. They they they just it it it resonates with them and some people it takes them a decade to they've known about me for a decade.

[52:37] 15 years and then they finally say, you know, I I think I should try it. So if you're somebody who's sitting on the fence and and this makes sense to you, don't wait. I mean, cause then they're like, wow, I should have gotten to you much sooner because I feel so much better. So it's just the idea that you can have control, really complete control over how you age, how you think, how you heal.

[52:59] And it's really just missing in our understanding of our own maintenance of our bodies. And that's why I'm so passionate. My wife calls it my Italian passion, right? Because this is this is crazy. We're all sick because we've missed this one system. Yeah, absolutely.

[53:15] Well, John, for those that that are are not sure where you are, you are the lymph man online. Tell us where they can find you. Yeah, they can go to healthylymphsystem.com, healthylymphsystem.com, then go on my homepage and get my I have a lymphatic health guide and seven-day plan.

[53:35] Really simple, but doing the simple things I tell you to do in this, you will feel a difference, right? And it's going to show you that, wow, I do feel different. I really didn't change that much, but I'm feeling better. So, you know, healthylymphsystem.com. They can go to the Lymph Brain Revolution podcast.

[53:52] I really am passionate about educating people on every type and most people don't have one problem. They tend to have multiple health problems. And if we take care of this one system. Then we can gain control over many health problems in our body. Well, John, thank you for breaking down the lymphatic system for us today, helping us understand, you know, some simple ways that with the the shoulder shuffle and the deep breathing and the rebounder and some of those other tools that we can do at home to help regulate and keep our lymphatic system moving.

[54:24] Just some movement too. It sounds like making sure we're getting up and moving around, which I have to remember because I'm sitting at a desk all day. But thank you so much for sharing all that information with us today. If you're watching on YouTube, please make sure to click on the description. We'll we'll link to John and all of his assets, Instagram YouTube and his website in the description below.

[54:44] Thanks again for being on the show today. Oh thank you and remember everybody, keep flowing. That's right. We appreciate you. Thank you, John. Thank you. That's our show for today. If someone came to mind while you were listening. Please send it to them. You never know when a little piece of information might change someone's life.

[55:01] Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss the next one as well. I'm Melissa Goodwin. Thank you so much for listening and for now the line is open.