#341 A Simple Practice To Improve Your Skin And Circulation

Subscribe on iTunes
Watch the full episode on YouTube

There are so many simple, inexpensive ways to care for your body and support your health terrain.

This simple practice, rooted in Ayurvedic medicine, offers a host of potential benefits, from exfoliating dead skin cells to enhancing the body's detoxification process through stimulation of the lymphatic system.

Join me as we explain how to choose the right brush, the best techniques for effective brushing, and the direction to brush to maximize health benefits.

We'll also discuss how incorporating dry brushing into your daily routine can improve skin texture, boost circulation, and even potentially reduce cellulite.

Whether you're a wellness enthusiast or just curious about new health practices, this episode will provide you with practical tips on how to integrate dry brushing into your wellness regime effectively.

 

Referred to in this episode:

Work with Laura

Download The Step-By-Step Guide to Dry Brushing

The dry brush I use

Long handled dry brush

 

Follow me on Social Media: 

Facebook

Instagram

Pinterest

YouTube

 


Read the full transcript:

 

You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach. I'm your host, Laura Lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills and the insights and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis. If you're looking for a way to create a life, that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started.

0:33
Hello, friends, I'm your host, Laura Lummer. Welcome to Episode 341. Of better than before breast cancer. This is our Tuesday terrain talk. And I love this episode, because we're going to talk today about something that is very, very simple. It is an ancient tradition. Anybody can do it. It's not expensive, anybody can afford it. And it has lots of benefits for your health in lots of different ways. And we're going to talk about some of those ways today. Before I jump into it, I have one special request of you. If you love listening to the better than before breast cancer podcasts, and you've never taken the time to leave a rating or review for the show, I would appreciate so much if you could do that. You just if you're listening to this on a smartphone, like on Apple podcasts, just scroll on down hit a few stars, if you can take a moment to write a quick review, you can even dictate it right into your phone. Make it simple, because I know everybody leaves a busy life. And I know it takes time to do everything. So I really appreciate it because it truly is the more people that follow subscribe and comment and rate on a podcast, the easier it is for other people to see it. And with the podcast world growing exponentially all the time. If you could leave a rating or review, it would really help and someone else who might find some support in this podcast, maybe if you got something good from it, and they'll find that they can get something good for it as well, then it might be easier for them to find just because of you and you might be doing somebody else a good service. And if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel. The more subscriptions the better. Again, it makes it easier for people who may need this information to find it. So we work together as a community, we can support each other in the community too. And I thank you so much. Because again, I respect your time, I know how busy lives can be. So thank you for even considering it. I appreciate it. All right. Let's dig into this. So we're going to talk today about a practice called dry brushing. So maybe you've heard of it, maybe you haven't. But dry brushing is a practice that's actually rooted in Ayurvedic medicine. And it involves using a dry, stiff bristle brush to brush the skin in specific patterns. And I'm going to talk to you all about those patterns shortly as well. So the science behind this technique, and all of the benefits that it's purported to have is a combination of kind of anecdotal stuff, as is many things with the integrative health or alternative health practices. It's not the observed outcomes that people get. And some of it is actually supported, though, by our physical, scientific, modern, physiological understanding of the body and how the body works. So let me give you some different ways in which drybrushing can contribute to you having a healthy metabolic state of being too you improve in the state of your terrain. And then I will follow up with a brief description of how you do dry brushing properly. And you can also get a download where I put all of these instructions, even linked to the dry brush that I use and you can find that at the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash brush B R U S H all lowercase. All right. All right, let's get into this. So one of the first and I think probably most obvious benefits of dry brushing is exfoliation. I am exfoliating maniac like I love exfoliation. And I think it's a very undervalued practice when it comes to skincare. We've got to remember that our skin is an organ. It is one of the largest organs because I think if we spread out the intestines that may be bigger than the skin, but you often hear it referred to as the largest organ of the body. Our skin absorbs things. Our skin allows things to be released from our body, right? We detoxify with sweat, and we absorb things. That's why we talk about releasing the toxic burden when we talk about what do you put on your body? What do you put in and on our body? Are we putting clothes that had been through some really toxic chemicals from the dry cleaner Are we putting fabric softeners are we putting fragrance in our laundry, because then we put those clothes on our skin, and those chemicals can get into our skin. So our skin is also sloughing off all the time. And we've got lots of dry skin. And that can tend to not only make our skin look dry and ashy. But it can also lead to less glowy. Skin, more wrinkly skin, like it affects the texture and appearance of the skin. So when we exfoliate, we take off all these dead skin cells. And we let this the circulation improve, which we'll talk about shortly. And we just get this overall healthier, more glowing look to our skin. And this, of course isn't something that you just dry brush once in a while when it happens, make it a consistent part of the practice of loving on your body to help it be as healthy as it can. So the mechanism, I want to give you a little bit of the mechanism behind what bread dry brushing does, and the science behind what it does scientifically or physiologically how the body works, right. So the mechanism behind the exfoliation process is that the mechanical action of taking these stiff bristles and brushing them on your skin removes dead skin cells. And so it makes the skin appear smoother and softer with doing this again over time. So scientifically, the regular removal of dead skin cells really helps to prevent clogged pores, it can enhance the skin's ability to breathe. Remember your skin is this active living organ it's functioning. And it can potentially reduce acne, and definitely improves the skin's texture over time. Who doesn't want that? Right? We don't have to. I mean, I'm not throwing any shade on getting a facial because I love a facial. But when you're at home, and you can do these things for your own body simply inexpensively just by like I have my little dry brush that I use one is cost like 10 bucks on Amazon or something and I'll link to that, of course in the show notes for this episode. But it's a very inexpensive way to do some really good things for your skin. A very important other thing, especially for us who've been through breast cancer, especially if we have things like lymphedema, or if we don't have lymphedema, but we've had lymph nodes removed, because once you've had a lymph node removed, you're always at risk for lymphedema. So I may have shared this on the podcast before but in my first surgery in my mastectomy, I did have nine lymph nodes removed. That was in 2000. And trying to remember the dates of my surgery in 2011 was one of the surgeries because I had others in 2012. But in that one in 2011, the lymph nodes were removed. And I never had a problem with lymphedema until 2020 With my second diagnosis, and the diagnostics that showed that my hip was not in a great condition, I was put on crutches, and it was the pressure of the crutches and of my armpit being on those crutches that put pressure in because you know when we have lymphedema, you don't ever puncture an arm that has lymphedema or the arm that's had lymph nodes removed. We don't want to put pressure on him. We don't want to put punctures on them. So we don't take our blood pressure on that arm because any kind of pressure can trigger the lymphedema. And once it's triggered and you have lymphedema, it's not something typically that goes away. There are some surgeries now that can help to reduce it. But typically, it's something that just needs to be managed over time to keep it as safe as it can be and as least what's the right way to say it as experienced the least discomfort as possible, I guess is the best way to say it. So when it comes to our lymphatic system drybrushing is really important in the lymphatic system, it's important to remember is part of the immune system, because it helps reduce waste and toxins from the body in the body's tissues. Again, as breast cancer survivors, what is something that we want to be very mindful of keeping our immune system as strong as possible. So it is believed that dry brushing helps to stimulate lymphatic drainage. And if you've ever had lymphatic drainage massage, you know that it's a very light touch massage. The first time that I had lymphatic drainage massage, I was so surprised at how gentle the movement was. It's barely a brushing over the arm because our lymphatic system was right there under the skin. Right our lymph vessels, our lymph nodes, they're right there. So they're really easy and when they do lymphatic drainage massage, it's almost like just a light pressure touch. So you can see why taking the stiff bristle brush and just gently brushing it over. Your skin is going to help to stimulate length attic drainage. And the scientific basis for that is that the brushing motions are thought to help push lymphatic fluids towards the hearts. And then that aids in flushing out waste products and toxins from the system because what happens when we get lymphedema, it's kind of like a varicose vein kind of issue, right, those lymph nodes that got removed, they create a dysfunction in the lymphatic drainage that things aren't pumping. So I wear these compression sleeves pretty much 24/7 Because they're tight. So when I move my arm, the compression sleeve squeezes my arm and it helps with the lymphatic flow. This is something that dry brushing helps with also. So dry brushing is not only going to help flush out waste products and toxins, but it can potentially reduce swelling and support our immune functions. So it can actually be a benefit and aid in managing lymphedema as well, which is also very exciting. Then we've got increased circulation, which I touched on just a second ago. So the mechanism for that, again, is that the brushing of the skin increases blood flow to that area. Think about like when you were a kid, my brother, you said this to me when we were kids when you're a kid, and you take your siblings arm because why do we torment our siblings more than anyone else in the world? I don't know. But we do. And you twist it right you have an Indian burn or used to be called an Indian burn when I was a kid, maybe that's not a politically correct term anymore. I don't even know why it was an Indian burn. But you would take your hands and you twist your hands opposite ways. And it would hurt so bad and your skin would turn red because the blood rushes to that area, right? You stimulated something there and the blood rushes to that area. There are some trigger points. So myofacial release therapies that are done with tools from a company called trigger point. And there's one that I use, and it's a roller but it's metal. And it is it's got a gel in it. So you freeze it. And then when you use it with a sore muscle and you kind of roll out that sore muscle, but the coldness constricts the blood vessels on the surface or towards the surface of the skin. And so then when you remove that cold roller from that muscle, your body rushes blood into that area to try to get the temperature back up to normal. And in that increased circulation, it helps to relieve some of the soreness in the muscle. So stimulating circulation is really important to an overall healthy terrain. And skin brushing increases the blood flow to that area. Makes sense, right? You're taking it kind of irritating that surface, and you're increasing and moving and stimulating circulation. So enhanced circulation actually means more oxygen and nutrients are being delivered to the areas being brushed. Because what does blood carry oxygen, red blood cells carry oxygen. So we're bringing nutrients into that area. And that helps to improve skin health. It helps to boost cellular health. And it can even promote healing and rejuvenation of the skin. Now, please be careful. I just want to say this very clearly, we're not going to take a stiff bristle brush and be like scrubbing over where you've had surgery right or where you have stitches or where you have a wound. Okay, so when we talk about promoting healing, this is a gentle action. And it should not be ever done over an open wound or a fresh wound you can do around it, right. So if we have a surgical area, let's say that you've had surgery on your chest, then we don't want to be rubbing right there on our new fake boobs. Okay, but rubbing around a gently on the chest gently on the shoulders gently on the arms, that's going to help increase circulation. And that increases oxygen, oxygen and nutrient delivery. And that's where we get the benefit. Okay, this one is an interesting one. It's the reduction of cellulite. Now, there's not a lot of conclusive evidence about this, but a lot of people who are big fans of dry brushing and I don't have to tell you, for me, and for most people I know who do dry brushing on a regular basis. I would be one of those anecdotal people to say, Yeah, I think it does help smooth out the skin and reduce the appearance of cellulite. But what the mechanism behind that is, is that it can reduce cellulite by breaking down fat and increasing blood flow to the skin. So just start to get stuff moving so you don't have fat stuck there and Gox. So scientifically, very limited evidence to support this. And the theory again is that the improved circulation helps to soften the fat deposits that are under the skin helps to distribute them more evenly and can potentially reduce the appearance of cellulite. This again, important to remember, it's like anything with our bodies, right? You've got to be consistent, and you've got to do it regularly if you want to see a result. So I think a lot of times when it comes to improving the condition of the skin, we think oh I did it for a week and nothing happened. And this is bullshit, this doesn't work, right. So, again, this is not a promise, it's not like, oh, go get a dry brush. And you know, in six weeks, you're not going to have cellulite, but it does between improving the flow of the lymphatic drainage and the oxygen to those areas, it definitely can have a beautiful beneficial effect on your skin. So we don't expect miracles. But we also know that you gotta be consistent, because it's the way our body works, when we're not consistent with something, then we don't get the benefit of it. That's just how it works. So here's another great one that is so good for the train. I gotta say that when I look at people's train time, and we work on a metabolic approach to their health, one of the areas that I see come up, I'm gonna say nine times out of 10. In the top three is stress. We live really stressful lives. And a big part of that is not just the stressors that are around us, but the way we perceive stressors. And when we're doing something like trying to manage a cancer diagnosis, trying to run a life, right, let's say that you're even past your treatment for cancer, but we're managing relationships, children, marriages, partnerships, friendships, work, relationships, lots of these things can be stressors, and incorporating stress relief techniques into your life, I cannot overstate the benefit of that. And when you have something as simple as this, then it can be a beautiful practice as a part of an overall stress reduction, lifestyle, stress reducing lifestyle, so you can go out and get massages, massages are incredibly therapeutic. And a lot of people say I can't afford to do that. Well guess what you can get that benefit. Similar to it. Of course, a dry brush is not going to play replace a professional massage therapist, but you can get some of the benefits of it. And you can experience some stress relief because the act of dry brushing has a meditative aspect to it. Right? You're taking this brush, there are specific strokes that you do. And what does that mean when I say a meditative aspect? It means you're in the moment. We are so often not in the moment. We're so often thinking of what's coming next, you know, even think about it. So you're going to dry brush before you get into your morning shower. What do you normally doing, maybe distracting your mind with music, maybe thinking about the traffic, maybe thinking about what comes up at work. So just taking that moment where you're mindful about the way that you are doing this dry brushing, it's got this meditative aspect because it's repetitive strokes. And because it's a routine in both the repetition and the routine, those are calming and therapeutic acts. From a scientific basis. The gentle brushing Act is a form of massage, and it can potentially reduce muscle tension it can soothe the nervous system is improving that self care which self care self love, I'm doing something good for myself in and of itself contributes to stress reduction in our lives. Okay, dry brushing also stimulates the nervous system. So the mechanism of this is that obviously we've got a lot of nerves right under our skin. So when we take that dry brush, we feel it right we feel the nerve endings in the skin and that can also help to rejuvenate the nervous system. So on a scientific basis, we look at stimulating the nerve endings and how that leads to this feeling of invigoration, right think about cold plunges. Again, this is something that's detoxifying, right, you go in, your blood vessels constrict, you get out, your blood vessels open and blood starts rushing back to the surface of the skin. When we want to feel invigorated, what do we do take our hands rub, get some friction wake ourselves up when we rub the skin when we gently smack on the skin and this is like a tapping exercise as well, but we stimulate the nervous system and that gives us this increased feeling of alertness and just an overall invigoration. So it's a nice way to stimulate the nervous system and get you up and get you moving and get you going. Again, I touched on this with the circulation and the lymphatic drainage. But dry brushing does support detoxification because of supporting lymphatic drainage, stimulating circulation. It also is a part of the detoxification process. Now scientifically, the body primarily detoxifies through the liver through the kidneys and through the lungs, right things, organs that help us either detoxify things or eliminate things from our body, right. But the drybrushing assist in the improved performance of the lymphatic and circulatory system so it supports the efficiency of overall detoxification. Now, I want to be very clear about this. I talked a minute ago about open wounds. But if you are a person with sensitive skin, if you're a person with things like psoriasis right Allard genes on the skin easily irritated skin, this may not be for you. So if this is something that you want to try, try it in a less sensitive part of your body. See if you can try it with different strengths and brushes. So bristles that are maybe softer, right, you're still going to get some stimulation because there are some that are super stiff. Make sure that you're getting a natural brush, you're not putting synthetic things on your skin. And be gentle with yourself. Be careful with yourself. You know, it's like when when you want to try a hair dye, you don't want to like dye your whole head just to test it, you want to take a little strand in the back of your head is not going to be noticeable and see if that's the color you want. Same kind of thing. If you know you're prone to skin irritations Be careful with yourself, know yourself, you are the expert on you. But you can also test it to see if it benefits you. Okay? It is not a cure. All right, dry brushing is another beneficial part of a holistic approach to health. It's not going to replace any kind of medical treatment. It's a beneficial addition that supports your mindfulness practices, your healthy eating habits, your regular exercise, because God there's nothing better to improve circulation and lymphatic drainage than exercise. Keep your body moving. And because everyone is a unique bio individual person, the effects of dry brushing will be different for everybody. Right? So again, it's not a miracle. No one thing is I think we get ingrained into this thought process by the power of pharmaceutical drugs that we know we can turn to a pill. And that can have a really powerful effect really quickly, when we're talking about natural therapies and a holistic approach to health. These are things that take attention, take energy, take time and tape consistency. All right, so let's talk about the process. What's the technique? How do you dry brush, because performing it correctly, can really enhance the benefits that you get from it. So the first thing is that you want to choose the right kind of brush, you want a brush that has natural firm bristles, you can get a brush with a long handles, so you can you know, do a reach behind you right and scrub your bed, you can do like I like this little circular one, it's just easier for me to hold it in my hand. And then I can reach behind myself and around myself, I guess I'm pretty flexible. But if you're not flexible, get a brush with a long handle. So you can make sure and get all the spaces on your back. The best time to do dry brushing is typically right before a shower or right before a bath. Because you're exfoliating. And so when you're exfoliating these dead skin cells, you want to get in and wash them off, right. So typically the best time is to do it right before a shower or a bath. You start with your feet, yes, we have to take care of our feet, we get dead skin cells on our feet as well. So we start with our feet and we move upwards. And that's because we're always moving towards the direction of the heart. You heard me say a little while ago that part of the process and part of the benefit with lymphatic drainage is that we're pushing things towards the heart because the heart is always pumping and moving stuff. So the direction of the brushing is going to be up from the legs towards the heart. You start at your feet, you use long, smooth strokes, or circular motions, but always circular towards pushing up the leg, right? It's important to brush towards your heart to improve and get the best circulation and the best lymphatic drainage. So you brush from the feet to the legs. And you follow those same long strokes on the arms. You go from the hands all the way to the shoulders, brushing up or taking gentle circular motions, again with the direction going up towards the shoulders towards the torso towards the heart. And don't forget to include the soles of your feet in the palms of your hands, right, we can definitely exfoliate the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet. That's why we get pedicures. All right. When we're brushing the torso, we want to follow the direction of the digestive system. So we're brushing upwards on the right side of your abdomen where the large intestine a sense. Then we go across to the left just under the ribs down and down the left side. Okay, so we're like following with it come our intestines come up and they kind of go around right so we're going in this motion around the tummy sore, bringing it up going around and down. Even when we're brushing the back. We want to be brushing towards the heart. So we can take the long brush and start down towards more towards the hips and brush up right so the direction is always up towards the heart or little circular motions again, starting at the bottom of the back and moving up. When we're doing the torso. We want to be careful when we get to the chest be very gentle with sensitive areas and the pressure on the brain should be firm, but not hard, we're not scratching ourselves, right? It's going to be a very gentle, even pressure. Because we don't want to walk away looking like we just got in a fight with some kind of a cat or something, right? The whole process of brushing from feet up, should not take more than three to five minutes, right? It doesn't have to be a long process. It's quick and easy, just like lymphatic drainage massage, right? Very, very gentle, very easy, moving up the limbs, moving around the torso, boom, done, jump in the shower, you can do it once a day. But even if you could do it a few times a week, you're still gonna get benefits. So a lot of people I don't have time, I'm always rushed in the morning, well then make a practice of doing it on Saturdays and Sundays, maybe when you're not working, or the family doesn't have all kinds of stuff going on, you have a little more time for yourself. And that way, you could just pick one day during the week or two days. And you get in for days, right two days where you're not rushed, and two days where you plan an extra five minutes before your shower to do this act of self love for yourself. So again, we want to follow up with a shower to remove and wash away those dead skin cells. And after showering, think of putting a really nice natural moisturizer on your skin, you've opened up the skin, you're oxygenating the skin, you've improved the circulation, so we don't want to be putting chemicals on it. I like to use a natural oil product. I love, love love putting oils on my skin. But if your skin is oilier, you know what works for you. But find a natural moisturizer that doesn't have added fragrances in it that doesn't have you know chemical enhancements in it. Because we don't want that soaking up into our body. You can use olive oil, you can use coconut oil. And I love putting essential oils into my oil. So if I'm using coconut oil, that's kind of depends on which essential oil I'm in the mood for but I'll put them in that base oil, and I'll use those as well. And those also have therapeutic benefits because essential oils can get into our nervous system and benefit us as well. Now finally, you want to make sure that you're cleaning your brush. Alright, so you're using this brush to remove dead skin cells and bacteria. So you want to clean it and use a good soap and warm water to remove the dead skin cells from the brush. And then allow your brush to dry completely in a clean spot, maybe put it in a sunny spot so that it's not taking so long to dry that it gets mildew or anything like that we don't want to be putting mildew and mold on our skin. So the overall experience of dry brushing can have lots of benefits for your skin. But it can also just be really invigorating to do in the mornings, right, it can give you a great start to your day. And it's this added not just because of the physical benefits, but the added benefit of just taking a moment for yourself, right. Stress Reduction, creating space, holding space for yourself, taking a moment to do something that's just for you. And listening to your body not being yourself body up not scraping a layer of skin off your body, right, gentle, loving, nurturing. And it's a reminder to yourself, that you're worth it, that you're worth the time that you're worth the care. And that is so important. All right friends, I will link to dry brushes and I will link to the download where you can get all of the instructions for how to do a proper dry brushing in the links where you're watching or listening to this podcast. And you can find them in the show notes on my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com forward slash 341. And if you are interested in diving even deeper into the metabolic approach to supporting your health, go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com. Click on coaching and programs and choose a metabolic health coaching program that works for you. These programs are completely comprehensive, we look at blood work through a metabolic health perspective, right not just from a standard of care perspective, but we're looking at a different lens, we're looking at your blood work through a different lens to see what is telling us about the story of your body and how lifestyle practices may help you improve that. We're looking at your genetic profile. We do regular labs in those health coaching packages. We do regular coaching because making lifestyle changes does not come easy. And we have to get coaching to help with mindset to work through the stumbling blocks that we come across, right? You get that support from me in private coaching sessions. And you also have a three month program and a six month program. And you also get a complimentary membership into my better than before breast cancer life coaching program while you're working with me on your metabolic health coaching package because it offers even more support in anything that you might be working on. Even more opportunities for coaching and an amazing community. All right, so check those packages out the breast cancer recovery coach.com Click on code shanks and programs and pick a package that works for you. All right, I'll talk to you soon.

Close

50% Complete

Two Step

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.