Yoga Anatomy: The Lymphatic System: Health Benefits of Twists and Inversions in your Yoga Practice

Lymph is the fluid that contains the hormones and other message-sending chemicals from your various glands to the rest of your body. The "Lymphatic System" consists of all of the glands and various conduits that comprise your internal communciations network.

Because lymph is rich in white blood cells, it plays a vital role in your immune system and toxin removal from tissues of the body. The better this communication system is working, the better your entire body feels.

No Pump and No Peristalsis

The interesting thing about the lymphatic system is that although it is vital that these fluids move around within your body, there is no mechanism to achieve that motion.

There is no peristalsis – the smooth-muscular series of contractions that move food and waste throughout your gastrointestinal tract.

There is no lymphatic heart – to pump the liquid throughout the entire body in the way the cardiovascular system surges blood and oxygen to our cells. (In some frogs, there is a "lymphatic heart" that beats for this secondary system.)

In contrast, lymph simply has to move around based on how much you move around – it uses the contractions and stretching of your regular skeletal muscles. The only way you can ensure proper lymph circulation is with exercise or massage.

Inversions: Going Upside Down

Increased blood flow and circulation aren't the only benefits of hanging around bottom-over-top.

Yoga poses ranging from Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog), Viparita Karani (Inverted Lake) to Shoulder stands, Handstands and Headstands all help to shift fluids around your body in ways that you would not ordinarily be able to achieve in daily life (not to mention provide another reason to show up with an empty stomach...).

Let's Twist Again

Imagine wringing a wet cloth by twisting it in the center. What happens to the liquid? Some of it sloughs off completely (inside the body this would be detoxifying or cleansing), other portions of the liquid move to the ends of the cloth from the center.

Like inversions, twists offer your body new ways to remove toxins and flush important lymph around the entire torso.

Yoga as Long-Term Care

What press lymph does get appears when it causes an unpleasant side effect called lymphedema - a potentially disabling condition that can sometimes arise following a mastectomy.

In a Yoga Journal article about Yoga as complementary physical therapy for Lymphedema, Lisa Gilbourne, a seven-year cancer survivor and studio codirector of Bikram Yoga College of India in Florida remarks "Lymphedema is not something you can cure, you have to manage it. Doing yoga every day helps undo the effects of sitting and standing for long periods of time."

Jun 9, 2008 1:13 AM

Guest :

Blood is the transportation system of nutrients in the body, but it interfaces directly with tissue cells in very few locations. As arteries become arteioles narrowing further to capillary beds---whose vessel walls a a single cell thick, plasma difusses across this delicate membrane, perfusing the cells with what is now interstitial fluid. This is where cells pick up their nutrition and excrete their wastes. 90% of this fluid returns to the venule end of the capillary bed to be returned to the general circulation. The remaining 10% plus any macromolecules too large to reenter become the cargo of the lymph vessels. The angion, meaning heart,is a smooth muscle spiraling around a lymph vessel. A lymphangion is the segment of vessel between semilunar valves that are spaced along short spans of the vessel to counteract the force of gravity and keep the lymph flowing towards the heart. As interstitial fluid accumulates within interstitials spaces, the increased pressure causes the supporting filaments attached to the initial lymphatics to deform the vessel wall, opening up the initial lymphatic to absorb the fluid. Once fluid enters here it is referred to as lymph. Lymphangions have internal stretch sensors; when the pressure of the fluid they contain expands the vessel walls, the lymphangion is stimulated to contract, squeezing the lymph into the next segment. This swells the next lymphangion, which then contracts, pushing the fluid down the line. This cascade of movement also creates a slight vacuum behind it which is partly responsible for drawing interstitial fluid into the initial lymphatic. This inherent peristalsis along with respiration is responsible for lymphatic movement which occurs even in a body at rest or in a coma--otherwise an inactive body would swell up like a water balloon and burst. Blood vessel pulsation contributes to lymphatic movement at the most passive level as well. Diaphramatic pressure at the peak of inspiration sends the greatest measurment of lymph into the subclavian vein from the thoracic duct, that's why thoracic breath compression techniques are effective as lymphatic pumps. The milking action of skeletal muscle contractions increase lymph flow at 10-15 times the rate of a body at rest--clearly the most stimulus to flow. So while the lymphatic system has no separate pumping organ such as the, clearly a complex pumping mechanism exists. Plasma, lymph and interstitial fluid are basically named differently based on location.