Ep 30 - Springtime Lymphatic Care in Ayurveda: Supporting the Water Within (Rasa Dhatu)

Ep 30 - Springtime Lymphatic Care in Ayurveda: Supporting the Water Within (Rasa Dhatu)

🌿 Join the Spring Cleanse here

As spring arrives in the Northern Hemisphere, our bodies naturally transition out of winter’s heaviness. In Ayurveda, this seasonal shift brings an increase in kapha dosha, which can lead to feelings of sluggishness, congestion, brain fog, or emotional heaviness.

In this episode of the Lean on Ayurveda Podcast, I explore how spring affects the lymphatic system (rasa dhatu) and why this time of year is ideal for gently supporting the body’s natural cleansing processes.

You’ll learn how Ayurveda understands lymphatic health, the relationship between digestive fire (agni) and seasonal balance, and simple ways to support your body through food, movement, and seasonal rhythms.

I also share why many traditions across cultures include some form of springtime reduction or fasting, and how a gentle seasonal cleanse can help restore clarity, lightness, and energy after the winter months.

In This Episode You’ll Learn

• Why spring naturally increases kapha in the body
• The Ayurvedic understanding of the lymphatic system (rasa dhatu)
• How lymphatic health influences nourishment of all body tissues
• Signs of healthy, depleted, or stagnant lymphatic tissue
• Why supporting digestive fire (agni) is central to lymphatic health
• How seasonal foods support natural cleansing in spring
• The role of movement in maintaining healthy lymph flow
• Why many cultures practice springtime fasting or reduction

Common Springtime Kapha Symptoms

You may notice these signs as winter transitions into spring:

• Congestion or excess mucus
• Brain fog or heaviness in the head
• Low motivation or lethargy
• Increased sleepiness
• Weight gain or sluggish digestion
• Emotional heaviness

Ayurveda sees these symptoms as signals that the body is ready to shift from winter nourishment toward gentle lightening and cleansing.

Community Spring Cleanse

Each spring I host a gentle Ayurvedic cleanse designed to support digestion, lymphatic health, and seasonal transition.

Inside the cleanse you’ll learn:

• How to prepare simple Ayurvedic cleansing meals
• Herbal infusions and spices that support agni
• Rhythms that help the body release winter stagnation
• How to support lymphatic flow naturally

🌿 Join the Spring Community Spring Cleanse here

We'll start preparing our bodies on 15 March, we'll cleanse with a traditional ayurvedic monodiet on 20-22 March and then we'll integrate and transition out of the cleanse on 23 -25 March.

Learn more about my work: https://leanonayurveda.com/

Subscribe to my newsletter: receive seasonal reflections, ayurvedic practices, recipes and free resources to bring balance into your daily life.

Book a 1:1 ayurvedic consultation: learn how to use food, rhythm and ritual to support your unique constitution. 

If this episode resonates, please share it and rate the podcast - it helps more people discover the art of ayurveda as a support system for modern living!

Transcript

Setting The Ayurvedic Frame

Speaker 0:02

Hi and welcome to the Lean on Ayurveda Podcast. Here we explain how the agent wisdom Ayurbella can help us gain a deeper understanding of our body and open the gateway to finally feeling better.

Fire, Water, And Opposite Qualities

Night Scrolling To Nourishing Touch

Spring Physiology And Weaker Agni

Kapha Signs And Seasonal Symptoms

What Rasa Dathu Does And Feeds

Assessing Lymph: Optimal, Low, Excess

Depletion Signs And Vata Women

Rebuilding Rasa: Warm, Unctuous Nourishment

Excess Rasa And Gentle Reduction

Simple Spring Cleanse And Agni

Bitter Greens And Cultural Rhythms

If You Live In Dry Climates

Movement And Touch For Lymph Flow

Dry Brushing, Massage, And Breath

Neglected Areas And Pelvic Bowl

Invitation, Cleanse Details, Closing

Speaker 1 0:22

Hello and welcome to episode 30. My name is Vytaute. I am your host. And today in this episode, we are going to be talking about springtime lymphatic care with Ayurveda. And the reason why I wanted to cover this topic is kind of twofold, at least twofold. So first the first one is because we are the beginning of March now, um, but at least where I am located in Belgium, spring has most definitely sprung. And so our bodies are undergoing this seasonal change, and that from the Auretic perspective implies a change in the balance of doshas, right? So that's the first reason, and the second reason is because it feels like the world is on fire, and um there just seems to be quite a bit of like aggression and impulsivity on a massive scale, on a global scale, and and what I feel can be helpful sometimes is instead of focusing on the reduction of certain qualities, cultivating the opposite qualities, right? That's what we do in Ayurveda. So what is the opposite quality of fire in a way? It's water, right? Um, so right now supporting the water around us feels like a very logical thing to do, at least from the Ayurvedic perspective. Um, and I actually have an example um about this idea of you know when focusing or bringing in the opposite can be really helpful. Um, so I have um well several clients right now who struggle with this, but um I was addressing this issue in particular with one client who was um looking for a solution for nighttime scrolling, right? She um would want to like control it and make it less, but it's really hard to do, right? Which is totally understandable. And so what I suggested for her is like what is the opposite of scrolling? The opposite is connection, right? The opposite is touch, the opposite is um you know reading a book, right? Um and and so for her this idea of physical touch um was very like it lit her up, you know, the there was a spark in her eyes that that feels desirable, right? And so there we started cultivating how she can bring in this practice of oiling parts of her body, right? As she's getting ready to go to bed, which works out perfectly because when your fingers are oily, you can't touch your smartphone. But it's this idea that we are taking something that feels balancing to the current situation and feels desirable, right? Which can give um you know, it can really reduce this resistance, right? So if in in the um you know on the global scale and like around you, you feel like there is a lot of access fire, right? And there is a lot of like pushing and impulsivity and um aggression. One approach can be, you know, not focusing on what is in access, but rather focusing on what will balance that access. And at least for me right now, it feels like looking at the water element around me is much easier to do than trying to reduce the fire element around me. And what is the closest water we have? It's the water that we hold in our bodies, right? It's our lymphatic fluid. And one more thing about the nature of water in our bodies is that it is mobile, just as air is mobile, right? It means it's going to be affected quicker than you know, say the harder body tissues like muscle, like bone, affected by seasons, circumstances, our actions towards it, and everything else, right? So that is um also a blessing of it being mobile, right? Because it means that we have more agency in bringing about change, and that's a good thing. So, first, I want to look at what is the water in our body going through during this particular season. I actually had a question from a listener who um wanted me to break down um like what is happening to the body in general in springtime, like what happens at the level of our body when spring comes. So before spring, our bodies were in a wintering mode, right? And the wintering mode is such that our digestive fire is stronger, right, because the foods around us, the foods that are available for us during this time are heavier in nature, and also we need heavier foods during the winter months to have more isolation, right? So during the winter months, as we were wintering, we have been building up kaffa dosha, right? So kaffa dosha, which is a combination of water and earth elements put together, and it carries qualities like um heavy, cold, static, soft, dense, and so on. So we have accumulated a certain degree of kaffa dosha in our bodies. The amount of that we accumulated will depend on you know certain variables such as your prakriti and and your current tendencies and your lifestyle. Um, but we have all seasonally accumulated some of it, and now as we step into spring, what is happening is this liquefation, right? Because as the temperatures rise, the pita in our bodies also starts to rise, right? And so there is a melting of sorts, right? There is this liquefication of matter, just like you know, if you can imagine snow-capped mountains, as temperatures rise, that snow, that ice starts to melt and it starts to flow, right? And what that liquefication does for the body is it reduces our acni. Okay, so spring is the time when our agni, our digestive fire, becomes weaker, right? Because all that running water makes it weaker, just like in um, you know, at the start of the episode, I was speaking about like fire and water and how they interact together, um, and how access fire can be balanced with water. Well, this is basically what is happening in spring: that in spring things tend to get damp and heavy in the body, and when things are damp and heavy, our digestive fire becomes weaker. So this calls for change. This calls for a change in lifestyle, this calls for a change in our diet, this calls for a change in how we move and how we care for ourselves. Symptomatically, what can be common in spring is feeling those kaffa-related symptoms, right? So, you know, feeling like your body's heavy, it can act it can actually be heavy, right? So, for example, I weighed myself recently. I don't normally do that, but I I was taking a flight, and the only way for me to weigh my hand luggage was to weigh myself without the luggage and then with the luggage, so I did that, and um I realized I gained four kilos over the winter, over the fall and winter. Like, I'm not stressed about it. I know this is just you know some heaviness that accumulated, and that will be shed because I have a lifestyle that respects the seasons, right? So it's not a reason to stress. Um, but like other symptoms can be um congestion, right? Congestion, especially around the area of the head, that is um a kaffa-related symptom, right? Feeling like phlegm, um, or having um sinus issues, um feeling things like brain fog or like heaviness um at the level of your head, even emotional heaviness, you know, lack of motivation, lack of spark, um, lack of enthusiasm for life, right? These are all symptoms that are related to access kuffa. So if you are feeling um like any of these symptoms that have to do with you know um access heaviness, access moisture, um, such as congestion um or like lethargy uh or depression-related symptoms, this is a great time for you to step in and to ease this transition for your body because something can be done about these symptoms and supporting your body in this transition. Just a word on mucus, by the way. Mucus is considered to be a waste material of our lymphatic tissue. Okay, so each each body tissue will produce their own waste materials, and mucus is considered to be that of rasa datu. So let me say a few words about this lymphatic tissue, about uh what in Ayurveda we call the very first body tissue rasa datu. Okay, the first thing to know about it is that it's the very first tissue that receives nourishment and hydration from the food that we consume, right? So as we digest something, whether it's food or drink, this is the first place in the body, according to Ayurveda, that gets fed and hydrated. Okay, and then um depending on how successful that process was, depending on whether our lymphatic tissue has been adequately fed and hydrated, upon that process will depend the nourishment and the hydration of all the remaining tissues, right? So our blood tissue, our muscle tissue, our fat, our bone, our bone marrow, and our reproductive tissue will be fed by the plasma tissue, right? So it's very, very important that this first tissue is in good health, right? Because if it's not in good health, the remaining datus will also be affected. So in Ayurvada, the main function of the lymphatic tissue is to feed and hydrate the rest of the body. Right? And actually, the word I I want to say a word about this um because this function in Ayurveda is described as prinana, and this term is derived from the root word for romantic love, and not only that's cute, but also um, you know, there is a lot of like intelligence built into naming things, right? There is a reason why things are named a certain way, and this is just such a beautiful example, and um Dr. Svoboda writes about this in his book Um Prakriti, that you know, um romantic love is this ephemeral emotion of two separate existences of you and your lover craving to unite, right? And this is a bit like our lymphatic fluid that also craves to be one with food, right? There are two separate existences, there is our body and there is the food, and to reach this perfect alchemy, they need to be united, they need to become one, right, through this process of digestion, and when the food is not well digested, then you know, Dr. Svoboda he talks about this like that our ego can feel deprived of this love, it can feel like it's been stood up or cheated, right? When we have indigestion, you can think of the last time you experienced indigestion, right? How did you feel? You may have felt like there's been like a betrayal of some sort, right? This dissatisfaction that there wasn't this perfect union, right? Um, so um I wanted to bring this uh romantic love terminology in because it has this element of personification, and in my learning journey, personification has been such great help in developing a deeper layer of understanding, right, about a concept that we're studying or that we're simply trying to understand. So if this idea of you know understanding your lymphatic tissue as the part of your body that seeks this perfect union between you and the food, and then from that perfect union, the rest of your body is nourished and hydrated. If that helps you um, you know, grasp this concept, then we can say that the tradition through its terminology has really done their job. When I announced on Instagram that I was preparing this episode on uh springtime lymph care for you, I received some questions in relation to symptoms, right? So, specifically, what are the symptoms of a not so great lymphatic system and how we can support it? And how does lymphatic depletion show up in women with vata dosha? So, part of one, what I wanted to do in this episode is um kind of raise awareness as well about um you know evaluating the health of our lymphatic tissue, and of course, you know, if if you go to an Ayurvedic professional, they'll be able to pinpoint that perhaps with more precision, but you yourself can start observing certain things. So I want to look at this now from the symptomatic lens. Okay, so whenever it comes to the health of Datus, the health of our body tissues, in Ayurveda, we always evaluate their state, and we kind of categorize um you know the the health of a tissue into three different categories. So either a tissue is working optimally, right, or the tissue is depleted, or sometimes the tissue can show signs of overdevelopment. So as far as our lymphatic tissue is concerned, we can now go into these three categories one by one and see what an example of each of these would look like. Okay, so first starting with an optimally functioning lymphatic tissue, we would mainly be looking at the health of the skin, okay? So our skin would be glossy, smooth, soft, and attractive, right? So that is one um like marker of the health of our lymphatic tissue. And if our lymphatic tissue is working well, another thing that we would see is other body tissues are in a generally good state of nourishment and hydration. Okay, this assessment is a little bit more difficult to do on your own, so there, you know, an Ayurvedic um professional can. Help you with that, but in general, if you look at the state of your skin, that will already be quite telling of whether your plasma tissue is functioning well. Now let's look at the cases where the lymphatic tissue is not functioning optimally, right? So as I mentioned, this can either be a case of depletion, right, or it can be the case of overdevelopment. In other words, they can be stagnation in that tissue. There's too much of the good thing. The tissue has been nourished so much that it can't metabolize it, right? And this is how stagnation happens. So first um let's look at the signs that indicate that your lymphatic tissue might be depleted. Okay, so the first thing that the ancient texts mention when they talk about the depletion of the lymphatic tissue of rasa datu is is there degeneration or depletion of other datus, right? Because if our lymphatic system, if our lymphatic tissue is undernourished, it is too dry, right, it doesn't receive enough nutrients, there will be depletion happening in our blood at the level of our flesh, our muscle, our fat, our bone, our um nerve tissue, and eventually our reproductive tissue. Okay, so that's the first thing to look for. Other signs that indicate that our lymphatic tissue is underperforming is dryness across the board. So dryness of the mouth, um, dryness and depletion in the body mass, emaciation, this feeling of thirst. An interesting one that um is mentioned is the feeling of emptiness. You remember how um we spoke about um the term in Sanskrit that is used to describe the main function of this tissue, right? Is that term of that designates romantic love, right? Um this satisfaction, a deep sense of satisfaction and fullness. And so when this tissue is depleted, we might feel empty inside, right? And the reason might not even be psychological, the reason might be that our tissue is not fed, tiredness, intolerance to sound, pain in the heart with a feeling that someone is holding and vigorously shaking the heart. Right, so there is even a Sanskrit term for this uh trembling sensation or arrhythmia, palpitation, cardiac pain. So, as we see, um a lot of these symptoms uh will have vata in their root cause, they they would be classified as vata symptoms, right? Because of that dryness, that erratic movement, right? And it's really interesting that the heart is brought into this, right? Again, linking it to that romantic love, right? That desire for our body to unite with food in this perfect communion so that these good quality nutrients can be spread across all of the tissues. And the final symptom I have here for depleted rasa datu is fatigue or tiredness, even after making a small effort. Right, so um, you know, to answer this question, how this would in particular affect vata women is that women who do have a lot of vata in their birth constitution or who are in the vata time of life, right, that um you know post-menopause, perimenopause or post-menopause period, um, or who have um simply a lot of vata imbalance for other reasons, looking at the hydration and the nourishment of this particular tissue is absolutely so important. Okay, and so when it comes to remedies, of course, here I can only mention some generic ones because you know, true remedies, the best remedies will always be personalized. Um but in general, when we want to address a depleted rasa datu, we would be looking at tarpana. Tarpana is nourishment therapy, right? Specifically for this tissue, for rebuilding this tissue, we want the kind of nourishment that is bioavailable. It means that our body can digest and absorb it, right? And it needs to be agni-friendly because wherever there is depletion, where wherever there is dryness and irregularity, agni will be weakened, and then we also need an element of this good hydration, not chugging down liters and liters of water, but rather choosing a form of hydration that is more vata-friendly, right? So that would mean um consuming liquids that are warm and that have an uncuousness to them, right? So, in particular, what I would be looking at is um specifically meat soups, okay, so soups, broths that have been cooked with meat, right? And this is actually coming from um directly from the ancient texts, directly from Charaka Samhita. This is what is indicated when there is tissue depletion in rasa datu, we want to be looking at meat soups. Okay, um, what happens if rasa datu is overdeveloped, if there is too much of it, right? What we would see is a diminished digestive power, right? So what we would call manda agony, so low agony, we might feel nausea, we could be having salivation, vomiting, um, lack of enthusiasm to do work, right? So, whereas when we were dealing with depletion, um you know it was the execution that was difficult, right? We might start something and we might not have the energy, the stamina to finish it. Here, when there is an access of rasa datu, then we just don't have the enthusiasm to do anything, right? There is this indifference, our bodies might feel heavier, right? There's this feeling of heaviness overall, we might have whitish discoloration of the body, so like we lose this healthy glow. Um, we might be feeling abnormally cold in the body, right? Here we're dealing with excess kuffa, excess heaviness, right? And kuffa is cold. We might be experiencing shortness of breath, cough, and this excessive desire to sleep, right? So all of these symptoms would typically be classified as kuffa symptoms, and the therapies in Ayurveda that are associated with um you know moving this stagnant energy pattern that kufa can be when there is too much of it. Um here we would be speaking about reduction therapy. So in Sanskrit it's called langana. Okay, so um, of course, reduction therapy um needs to be um tailored to your uh circumstances um because some of it can be a little bit intense depending on what your body needs, but there's certainly um intense reduction therapy practices in Ayurveda, which I don't recommend when I work with people because I don't have a clinical setting, so a lot of these reduction therapies they require a clinical setting and they require uh supervision and they might um involve fasting when appropriate or even things like vomiting therapy um which um you know needs to be done in a correct setting. Um however, when we are moving into a kuffer season and naturally there is a little bit more kuffa in our bodies, right? That is when we do the gentle reduction therapy of doing a simple seasonal cleanse, right? Or simply reducing some heavy foods. This is something that we usually want to do naturally, right? Um, just this morning I went to the farmer's market, I'm recording this on a Wednesday, and there is an amazing bakery stand there, and all winter, like in cold winter mornings, when I would walk by, I would always stop and check out what they have. But today it was a really sunny day, and it really feels like spring, and like my body, my mind, I'm not that much attracted to the bakery stand anymore because I'm naturally gravitating now towards lighter foods, right? So that is a very simple form of regulating access kuffer in your body, right? Consuming a little bit less dairy, for example, right? Consuming a little bit less um animal fat, right? Consuming a little bit less wheat, right? So again, I'm not saying don't consume these things, but if during the year we have a window where we can slightly reduce heavy and sweet foods, now is that time, right? And if you listen to my podcast, you know I am a big proponent of really enjoying your sweet foods and your healthy fats. I have plenty of episodes, especially in the fall and winter, around that. But now is that window where we don't need to do that anymore. One way that I choose to balance this access kuffa after the winter months is doing a gentle spring cleanse. Now, what I do during the cleanse is definitely, you know, nothing drastic, it's not like a strong lungana therapy, it's not a strong reduction therapy, but it is enough for me to manage that access kuffer and that lymphatic tissue that has we could say has been overnourished a little bit over the winter months, right? That I've been really feeding generously and to kind of give it that new kick start, right? To kind of get that agni, that digestive fire that lives in that tissue and that metabolizes that tissue to give it a bit of a fresh start, right? So during a spring cleanse, um, what is helpful for the lymphatic tissue is that we are still nourishing it, right? But we are not consuming heavy foods for a while, right? So overall we spend 10 days without refined sugars, right? Which is um, like if you have a sweet tooth, you will know that that is something you you can feel actually the kuffa in your mouth, right? When you um think of a chocolate bar, like you will start salivating, right? And when you eat a lot of sweets, there will be excess saliva in your mouth. In fact, if you open your mouth and you see a string of saliva connecting your tongue to um the top of your mouth, that is a sign that there is a lot of kuffa happening in your body right now, right? There is this access wetness, right? So during the spring cleanse, what we do that is helpful for the lymphatic tissue is that we take out the refined sugars, we take out you know the fried and heavy foods, um, and during three days of the mono diet, this is this is where you know that work happens, that um we are eating a food that is really easily digestible and assimilated by the body. It's a food that is really helpful for acne for our digestive fire, right? And when our digestive fire burns brighter, when it is stronger, there will be less kuffa in the body, right? Because this is again just how at the start of the episode we're speaking about, you know, um the the fiery nature of the world outside and how a way to live with that is to be focusing on what brings the opposite qualities, right? Instead of trying to cut it out. This is also like that, right? When there is excess heaviness and sluggishness in the body, we focus on agony, we focus on practices that support our digestive fire, and when our digestive fire is working optimally, we will feel less of those kaffa symptoms, and one of the focuses of the cleanse is supporting our agni in the seasonal transition, right? So you can support your agni um with infusions and with herbs, you can support it with certain foods and and the rhythm that you develop for um eating your meals, right? At times when your agni is working best and when it's the most efficient. So a gentle form of a spring cleanse is kind of like seasonal hygiene for supporting the body's digestive fire as the body moves through different conditions, essentially, right? Um, because in the spring, as I mentioned, our digestive fire is compromised by this access heaviness and dampness, and you know, there is just so much intelligence built into nature that it doesn't cease to amaze me because what nature makes available for us at this time of year is actually very supportive towards our lymphatic health and towards you know cleansing our rasa datu. And this you can notice if you are in the northern hemisphere right now and you are in spring, I also want to shout out my listeners in Australia because I do have quite a few of you there. So um thank you for listening, and um, maybe you will listen to this episode in about six months. But if you are in the northern hemisphere um and if you go to the farmers market right now, what you will see is lots of these, you know, green sprouty things that kids will hate because they will taste bitter. This morning when I went, I bought a whole bunch of chicory, which is green and bitter, right? And bitter taste in Ayurveda is the lightest of all tastes, and it is therefore the most cleansing for the body, it's the most um purifying for the body, and how beautiful that the first um line of nutrients that nature gives us after the heavier winter months where we have been consuming all these you know nutrient-rich foods that we have harvested in the fall, the first things that it gives us are cleansing and purifying in nature. There are these foods that are light for the body, right? Because it's as if our body needs a break before the heat starts to rise, right? Um, and it's really interesting to observe, like I grew up in a Catholic tradition, and we always had um you know Lent before Easter, right? Um, so during um carnival, the tradition was that we would eat a lot. Right, that was like the last feast of the winter, and then we would go into this um period that was in a way a period of some kind of scarcity, right? So um, you know, some chose not to eat meat on certain days, some chose to um, you know, not eat sweets for 40 days before Easter. So the sacrifices that people were making um around me were definitely different because I was also exposed to families in the Protestant tradition where my understanding was that you could choose your sacrifice, right? But either way, there is this idea that we are getting rid of some access, right? Um something that is um perhaps weighing on us or burdening us, right, or making us um heavy metaphorically, right? And even in the Hindu tradition as well, there is there's the celebration of the nine nights of the goddess in spring, the Chaitrana Varatri, where there are elements of partial fasting, right? And um, I understand that in Judaism traditions and even in Buddhism, there are also similar springtime practices. Um, so it's just really interesting how it seems to me that um you know a lot of culture around the northern hemisphere holds that it is appropriate in spring to let go of certain things, right? To let go of certain attachments, even if it's just for a few days. And it's like we're being guided at this time of year to turn towards consuming stuff that is less heavy and less sweet and is a little bit more light, crunchy, and bitter. And this is what supports our lymphatic health when there are elements of heaviness in it, right? So we can support our lymph this time of year with special foods, with spices, with herbs, and with infusions. I'll be sharing more on that inside the community spring cleanse. So if you wish to learn more and try preparing some of these at home to support your lymphatic tissue, do join us. I'll put a link in the show notes. If, on the other hand, you feel like you are mostly dealing with depleted lymphatic tissue, and if you don't live in um in a climate that has just transitioned into a kuffa season, right? So if you live in a very dry climate, for example, in that case, you want to be focusing on foods that are kuffa in nature, okay, that are very nourishing and uncuous in nature, but making sure that your agni can digest them, okay? So this is the way um, you know, again, we're like calling in the opposite qualities, right? So if the qualities of your current rasa datu are dry, depleted, irregular, we want to bring in the opposite, right? So we want to bring in the good uncuous fat in good amounts. We through things like meat soups, we want to bring in the warmth for agni, we want to bring in a good rhythm and good hydration. So, in fact, we could say that there isn't really a condition um of lymphatic tissue that would not require that we tend to agni, right? Whether we're depleted or whether we feel heavy and stagnant or anywhere in between, we always want to be looking at tending to our digestive fire because that is the center of all of our physiological processes, right? Just as sleep, and um simply then what we give it might differ, what we put into that agni might differ, what we give it to work with might differ, right? But ultimately caring for agni is always important. Okay, so now we have kind of covered the nutritional aspect of working with our lymphatic tissue, but there's another aspect that is absolutely so so important, and especially this time of year. Since lymph is water, right, it wants to move, right? It wants to move and reach all of the crevices of our body, and that is why movement is a key piece of having a healthy tissue, a healthy lymphatic tissue, right? Because if movement is lacking, I should say appropriate movement, because people can um you know take this word and make it mean anything they want. Um so let's say if appropriate movement is lacking, there will be some stagnation forming in this tissue. And even when it comes to movement, I feel like it's really important to separate exercise, right? So again, appropriate exercise, because overdoing on the exercise has its own um, you know, has its own issues. So exercise is one piece and touch therapy is another. And I feel like both are necessary to ensure um the proper flow of this water that we have in our body. I'll explain to you in a minute why I am shedding light on both of these, on the exercise and on the touch therapy. So if there is a feeling of stagnation or perception of heaviness anywhere in your body, it can be really helpful to get moving. Especially if you feel like you've lived um a slightly more sedentary lifestyle during the winter, depending on how you know your winter weather was, and maybe it was like cold and and unpleasant out, and and you weren't um getting outside as much. So now um is a great time to kind of step outside and get that fresh air. First of all, because walking is a great way to move your lymph, and second of all, because getting that fresh air, that spring air, is going to invigorate the life force in you, it's going to energize you because breath is the out the first way how we get prana, how we get life force, and so the quality of air will partially determine how much life force we have, right? And if we have been spending a lot of time indoors, getting ourselves outdoors and getting that fresh air into our lungs can really be helpful in energizing us for the spring if there is a sense of that stagnation, you know, lack of motivation, um, and so on. So that's that's the first thing. Then when it comes to physically moving our limbs, there are all sorts of Ayurvedic practices that can be helpful, right? So moving the body is one, but then there is the work that we can do with our hands as well. So things like dry brushing can be great during the kaffa season, whereas you know, in the fall, when we're doing seasonal resets in the fall, we might be shedding more light on a bianga, on oil massage, and getting more oil onto the skin. Spring is the time when we can, you know, either use a drier oil like um mustard oil is an example, which which can be you know used on the chest, for example, when there is um some congestion. Um but dry brushing is great if we're working with this excess moisture, right? And so just taking you know a dry brush and brushing your body in like you can brush it in circular motions towards the direction of the heart because that is how the lymph flows can be a great way to assist your lymphatic tissue in uh it doing its job. Spring is also a great time if you wanted to try a more vigorous massage. So, this would be a great time to try a good Thai massage, for example. Or if you are um, you know, DAYing it, um, you can try giving yourself like a more rigorous scalp massage. Um, something that my very first Ayurveda practitioner taught me was um, you know, when I massaging my scalp and I feel like there is some um like stagnation or heaviness happening in the head, simply dividing up my hair into these like different ponytails and just pulling them with quite a lot of force, and this gives um you know a boost to our circulation, right? If you have a lot of vata and you feel very frail, depleted, and fragile, um, rigorous massage is not for you, okay? So you always want to go slow and gentle. But if you do feel some heaviness or stagnation, this can be a nice practice to take on board. One of my personal favorites um all year round actually, is doing a lymph-boosting facial massage, and I will be recording my practice, it's a short one, um, but I will be recording myself do this for the community spraying cleanse participants because I really want to show that you know an Ayurvedic lifestyle is made up of all these micro moments, and some of them just take a few minutes, not more, and they can be you know really easygoing, really enjoyable, and super super practical. And there is an interesting question that we can ask ourselves even when we move our bodies, um, you know, whether it's doing exercise or going for walks, what are the areas of our body that might feel neglected still? What are those crevices in our body where you know lymph might have a harder time circulating? Right? What are the areas that we don't use as much? Right? What are the areas that might feel numb? And this is a very big question, and it's not a question that you're gonna be able to address right away. Um, it's a question that you know some of us uh might spend years working out the answer. Um like what are the areas that feel that they're gripping, right? Many of us will have like tense shoulder, tense neck issues, right? Areas around the head. Um, very often the clients that I see they will complain of that area being stiff, right? So if that is your case, this is where touch therapy comes in, right? Not necessarily exercise, right? It's complementary. Another region that is very, very often neglected is the pelvic region, the pelvic bowl, right? There is like unless you have been tending to that region specifically, right, with very regular um you know fascia work and and all of that, there is bound to be lymphatic stagnation there, right? Especially when we don't manually tend to this area, and that is something that I am actively working on right now. Maybe I'll do a podcast episode one day because I just think it's it's an absolutely fascinating topic. Um, but yeah, I I'm I'm saying this to um kind of like shine the light on areas of the body that might need some extra support, right? Because when we are speaking of um whether it's nourishing rasadatu or whether it's um dealing with stagnation in rasadatu, either way touch therapy is very important, right? Because touch facilitates movement and touch is a form of nourishment. So here's gonna be my invitation for you today to have a feel about which parts of your body feel like they need a little extra support for the flow of their lymphatic tissue, right? Where is your body asking for some extra flow so that there can be better movement of your lymph and subsequently better nourishment of the remaining body tissues. And as you identify these areas, um, think about how you're willing to support them, and not because it's prescribed, but because you want to do it as a token of love and appreciation for your body, that's the Ayurvedic way. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode, and I hope that um it inspires you to care for your lymphatic tissue. And if you want to join um me and um a group of participants in our community spring cleanse, you can do so. The door is open. Um, we start preparing our bodies for the cleanse on Sunday, 15th of March. We'll open our cleanse with a live Zoom call where we will all get together, get to know each other, and then we will have three days of Ayurveda mono diet from 20th of March to 22nd of March. Um, we will have a closing call on the 22nd of March, and then I will guide you how to safely transition from the mono diet back into your regular diet of choice and with extra guidance for renourishing the body after the cleanse with Ayurvedic Rasayana therapy. You can save your spot for the community spring cleanse via the link in the show notes. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, if you found it valuable, do leave me a rating or a review. It's always much appreciated and helps to support the show. Share it with a friend or share it on your social media. Remember to tag me. And I wish you a beautiful day and sending lots of love to your rasa dato. Until next time.